The generally media-shy Kristen Stewart released a statement yesterday expressing despair over the recent loss of her friend and colleague James Gandolfini.
“When I heard of James’ passing I was in New Orleans, where we met shooting, and every memory flooded back and gutted me,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “I’ll hold that time near to me forever. He was immeasurably great. My heart goes out to his beloved family.”
Stewart met the late actor on the set of the 2010 indie drama Welcome to the Rileys, where she played a stripper/prostitute who gets taken in by Gandolfini’s character, a misguided father struggling to cope with the death of his child. “Jim was…the sh-t,” Stewart told USA Today back in 2009. “He’s quiet. We got along well because we let it happen the way it’s supposed to. It was very organic, very cool.”
The late star was a fan of Stewart as well. Following her performance last year in the film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road, Gandolfini told Variety “As soon as she steps into the movie On the Road, you can’t take your eyes off her. As Marylou, whenever she fixes her gaze, you see someone who will go as far as she can, and do it as mad as she can, to live and feel alive. And it is sexy and scary and reckless and smart. She can play all of these things. She has them at her fingertips. She is just beginning. She is fearless. And that can be that good, and that can be very bad. But she is smart enough to handle it.
"Stick around my friends, and there will be much much more to come. Thinking about it, I am smiling already.”
As we reported earlier, Gandolfini died last week of a heart attack at the age of 51.
Image Courtesy of Time Inc.