Kristen Stewart's Bad Attitude

Fotonoticias, WireImage / Getty Images Unlike most Hollywood’s stars, New Moon’s Stewart won’t put on a happy face. Some fans love to hate the eye-rolling and bird-flipping; others just hate her.

On a balmy morning last summer, thousands of eager fans camped outside of a downtown San Diego convention center in anticipation of catching a glimpse of the exalted teen stars of the Twilight film franchise.

After sleeping on concrete all night, 14-year-old Bianca Valle finally made it inside Hall H, the largest auditorium at the annual Comic-Con Convention.

Once inside, she waited until four of the actors from the upcoming film, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, slowly emerged on stage. They were welcomed by nearly unanimous deafening screams and proclamations of undying love.

But Kristen Stewart, the 19-year-old who plays the lead role of Bella Swan in the Twilight films, looked miserable, Valle recalled. Her hair—shiny and long in Twilight—had been dyed black and hacked into a choppy, disheveled style for a role as Joan Jett in an upcoming film. As the cast fielded questions from the audience, Stewart held her head in her hands and frowned.

Click the Image Below to View Our Gallery of Twilight Hate

It’s no secret that Stewart, whose biggest roles before Twilight were parts in Panic Room and Into the Wild, isn’t herself a huge fan of the Twilight phenomenon.

This has made her relationship with the public complex. In an age when celebrities have begun to share the minutiae of their everyday lives with their fans on social networking sites like Twitter, Stewart rarely gives even the slightest glimpse of her personal life to inquiring minds.

“I just remember that she was extremely awkward, and I think that when you enter into acting, there are repercussions,” 21-year-old fan Cara Watters said of Stewart. “You should know how to hold yourself during appearances. She can’t say anything without twitching or stuttering.”

In an interview with The New York Times published over the weekend, Stewart said she's bothered by the public's expectation that she should open up simply because she's an actress.

“What really kills me—it really rips me up—is when people think I’m abrasive, inconsiderate or ungrateful because I don’t go outside in a bikini and wave to the paparazzi. Come on!”

Chris Weitz, the director of New Moon, told The Times that Stewart cops an attitude to "cope." “If she didn’t, every teenage girl would see her as their best friend,” he said. “They would tear her completely apart.”

• The Daily Beast’s Kim Masters reports from the New Moon premiere.

• Check out more stories, galleries, clips of New Moon. But even Stewart's front hasn't protected her from often scathing criticism from the Twilight fan base. Of course, some fans embrace her devil-may-care attitude, championing the actress for staying true to herself. But the majority of Twi-hards find her perceived resentment toward fame and the film franchise that has catapulted her into the limelight enraging.

If this is so, why haven’t the naysayers abandoned Twilight? Despite her bad attitude, why do fans still like Kristen Stewart?