FILM INTERVIEW: KIRSTEN DUNST

Moving On From 'Spider Man,' the Actress Talks About New Heavy Drama 'All Good Things'

By: Izumi Hasegawa

December 8, 2010

Beautiful and talented Hollywood star Kirsten Dunst sits down for an exclusive interview and shares the challenges about making her latest movie with Brian Gosling and Frank Langella.

Izumi Hasegawa: Are you that girl that's flipping through channels and sees mysteries and says, "Okay, I gotta see what happens." Do you get into that true crime?

Kirsten Dunst: I don't think I watch enough TV to get into it. When I sit on the couch with my grandma, we definitely get into some Law and Order and CSI and stuff, but I'm not an aficionado of true crime.

IH: When you do a movie like this, do you try not to have an opinion, or can you even not have an opinion?

KD: Toward the end there, when I go back in the house, I wanted to make sure I wasn't a victim throughout the film... Andrew [Jarecki] and I really talked about this because he didn't want me to bring in the shovel, but I was like, "I have to bring in the shovel. I have to go in there. I'm going to kill him." That's how I wanted to it to be. I don't know what happened, but yes, I think he probably killed his wife, otherwise the family would have helped find her. This big corporation with all this money helped her family none whatsoever? Their daughter-in-law? Why wouldn't they help find her?

IH: Did you know this story? You're so young, it seems like you wouldn't know it. It sort of goes black and white between what's real and what's not. Did you do research into it, or did you feel you really didn't need to and it was just a movie?

KD: I didn't know it. Part of the reason I think not a lot of people knew about it is because it kind of got shoved under the rug. In terms of research, Andrew did a documentary about everything that happened before. I saw that a year before we even made the film. He had researched and interviewed anyone who was willing to talk about what happened, from neighbors to anyone who was around. I also met with her brother, who's also portrayed in the film. I had dinner at the family's house and everything.

IH: What did they say to you?

KD: It's hard. They've lost their family member, and they never had the satisfaction of knowing anything. I think they're relieved, or there must be some closure somehow, to know her story is getting out there again, in the possibility of that. I don't know if the case could reopen. I don't know what could happen, but I know they were happy with me playing her. I just listened to them. They're the ones this tragedy happened to, so I didn't ask too many questions.

IH: What were the things they told you about her that maybe weren't right there in the script that you wanted to carry into your performance?

KD: I met what would have been her niece, and they always said she looks so much like the real woman who went missing. From what I can tell, it's difficult asking family members because all they say they love their sister or whatever, she was so bright, she was so beautiful, she'd light up a room–all these things. Obviously, when you're in love and you're glowing, and all those first feelings... I think they're happy with my portrayal of her, and I think it was in the script. All the things about her going to medical school, trying to make whatever happened work -- I think her decisions were the way the script portrayed her and the way that I played her; I didn't want her to be at all victimized. Every decision she made, you might think he made for her, but I would turn it in my own mind because I really didn't want to play it in a way that women in the audience would feel like, "Get out of there! What are you doing?"

IH: Was it hard to get into her mindset?

KD: It's hard on certain subject matters because I was trying to think about this abortion scene a lot, and it was something his character decides. "You're not going to have this baby." So in my mind, I thought, "Okay. How can I make this so it can be my choice and I'm not just succumbing under his rule?" And I thought, I wouldn't want to bring a baby into this marriage. It's really not going well, I'm young enough, I can have another child with somebody else maybe somewhere down the line, or maybe he's just not ready right now in his life, a lot of things have happened... So I tried to not cry and playing oh, poor me, because that would be really boring and you would feel like, just leave and have your baby. But she also didn't have the means and it was a different time, and she didn't come from money. She couldn't have been a single mother so easily like we have the options to now.

IH: When you were playing her, and if you were thinking in your own life, when would you have said something's not right here, I gotta go because the signs aren't really good here?

KD: I don't know. That's an enmeshment that's so strong. I think every woman goes through the relationship where she's with the guy that's really not right for her, and you kind of get lost in it. But I think signs happen pretty quickly, and you can be into something that's not the greatest for you--friends, family--but if you're in a point where you're married and you're already away from your family because there's this money or you're living in Vermont and all these things–she kind of was isolated in Vermont. She didn't have many friends or anything like that, so I think I'd never gotten to that point of enmeshment that I couldn't see out of it.

IH: How was it working with Kristen Wiig? In the movie, she's playing a dramatic role, but we're used to her in comedic roles.

KD: I loved her. Every time she came on set, we'd hang out in the trailer and just laugh. I remember once we abducted Ryan [Gosling]'s dog and dressed him up and shot a bunch of pictures, and sent them back to Ryan over e-mail with all these weird messages from his dog. I had the best time with her. It was a relief because it was such a heavy movie, so to have her around was really, really fun.

IH: What about Nick Offerman from Parks and Recreation?

KD: He's great, and in a different kind of a role.  Andrew is just smart with his casting.

IH: Please tell me that Ryan got out of character in between takes, because his character was creepy. He plays these roles way too well...

KD: But I was also in my own world, and it was just the world we lived in. The only time where it was definitely (visibly) bothering him is with the scene where he rips me up by my hair at my mother's house, and we had a stunt guy there and he was like, "Get her by the roots! It doesn't hurt as much." But also I went with him–it wasn't like I was pulling against him or anything, so it didn't hurt me, but he was so upset by doing that that he sent me flowers the next day. So it was hard for him.

