CULTURE

Kristen Stewart Reveals Anton Yelchin Broke Her Heart in Love, Antosha Documentary

"I wanted to absorb all his interests. I wanted to be better, smoother, cooler."


Fierce People Film Premiere
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

On Monday, Love, Antosha, a documentary about late actor Anton Yelchin, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Among those who speak about Yelchin in the film are his Star Trek costar Chris Pine, Like Crazy costar Jennifer Lawrence, and Kristen Stewart, who not only appeared in 2005’s Fierce People with Yelchin but also dated him briefly during filming.

In her onscreen interviews about her ex, per USA Today, Stewart spoke of her admiration for Yelchin and of how their relationship—when she was 14 and he was 15 or, as Stewart put it, when they were “tiny children”—affected her. “He kind of broke my heart,” she reportedly says in the documentary. “I was so baffled by how good he was, and then I couldn’t be around him.” She continued, “It’s weird to talk about with anyone….He intimidated me because he was so voracious, and I wanted to absorb all his interests. I wanted to be better, smoother, cooler but couldn’t even hang with him.”

While their breakup may not have had quite the same impact on Yelchin, Stewart said he did eventually empathize with her heartbreak once he’d experienced one himself. Years after their split, she said, he called her to talk about it. “He was like, ‘You know that thing you went through? I get it now, and I am so sorry,'” she said. “I was like, ‘Dude, it’s fine.'”

Yelchin died in a freak accident at the age of 27 in June 2016, when he was found pinned between the gate of his home and his Jeep Grand Cherokee, which had recently been included in a recall for a possible gear defect. In the following months, much of his previously unseen photography was put on display, and his family, friends, and costars gathered at a Los Angeles gallery to honor his life and legacy. When the exhibition moved to New York City the following year, in late 2017, Stewart was among those in attendance at its opening, though her appearance in Love, Antosha marks the first time she’s spoken publicly about Yelchin’s untimely death.

Related: A Look at the Late Actor Anton Yelchin’s Undiscovered Photography, Which Even Former Costars Like Kristen Stewart Are Only Now Seeing