Kristen Stewart was a "pretentious little loser" while filming Twilight.

The 36-year-old star - who was just 17 years old when she shot the first movie in the series - looked back at playing Bella Swan and joked about how seriously she and co-star Robert Pattinson took the project.

Appearing on the In Your Dreams With Owen Thiele podcast, she said: "The first one, we were talking about this earlier 'cause someone else asked about it, but I was like such a pretentious little loser."

"It was so so serious. Me and Rob were like, 'Yeah, this is like f****** epic, like, let's try and, like, elevate this s***,.' And it's like, just be exactly what age you are, and like say the words."

Kristen noted she and Robert, 40, had a very "teenage" attitude at the time.

She laughed: "It was always like, 'Oh my God, embarrassing. God, I just wanted to be like f****** real and it's, like, impossible. Everyone's like making it f****** impossible for it to be like f****** real.

"And then you look at it, and you're like, it was f****** real.

"Anything too much is so perfect for that period of time, where you're not going to do subtle stuff when you're, like, a teenager dying."

Kristen - who dated Robert for four years after meeting him on the set of the first film in 2008 - admitted it took some time after the films ended to appreciate them for what they were.

She said: "It's really funny 'cause it was like we did five of those movies, and it took five years--and then we've never stopped talking about it.

"During the time in which they were coming out, we were always being asked to look at it from the outside--which was not possible to do yet."

Her comments about the serious nature of the performances echo similar marks made by Robert in April.

He told Vogue earlier this year: "I really love that movie. I think I would have done it exactly the same -- to be honest, I don't even think I'd be able to do the performance now.

"Everybody was approaching it so earnestly and took it really, really, really seriously.

"There was no kind of tongue-in-cheek element. No one's winking at the audience. It's like it's very real, which is strange for a movie about a vampire romance."