Alia Shawkat Reveals She Was "Literally Not Allowed to Speak" on the Set of The Runaways, as She and Kristen Stewart Reunite for The Wrong Girls
Alia Shawkat has revealed that she was "literally not allowed to speak" during the filming of the 2010 music biopic The Runaways — a restriction she discovered on her very first day of shooting, for legal reasons. Shawkat shared the detail at a Q&A screening for her new film The Wrong Girls, sitting alongside co-star Kristen Stewart, who recalled that the two of them "were children" on that earlier set. Both remarks were reported by Deadline on 9 August 2026.
The Runaways, directed by Floria Sigismondi, chronicled the 1970s all-female rock band of the same name. Stewart played Joan Jett, with Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie, Stella Maeve as Sandy West and Scout Taylor-Compton as Lita Ford. Shawkat was credited as a character named Robin Robins — a fictionalised stand-in for bass guitarist Jacqueline Fuchs, who performed under the name Jackie Fox. Shawkat's silence on set, it appears, was tied to the legal sensitivities of depicting real band members whose stories were still subject to rights and clearance issues.
Sixteen years later, Shawkat and Stewart are back on screen together in The Wrong Girls, a stoner comedy written and directed by Dylan Meyer — Stewart's fiancée — and distributed by Neon. The two play Molly and Frankie, codependent, marijuana-loving best friends whose bond is put to the test. The cast is stacked: LaKeith Stanfield, Zack Fox, Tony Hale, Seth Rogen, Kumail Nanjiani, Geena Davis, Kate McKinnon and Cate Blanchett all appear.
Shawkat and Stewart told the Q&A audience that The Wrong Girls was the first time they had properly hung out and played friends, having not reunited since The Runaways. Where their first collaboration kept them apart — one of them contractually mute, both of them teenagers navigating a studio film set — this one puts them side by side at the centre of the story.
The Wrong Girls opens exclusively in theatres on 14 August 2026. Neon has been positioning the film as a showcase for Stewart and Shawkat's chemistry, and the Q&A circuit is doing its part to build word of mouth ahead of the release.
For anyone who followed The Runaways — or simply enjoys watching two performers rediscover each other after more than a decade apart — the backstory adds a layer of enjoyment to what otherwise looks like a raucous, well-cast comedy. The silence Shawkat endured on her first film set has become, in retrospect, a strange origin story for a partnership that finally gets to speak freely.
