Thoughoften overlooked by the industry, the 39-year-old star’s long list of diverse credits speaks for itself.
“I felt like he was already like, ‘I like this kid.
“They treated me so sweetly.
Francois Duhamel/Warner Bros.
I was such a princess on that set,” Dunst says.
“The darkness was always balanced out by fart jokes by Brad.”
“But I really liked all these scripts.
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[With]Dick, I was like, ‘this issofunny.’
I always loved comedies.
I never took myself super seriously.”
American Zoetrope/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
“Michelle and I had so much fun together,” Dunst says.
“We instantly had such an easy, nice, fun rapport with each other.
It felt like you were working with your best friend every day.”
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“It was a turning point for me,” she reflects.
Sofia gave me that in such a tender, beautiful way.”
“When I read the script, I was dying,” she says.
Ken Jacques/Universal
“I wanted to be in that movie so bad.”
“All the beauty pageants, Miss America, all that crap I love it.
I love that world,” Dunst says.
Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in ‘Spiderman’.Zade Rosenthal/Columbia Pictures
“It was fun because we got to learn dance routines for it.
Growing up, I was a cheerleader in eighth grade.”
“We were a little Universal movie that no one cared about.”
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“Ineverthought that movie would be as big as it is.”
“It seems like a lot of movies I do get remade,” Dunst observes.
“It’s like a running theme for me.”
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Isn’t that crazy?"
As for those remakes?
“I wish they’d put me in another one.
Kirsten Dunst in ‘Melancholia’.Magnolia Pictures
Like, old-girl Mary Jane why not?”
says the actress (who is rumored to appear in this month’sSpider-Man: No Way Home).
“I would do [another superhero movie].
Jacob Hutchings
Everybody else is!”
“I was migrating towards weirder indie movies.”
“It wasn’t really a decision,” the actress says.
Chris Large/FX
“Every time we work together again, it always feels like you’re riding on her ocean.
You always feel like you’re on this very private Sofia ship, which is really beautiful.”
“It was just a lot of hair.
Patti Perret/Sony/SHOWTIME
I just felt like I was in hair for hours every day.”
Despite the film’s heaviness, “I had the best time.
And I was ready to lay it all on the line.
Kirsten Dunst in ‘The Power of the Dog.'.KIRSTY GRIFFIN/NETFLIX
So it was perfect a perfect time.”
“They see you do one thing and they just want that again,” she laments.
“I was like, ‘I can’t!
I’m not this person!'”
“I liked the crassness of it.”
The pair play a working-class couple who become entangled in a gang war in 1970s Minnesota.
“We worked really hard together and we just kind of jived immediately,” she says.
“That felt so fun and special.
It’s obviously the most transformative thing that I’ve done.”
“That’s the kind of acting I want to be a part of.”
I wanted to work with Jane Campion.
I would have played Phil!"
A version of this story appears inEntertainment Weekly’s December issue, on newsstands now andavailable to order here.
