Kristen Stewart confirmed in the March issue of Architectural Digest LA that she has purchased the historic Highland Theater in Los Angeles’ lively Highland Park neighborhood.
The Highland Theater opened in 1925 and was a staple in the area until it closed in 2024. It was rumored that Stewart bought it last summer while preparing to shoot a movie.
“I didn’t realize I was looking for a theater until I noticed this place. Then the gunshots rang out and it felt like a race was on. I ran towards it with everything I had,” she told Architectural Digest. “I’m fascinated by broken old theaters. I always want to know what mysteries there are there.”
Stewart recently said she would probably make the film in Europe rather than the United States, but the theatrical purchase shows her determination to support independent films in L.A. “I want to make a movie in Europe and shove it down the throats of the American people,” she said last week.
The theater was recently featured in the Marvel TV series “Wonder Man,” was used extensively for the filming of David Fincher’s “The Adventures of Cliff Booth,” and was also used in Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Theater.
Stewart said she intends to turn the theater, which needs extensive renovations, into a space for the entire community. “This is an opportunity to create a space to come together, plan, and dream… We want it to be a family affair, a community thing. It’s not just for pretentious Hollywood movie buffs. I see it as an antidote to all the corporate bullshit, a place to move film culture away from just buying and selling. I think there’s a huge desire and hunger for what this kind of space can offer.”
There are no other movie theaters in the Highland Park neighborhood, which is filled with bars, coffee shops, and restaurants, but there is the Vidiots Theater in nearby Eagle Rock, and Tarantino’s Vista Theater is a few miles away in Silver Lake. The nearby cities of Glendale and Pasadena are served by Laemmle and Landmark Arthouse, respectively.
Stewart hopes to bring “new ideas” to the restored theater, she told Architectural Digest. “There are a lot of beautiful details that need to be restored. I think there’s a way to bring the building back to life in a way that embraces its history but also brings something new to the neighborhood and to the L.A. film community as a whole. That’s the point: new ideas.”
