Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Kirsten Dunst has seen just about everything Hollywood can throw at someone, from perky kid roles to superhero stardom to auteur-driven masterpieces. Which makes it all the more remarkable that she can continue to surprise audiences, as she did with her performance in this spring’s surprise hit Civil War. Playing a cynical war reporter on a mission to reach Washington D.C. in the midst of a bloody, modern American war, Dunst speaks volumes with her silent, thousand-yard stare, as well as her tentative efforts to build a real bond with a younger journalist played by Cailee Spaeny.
Dunst credits writer-director Alex Garland with making her so eager to take the lead role in Civil War — “I’m so director driven,” she tells me. “I really care more about the experience than even sometimes the role I’m playing.” When she says she’s director-driven, she means it more than most; as Richard Rushfield pointed out back when Civil War was released, “If you can judge an actor by the directors they chose to work with, it’s hard to imagine anyone coming anywhere near the list that Dunst has assembled.”
But it’s not an easy choice for Dunst to decide to return to set these days. Raising two children with her husband and Civil War co-star Jesse Plemons, Dunst, 42, took several years off between her Oscar-nominated role in The Power of the Dog and Civil War. The production, including an intense military-style invasion sequence, required a lot of emotional energy on set — and then a whole other set of tools when she came home.
“At the end of the day, I just want to zone out to some crappy TV and learn my lines and chill out,” she tells me. “I’m not someone who brings home my work. I can’t afford to do that. [My kids] want their mom, you know?”
For our conversation on this week’s Prestige Junkie pod, I was glad to get to talk to Dunst about her work but also her decision to be frank about working motherhood, from the challenges of bringing her kids to the set — she’s planning to do so when filming Ruben Östlund’s next film — to having two young boys around who make a mess out of everything. She shared stories of the looks she gets from other grown-ups when her youngest son wears his Spider-Man costume, but also her commitment to continuing to make art and forging her own identity outside of motherhood.
“I’m very picky in what I do,” she says frankly. “I can’t just do things for money or I can’t do things that my heart’s not into, because I think I’ve done this for so long that that’s the one thing I feel like I can give myself.” But she also adds, “I never want to not do what I do. I have to fuel that part of myself. And it’s important for [the kids] to see that I love what I do.”
This week’s episode also includes a conversation between me and Michael Schulman, the New Yorker staff writer and author of Oscar Wars, about the bigger picture questions around this year’s Oscar race. Does Conclave have an edge because it’s a metaphor for Oscar voting? Will studios want to show their strength by getting behind Gladiator and Wicked?
If you see Neon using the campaign tagline “I am Anora, hear me roar,” you will have to listen to this episode to know where it came from.
