Kristen Stewart was left a little worse for the wear after shooting a pole dancing scene for the upcoming film Welcome to the Rileys.

The actress plays a 16-year-old stripper/prostitute in the drama, directed by Jake Scott, son of acclaimed director Ridley Scott. Rileys, which is debuting at the Sundance Film Festival, also stars James Gandolfini as the married man who has lost his teenage daughter and takes a fatherly interest in Stewart’s character, and Melissa Leo as his agoraphobic wife.

Stewart told E! Online that she was not prepared for the physically demanding stripper scenes. She said, “I did some pole dancing. I got bruises all over my legs. I tore myself up doing it. It sucked.” But it wasn’t all bad. She added, “The more I saw it, the more I wanted it. It was like a weird self-hating kind of thing.”

Scott hooked Kristen up with a professional stripper to learn the ropes. “She’s like one of the best in the business,” he said. “So she was really reliable and didn’t do drugs or anything like that, but she was able to introduce Kristen to girls that were. She was able to put her in that world.”

The Twilight star was still scared, however. “She was terrified,” Scott added. “The strip club we shot in was really a club, and it really was that dirty and really that tough. But she killed it.”

Stewart, however, insists that her character is “not sultry and she is not sexy.”

Scott confirms, explaining, “This is not about a stripper. It’s about a damaged child.”