Kristen Stewart’s ‘Thrusting Intercourse’ Almost Nabbed ‘Breaking Dawn’ an R Rating

Kristen Stewart may have shot to fame as the impassive Bella from the blockbuster Twilight series of books and films, but the actress is arguably known for her- well, lack of range. (This was recently even sent up on Beavis and Butthead in their debut return episode.)

Along with Stewart’s chronic “meh” face, Twilight is notable in a genre that is a sex metaphor for being notoriously sexless. Sexless! The romance novels hardly get any sex until the very last book, only after the lead characters are married, and even then results in a half-breed demon baby that essentially kills one of the main characters, because sex is bad, mm-kay? But it seems that when the sex finally did come to Twilight, in the Breaking Dawn installment, Stewart’s acting ability came to the forefront- and threatened to impede the movies’ squeaky clean appeal.

Both Robert Pattinson and director Bill Condon joked about Stewart’s on-screen prowess, saying that the intensity of the scenes needed to be dulled somewhat despite a firm lack of MPAA guidelines about what constitutes an R-rated sex scene. Condon explained:

“It wasn’t rated R, they don’t rate it.They just say, ‘you know, we’re not hitting a PG yet.’ Frankly it’s a very clinical thing. I’ve been through this before when I was trying not to get an X or NC-17 rating on Kinsey, but because it’s so subjective, they have very specific guidelines.”

The director continued:

“I hate to be clinical, but guidelines on thrusting intercourse. Anything that suggested that- not to make people too excited it was never explicit — but I think any movement that suggests that is what they object to. I suspect that because of the popularity of Twilight we had an even bigger focus.”

Will you be lining up for Breaking Dawn on November 18th?