Kristen Stewart: 'I Can't Go To The Mall'

Kristen Stewart, 20, may be the star of Twilight, but she is always looking toward the next challenge.

The fresh-faced beauty, known primarily for portraying heroine Bella Swan in the Stephanie Meyer-adapted vampire series, is grateful to the role that made her a star, but hasn't neglected other pursuits. "A compulsion absolutely fills you," the actress said in February's issue of Vogue about choosing her roles, which have recently included a teenage stripper in Welcome to the Rileys and rock star Joan Jett in The Runaways. "I choose things that are so overly ambitious, and if I can't do stuff like that, I don't want to be doing this," she said of acting.

Still, she's in touch with what her fans want. "Masses of girls identified with Bella in a really profound way, for want of a better word," she said. "The connection that I've seen people have … I've seen it physically. It's the characters they're flipping for."

Stewart's trying not to let it go to her head. One of her lofty off-screen ambitions, inspired by her research into prostitution for Welcome to the Rileys, is to start a network of halfway houses. "It's funny when you are endowed not only with public recognition on a f**kign seriously vast level, but also money," she said. "Anytime I hear that somebody's really rich, the first question is 'Do you do anything with it? Or do you, like, chill? You just sit on it?'"

The Twilight star figures that she might as well put her high-profile image to good use, because she's never going to get her anonymity back. "There's no way to eloquently put this," she said. "I just can't go to the mall. It bothers me that I can't be outside very often. And also to not ever be just 'some girl' again. Just being some chick at some place, that's gone."

Stewart will next appear with Gerrett Hedlund and Kirsten Dunst in a film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, playing Marylou. The fourth installment of the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, is currently in production. —KIMBERLY STEELE