After becoming the first American to win a prestigious Cesar Best Actress award for her role in Clouds of Sils Maria, Kristen Stewart reteamed with writer-director Olivier Assayas for Personal Shopper, a mixture of intimate drama and ghostly horror in which Stewart plays a stylist trying to make supernatural contact with her late twin brother.

Kristen Stewart stars in Personal Shopper

"I knew he liked acting with the same people, actors and technicians," she says of Assayas. "We got along really well on the set of Sils Maria, and I figured, sooner or later, we'd work again on a creative project. But I had no idea it would be so soon! I feel very lucky."

Stewart liked that Personal Shopper wasn't the usual ghost movie. "It is a genre movie, which sets it apart from most French auteur films," she says. "But it doesn't try to scare us with ghosts. Instead, it offers a reflection on reality, asking what in my opinion is the most terrifying question in life: am I completely alone, or can I truly enter into contact with someone else?"

Now comfortable making more independent-minded films, the actress is still trying to recover her anonymity after playing Bella Swan in the Twilight saga. Since then, her every move has been followed by the paparazzi. "I used to be fearful," she admits. "I used to feel violated, but that was a defence mechanism. I think I've grown out of it now."

Even so, she understands that her life isn't the same as it used to be, because she's unable to be invisible in public. "I'm such a people person," she says. "I'm so interested in them that it's really annoying they're so interested in me! Because I can't look at anyone without them noticing me. I want to be able to sit in a room and people-watch. And that's difficult for me. It's a unique perspective, for sure."

So it's hardly surprising that she caused a media storm when she came out as bisexual last year. "I wasn't hiding anything," she explains. "I didn't talk about my first relationships because I wanted things that are mine to be mine. I hated that details of my life were being turned into a commodity and peddled around the world. But considering I had so many eyes on me, I suddenly realised that it affects a greater number of people than just me. This was an opportunity to surrender a bit of what was mine, to make even one other person feel good about themselves."

Watch the trailer for Personal Shopper: