So when I was sent to cover the press junket for the upcoming film, The Runaways, no one had to ask me twice. Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, and writer-director Floria Sigismondi were all scheduled to take our questions, up close, in-person, roundtable-style.

Eventually, I made my way to my assigned room. Other journalists were already seated, so I took the last empty spot, next to two reserved seats. I was reading a text message on my phone when someone pulled out a chair. I looked up in time to see Joan Jett sit down. Next to me.

As you would expect, Joan was wearing a lot of black. Even her papers wear black. When you're a rock star, you're a rock star 24/7.

Question: Did you have [casting] input, and what was your first thought when you found out [Kristen Stewart] was connected to the part [of playing you]?
Joan Jett: My only real input on the casting was to suggest if they could get real teenagers, it would make a difference. 'Cause even in a couple of years, the energy shifts. That was my only comment. I heard that Kristen had been cast – Twilight had come out a couple of months earlier – so, I knew who she was. I had seen her face all over the place. But I had also seen some of her films. I had seen Panic Room, maybe another earlier one, so I was familiar with her work and I wasn't colored by that Twilight label. I was really into it.

Right before she went to start [shooting] New Moon, we had a day together. And I just kind of dumped on her for a few hours about The Runaways and what it meant to me, and why I wanted to do it, anything I could think of, and probably a few things that I wouldn't tell anybody else: private, personal stuff.

I asked her if she was going to cut her hair, and she said, "Yeah!" I really got a sense that there was commitment there, that she really wanted to be authentic. She realized a lot of things: that The Runaways were important to a lot of people, that we were still living – or some of us, God rest Sandy West's soul – so, I think she took it seriously.

But she loves music, she played guitar before we met, she can carry a tune. I thought it was essential that these girls sing the songs, where they could. It's really obvious when you're lip-syncing to an old Runaways' track. I thought they did a really great job.

Q: What's it like seeing your life on the big screen?
JJ: It's pretty surreal. We were so dismissed so much of the time, and now, something is resonating. There's a teenage story in there about rebellion, fighting authority, [being] told that girls can't do something, just because no one ever saw it before. My parents told me I could be anything I wanted [to be] when I was five or six. I really took it to heart.

The room burst into laughter.