Following a supporting performance as the daughter of a couple who unknowingly move into a seemingly haunted house in the 2003 chiller Cold Creek Manor, Stewart took top billing in the emotionally charged drama Speak in 2004. Cast as a traumatized high school freshman whose status as a selective mute draws the concern of friends and family, Stewart's handling of the remarkably intimate material drew praise from critics and Sundance audiences. A subsequent role in Catch That Kid (a remake of the Danish blockbuster Klatretosen) found Stewart in super-spy mode as a scheming twelve-year-old who recruits a pair of friends to rob a high tech bank in hopes of paying for a life saving operation for her dying father.