Why Kristen Stewart is Saving This Historic LA Movie Theatre _ Architectural Digest

People are watching movies on their tablets and their TVs and likely watching a couple of things at once. There's no reflective period, I guess, to be had in scenarios like that. Buying the Highland Park Theater, I want it to be somewhere that families can go and that also filmmakers can go. And so we can kind of be in service of each other and we can be in actual communication with people and not cut off from each other. I don't think it's a nostalgic or sort of overly sentimental idea. I think people are kind of like, you know, really desperate for it. So we're on the roof of the Highland Park Theater. My connection to this place is fairly new. I've been driving by all of these theaters that had been turned into stores or were just sort of empty. And I was just like, God, I want to get in there. I want to like look inside all these spaces. The timing of this thing becoming available was shocking because I was just really percolating on the idea of going to the movies, not dying. I'm from the Valley and I moved to Los Feliz. You know, I have like the Los Feliz III and the Vista, but this was not my drippy little kind of dingy small theater experience, but it was a lot of my friends. And I think the street is filled with incredible like stores and bars and like little hangs. But I think these bars are like filled with people complaining that they're not working on movies right now. And so, I don't know. I think everything kind of came to a head and made me realize that this was something that was worth biting off and really like seeing if we could chew, even though it is a large bite and that we're going to need help in a huge massive collective whatever. But like the building means to me that there's like something of our original grandeur that we kind of aspire to here in Hollywood, but from a place of integrity and like ambition that I think that we need so badly. And so I was like, let's ******* go. Even when I see a movie that I don't like very much, that's like just fuel. Also having time to actually drive all the way there. It's a huge investment of your time. And every time I do it, I feel like so lucky and genuinely grateful that we're allowed to do that. Like we're busy all the time and there's always something more important to do. And like, you could always catch it on an airplane or you could catch it like, you know, before or after work or something, or maybe in a couple of pieces. And there are certain kind of poetic washes that you want to like, you know, I know it sounds cheesy, but like sort of hold the proverbial hand of all of us at once. And you just can't do that by yourself. And so like every time I get to go to the movies, I feel like, you know, we're lucky to be alive. It's like stolen time. And it's usually one of the first places you get to go as a kid unaccompanied. You're like, yeah, I'm just gonna be dropped off at the movies and then picked up again. You do get to kind of cultivate your taste and go, yeah, I mean, that's my favorite movie. Like some kids got off on going to see like Empire Records a ton of times. And that was because you got to like, see your homies also there being like, yeah, this movie is tight. I don't know, you get to like, kind of like find your others. It's misfitty stuff too. It feels like you're kind of under the bleachers. Everything that's already living here is so beautiful. It just needs like to be taken care of. I mean, the place is falling down. We definitely need like a lot of help. But it's worth it because we can play music here. We can have conversations here. We can do Q and A's here. We can have our professional engagements here. And then we can engage people who actually live here and invite them into something that doesn't feel so corporate. Maybe we play like Felix the Cat on Saturdays. In other words, what I'm saying is, it would be nice to take little corners of what I think is like high art cinema culture and normal audience members, families. There aren't such differences between us. I think it'd be nice to have like a sort of community center that not only has, you know, the movies that are played in theaters nationwide and worldwide, but also have programs that kind of ingratiate people to cinema and kind of make it for everyone. I mean, at this point it is sort of like we're conceiving of, dreaming of, and creating the breadth of the endeavor kind of in a vacuum until we find our partners that can actually like really make this happen with us. But like two theaters downstairs and a big huge grand palace venue space upstairs with 70 millimeter projection abilities. Then there's also going to be like public spaces where you can hang out after and let the movie wash over you. But we could do small scale theater even. It's about getting people together in order to like figure out how they want to express themselves and giving them the space to do so. I've been lucky enough to get to know the people that run the Downtown Women's Center. Just the most compassionate, hardworking and incredibly diligent, committed human beings helping women get on their feet and find paths towards having sort of dignified and sustainable lives. And I can't wait for them to come work here, hang here, host events here. I do believe in the kind of non-performative hustle that happens here. It is the realest, most snap back kind of like prideful place to come from. There's no way to have this conversation without leaning in fully to the sort of darker aspects of it. There are people that own this place that make this place live and survive and float that don't feel safe walking down the street. Like these are our people. These are the people that we've all grown up with. And I do think that we want and deserve to want and want more. And this is one way that I think that I'm going to try and maybe suggest that we take care of each other and that we offer spaces to be super vocal and not be afraid to say what you want to say. I would like to set the stage for that to happen. I also have never really felt like I lived in like Hollywood even though making movies is paramount to the things that I value. And it has been since I was a little kid. Like my mom was a script supervisor. My dad's an AD, my brothers are grips. All my friends are out of work. All we want to do is make movies. There just has to be some sort of way around all of the big hard no's. The reason I'm excited to be living in LA and working in LA right now, there's mad hope and people are so hungry. When people are desperate, they start doing desperate things. And I think buying this theater feels a little desperate in like the most beautiful way.