Kirsten Dunst is nothing if candid and blunt. In a new Marie Claire interview profile about her new film, a political thriller, “Civil War,” but also about her life as a mom in Hollywood, Dunst’s DGAF attitude shined through.
While she spoke about getting PTSD from shooting severely violent scenes in “Civil War,” she also talked about her experience in Hollywood with some of the era’s early superhero films and her appearances in the “Spider-Man” movies.
READ MORE: Kirsten Dunst Says ‘Civil War’ Violence Gave Her PTSD & “Shook Me To My Core”
Asked if we would star in a superhero movie again, she said “yes,” with refreshing honesty. “Yes, because you get paid a lot of money, and I have two children, and I support my mother,” she said, making no bones about it.
After the “Spider-Man” movies, Dunst retreated from the spotlight of A-list Hollywood movies, preferring to work with directors like Lars Von Trier, Sofia Coppola, Cameron Crowe, and modern filmmakers like Leslye Headland. The actress says she basically wasn’t interested in “capitaliz[ing] off the Spider-Man thing” to become a “movie-star-movie-star.”
Recalling her “Spider-Man” time, she called the first one something of a “hidden indie” because of its cast, her Tobey Maguire and James Franco, but admitted she was often undermined on set and didn’t think to fight back about it at the time.
“It was a joke, but on Spider-Man, they would call me ‘girly-girl’ sometimes on the walkie-talkie. ‘We need girly-girl,’”—she recalled, imitating the cloying tone—“but I never said anything.”
The memory of the moment riled her up, and she said, “Like, don’t call me that,” in frustration. Dunst said that recognizing your self-worth, especially as a young woman in pre-MeToo Hollywood, was challenging at that time. “You didn’t say anything,” she said about minimized on set. “You just took it.”
Fortunately, times are changing, but the interview and some of the things she reveals remind us that there’s still much reckoning to do of the past and still lots of work to do in the future. Check out the entire Marie Claire interview here.