Kristen Stewart happy to be hitting Road

Kristen Stewart at the gala premiere for On The Road. Photo / AP

Kristen Stewart says there is no question of not being back in the public eye to promote new movie, On The Road.

It has been tough for Kristen Stewart to be back out in public after revelations of an affair that led to her break-up with Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson.

Yet there's no place she would rather be than at the Toronto International Film Festival alongside her colleagues for the adaptation of Jack Kerouac's 1950s Beat Generation novel, On the Road.

Stewart said she never thought about skipping the festival. She said it was important to be there with director Walter Salles and her co-stars, including Kirsten Dunst and Garrett Hedlund who, like Stewart, had worked for years to get the film made.

"We have been waiting for this thing to be unleashed for so long. It was sort of one of those situations where you just have to put yourself in your body and go appreciate the moment," Stewart said in an interview. Recalling the film's world premiere at May's Cannes Film Festival, Stewart said, "I would have been happy standing at Cannes with the entire theatre booing it as long as I was in that row with my cast and with Walter.

"We would have been fine. I feel so strong with these people, and it's so appropriate. I belonged there."

Since Cannes, Stewart's personal life has unravelled as she admitted she cheated on Pattinson with her Snow White and the Huntsman director, Rupert Sanders.

The Toronto premiere of On the Road last week was Stewart's first public appearance since, and she was greeted by hundreds of Twilight fans who came out to show support for the 22-year-old actress.

"You expect a lot of people at a Twilight premiere, but showing up at an On the Road Toronto film festival screening and seeing that amount of people is absolutely, disarmingly amazing," Stewart said. "It felt pretty cool."

On the Road has been on Hollywood's to-do list for decades, but previous attempts to adapt it for film always fell through.

Salles (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries) spent years developing the film, which stars Hedlund as beat generation free spirit Dean Moriarty, inspired by Kerouac's friend Neal Cassady, and Sam Riley as the author's alter-ego, Sal Paradise.

Stewart co-stars as Dean's first wife, Marylou, who joins him and Sal on some of their crazed cross-country adventures.

"Marylou and Dean are the type of people that I was inspired by. Initially at 15, reading the book, going God, these are the sort of people I've got to find. The mad ones," Stewart said.

In November, Stewart faces some awkward public appearances when she and Pattinson will be promoting The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, the finale of their vampire romance.

Stewart is confident they will get through that all right.

"We're going to be fine," Stewart said. "We're totally fine."

Who: Kristen Stewart
What: On the Road
When: In cinemas on Thursday

-AAP