IH: How did you guys relax in your acting styles? You have so many–from intimate to scary to sweet scenes. How quickly did you find your groove together, because you share so many kinds of scenes together?

KD: We had eight weeks of rehearsal, but all we did was talk and talk, and we'd have separate sessions with Andrew and we'd talk about these people, talk about their perspectives in the film, talk about how we can do this differently--because with different people, it could definitely be a little cliché. It's like, victimized, why? It's a dangerous ground to tread on. But Ryan and I are pretty immersed when we're working, not afraid to improvise together, and we knew the people we were playing; we felt them innately. So it didn't ever feel phony or forced in anyway.

IH: Did he play tricks back on you in retaliation for the dog-stealing trick?

KD: No, I don't think so, actually.

IH: You must have found it hard to do that dog scene in the movie.

KD: Oh, that was awful. You never see him do anything, but yeah. He didn't like the fact that he kills me in the movie. You don't even see that! I was like, "Don't worry, it's okay." I was constantly reassuring him. Our relationship really made both these people human, so you're not just like, he's a beast, and what is she doing with him? They really loved each other.

IH: What kind of place are you in your career right now where the roles you're choosing like this? You have a Jack Kerouac movie coming up, and you're doing a Lars von Trier movie...

KD: I just did that movie over the summer with Lars...

IH: Does that represent a certain place you're in--the types of work you're choosing?

KD: I was just like, "You want to work with Lars Von Trier?" "Oh yes, please, of course!" I want to work with great directors, and Walter Salles, I love. I'm working with him on On the Road, and that shoots in a couple of weeks--my part of it. I don't have any plan. I'm not very "I only want to do serious films" or something like that. I did Upside Down too, which was romantic and fun as well, over the spring.

IH: Sounds like you've been busy. Is this something you intended on? Did you just pack up your schedule for a while and just kept on working?

KD: No, actually. We shot All Good Things two years ago. In those two years, I waited for a year. I just read scripts and waited. Then I took Upside Down last spring, then I had a couple of months off in the summer, then I did Lars's movie for two months, then I've had off since like September, so I just have a week of work, then I'm open. I have yet to find what I'm doing next.

IH: What are you going to be playing in On the Road?

KD: I'm playing Carolyn Cassady, the role that's Camille in the book. 

IH: Were you a fan of the writing of Kerouac's books?

KD: I was a fan of On the Road, but mostly because I had a crush on a guy when I was 15 or 16, so I read the book. It's so poetic, the way it's written, but it's definitely more of a masculine connection, I think, for a reader. I was more of a Sylvia Plath... I was more into the female version of that. Female roles in On the Road were smaller than the books I'm usually interested in.

IH: Is there a favorite literary role you'd love to play, or any book to movie adaptations you'd like to be in?

KD: A lot of them have already been made. I can't think of one right now.

IH: Was Little Women one?

KD: Little Women was one, yeah. That was exciting to do. That was always one book growing up that was so special. I thought we made a good remake of that.

IH: How did you feel about the change in direction for the Spider Man franchise?

KD: I felt like what we had during those films was so special--me, and Tobey [Maguire] and Sam [Raimi]. It was such a unique experience, and also because it was these independent minds and actors and we were making this huge film, and it's great. All these kids are such huge fans, and to be part of a movie like that is very special, especially a good franchise. So to end on 3, I think, is the perfect way to leave it.

IH: They got close with 4, though. It seemed like it was almost going to happen before they changed direction.

KD: But also I feel like it was time. Sometimes they want to push things for money reasons or whatever, and I think it just didn't come together the way they probably wanted or envisioned. I like Andrew Garfield so much as an actor, and Emma Stone, so I think they'll be great in the new version.

IH: Will you check it out, out of curiosity?

KD: Of course I'm going to see the movie! 

IH: Can you talk about working with Frank Langella? He seems like he would be an overwhelming, larger-than-life figure.

KD: He's funny. I didn't really have too many scenes with him, but he's very old-school. I didn't really talk to him too much because I had literally one scene with him. One scene in Vermont...oh, actually we had the dinner scene, but I think because of the role he was playing in my character's life, you kind of psychologically back off from certain people, and because I don't think my character really liked him, I was always kind of put off, not my style of person. I never really talked to him at length or anything.

IH: Having grown up and working in the business, what do you like about it now, as opposed to when you were a kid?

KD: I think the way I work has changed. My style of working, what I do before I do a film, and just being on a film set, I just feel so much more free and fearless than I ever have been, because there's film in the camera, or there's tape in the camera, whatever it is we're shooting on these days. I felt, especially after working with Lars too, a sense of anything goes, really. Of course you have to be in the right place emotionally. He would film the rehearsals, just film us walking around the room wherever we wanted, whatever we wanted to do, which can be scary for some people, but it was so exciting and just opened up a whole new way of the way things could work.

IH: You grew up in Studio City, right?

KD: I grew up in New Jersey and also Toluca Lake. I went to high school in the Valley--Sherman Oaks.

IH: Did you have any favorite hangout spots?

KD: I still live at my mom's right now. I don't have a house in LA anymore. I live in New York. My favorite Valley spots are...Hugo's Tacos...just thinking of food spots... Artisan Cheese Gallery. Oh, it's so good there, though.

IH: Did you do some cosplay in Tokyo with a blue wig? What was that about, and how did that experience come up?

KD: The Murakami thing? They just called me out of the blue and were like, "Do you want to do this thing with Murakami?" and I was like, "Sure, why not? I'll be a part of art." It was scary doing that, though. It was freaky running around in that costume all through Tokyo.