Kristen Stewart has officially taken on a new role: owner of a massive piece of Los Angeles film history.
The actress confirmed in the March L.A. issue of Architectural Digest that she has purchased the legendary Highland Theatre, a 1925 landmark located in the vibrant Highland Park neighbourhood.
The venue had been a local staple for nearly a century before shutting its doors in 2024, and though rumours about Stewart’s involvement circulated last summer, she has now made her commitment to the site official.
Stewart admitted that she hadn’t intentionally set out to buy a cinema until she saw the Highland, but once she did, she felt an immediate and intense pull to secure it.
Her interest stems from a deep curiosity about old venues and the hidden stories they might contain.
“I’m fascinated by broken-down old theatres. I always want to see what mysteries they hold,” she shared.
While the theatre has recently appeared on screen in Marvel’s Wonder Man and David Fincher’s The Adventures of Cliff Booth, where it stood in for Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Theatre, it currently requires significant renovation.
Stewart’s plan isn’t to create an exclusive club for industry insiders, but to build a genuine community hub.
She explained that she wants to create a space for people to “scheme and dream together,” calling the project a family affair.
Stewart sees the site “as an antidote to all the corporate bullsh-t, a place that takes movie culture away from just buying and selling.”
She thinks “there’s a huge desire and craving for what this kind of space can offer.”
The purchase is particularly significant because Highland Park is currently without any other movie theatres, despite being packed with popular bars and restaurants.
Local film fans usually have to travel to nearby Eagle Rock for the Vidiots theatre or to Silver Lake to visit the Vista Theatre.
While Stewart recently suggested she might look to Europe for her future filmmaking projects, jokingly saying, “I’d like to make movies in Europe and then shove them down the throat of the American people,” this investment shows she is still very much invested in the L.A. indie scene.
She told Architectural Digest that she intends to fix the many historic details that have fallen into disrepair, reviving the building in a way that respects its 1925 roots while providing the neighbourhood with something entirely fresh.
For Stewart, the ultimate goal is to introduce “new ideas” to the L.A. film community and move away from the corporate nature of modern cinema.
