Kristen Stewart, famed for her cool and laidback demeanour, arrived to the 2024 Sundance Film Festival with a bang, both literally and metaphorically.

The actress had a mic drop moment on Thursday night as she was winding off her acceptance speech for the Sundance Film Festival Visionary Award. The event is formally known as the Opening Night Gala: Celebrating 40 Years. Chase Sapphire hosted the event at the DeJoria Centre in the adjacent town of Kamas, Utah.

Stewart, 33, has previously attended Sundance ten times and will return this year with two more films: Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding and Sam and Andy Zuchero’s Love Me, starring Steven Yeun. Wearing a tweed suit from the French fashion house, the Chanel muse took a quick journey down memory lane to reflect on her first visit to Park City and explain why the vibrations were so powerful.

“I really love this festival — my whole life I have loved this festival. I came here for the first time 20 years ago, I realized today. I could barely speak English when spoken to. I got my first pair of Ugg boots, and I actually got to be where the cool kids were. I knew that in my bones this was just a place full of yes, in a world full of no. I couldn’t even understand why yet, but I knew it and I know that I was right,” said Stewart, who added that the accolade came at the ideal time.

“Words were only as meaningful as the people and places that give them to you and to be accepted by the community I have admired so personally, it is so lovely and enlivening. It is so well-timed. I need this.”

Stewart accepted the medal during a ceremony that also honoured Christopher Nolan, Past Lives director Celine Song, The Eternal Memory director Maite Alberdi, and donor and Sundance board chair Pat Mitchell.