Kristen Stewart hadn’t become Bella in the “Twilight” series when she signed on to star in “The Runaways.” But between the time she agreed to play rocker Joan Jett in the bio-pic about the ’70s all-girl band and its box office debut, Stewart had become a movie star.

The film, released last spring, is available Tuesday on DVD.

Stewart’s sudden rise to fame had her thinking about the difference between what Jett, singer Cherie Currie and the other Runaways experienced in the ’70s and what she’s gone through in the past few years.

“I think they sought out their fame so aggressively that it was completely different thing,” she said in an interview when the film was released. “It’s not like it was thrust upon them at all. … Musicians really are themselves all the time, in a public way. We’re not. We’re actors. We choose movies for a million different reasons; some of them are because they ‘say’ things. But not the way music does, not so directly. I can say, ‘This is really cool, I’m really lucky.’ They’re like, ‘We own this.’”

Dakota Fanning, who has been famous since she broke into movies at age 7, said fame in the ’70s was far different from what she and Stewart experience today.

“Back then you had to do something really important to become famous. That’s what you really wanted,” Fanning said. “Now I feel like you can do anything and become famous.”

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IN HER new film The Runaways, where she stars as Cherie Currie, singer of the 1970s all-girl teenage rock band who rises to fame quickly, before crashing just as rapidly, Dakota Fanning snorts cocaine, has sex with Kristen Stewart (who plays rocker Joan Jett), deals with an alcoholic father and an MIA mother, and suffers at the hands of an emotionally abusive manager.

Let’s just say it’s a long way from Charlottes Web.

“I really wanted to do it and I was pretty comfortable with it,” Fanning says of the film’s more adult content.

“I don’t think it’s so crazy, it’s someone’s life.”

As Currie, Fanning walks a tightrope between being completely luminous and utterly vulnerable. She manages to convey the drug addicted singer’s wounded soul with such an emotional depth, you forget that Fanning herself is only 16 years old.

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Includes an exclusive featurette, “Breaking the Mold: Blackheart Records,” in which rock icon Joan Jett and longtime songwriter and producing partner Kenny Laguna provide insight into Jett’s career after the Runaways, from her first solo efforts to the successes of her indie label, Blackheart Records. Other featurettes include “Plugged In: Making the Film,” a look at how the Runaways’ story was brought to the screen, and “The Runaways,” featuring interviews with the cast and crew. Also included is an interactive discography. Enjoy them on your Mac, PC, or Apple TV.

You can order yours here. The hard copies will be available on July 20th on standard DVD and blu-ray!

Gallery Link: The Runaways – Promotional Stills

Miami Herald has also posted the interview they did with Dakota.

At 16, she’s poised, collected and headed for a grown-up career as we see in her new movie, The Runaways. The Georgia native plays Cherie Currie, the lead singer of the 1970s band that launched Joan Jett’s Blackhearts career.

Though she’s gone head to head with screen legends like Robert De Niro (Hide and Seek), Denzel Washington (Man on Fire) and Tom Cruise (War of the Worlds), playing the rocker was her most challenging role.

“It was different, because you are living someone else’s life,” Fanning says by phone from L.A. “I definitely did more preparation than usual. The person you are playing is right there. I had to sing like her too . . . a great responsibility.”

Fanning started out in showbiz earlier than Currie — at the age of 7 in I Am Sam, playing Sean Penn’s daughter.

Can she relate?

“I can relate to having a job when you’re younger, but not being on my own or the drug use,” she says. “Cherie was just a 15-year-old girl from the Valley thrown into this crazy world of rock ‘n’ roll away from her family and very vulnerable, having to figure everything out for herself.”

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