Kirsten Dunst
Dunst at the Spider-Man 3 premiere in New York, 2007
Born	Kirsten Caroline Dunst April 30, 1982 (1982-04-30) (age 26) Point Pleasant, New Jersey, United States
Years active	1989-present
Awards won Other awards Saturn Award for Best Younger Actor 1994 Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles BSFC Award for Best Supporting Actress 1994 Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles ; Little Women Empire Award for Best Actress 2002 Spider-Man

Kirsten Caroline Dunst¹ (born April 30, 1982) is an American actress and singer. She made her film debut in Oedipus Wrecks, a short directed by Woody Allen for the anthology film New York Stories. She appeared in the 1994 film Little Women opposite Winona Ryder and Claire Danes. That same year, Dunst starred in her breakthrough role in Interview with the Vampire, in which she portrayed vampire Claudia, a surrogate daughter to Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's characters in the film. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance.

Dunst became well known when she was cast as Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man films. Since then, she has starred in Sofia Coppola's 2006 film, Marie Antoinette, in which she plays the title character. Dunst appeared in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, and will next star in All Good Things, and Sweet Relief.

Dunst made her singing debut in the 2001 film Get Over It, in which she performed two songs. In The Cat's Meow, she sung Henry Creamer and Turner Layton's song "After You've Gone" to the end credits of the film. In 2008, Dunst admitted that she was battling with depression and checked herself into rehab. She discharged herself in March 2008, to resume filming in All Good Things. In her personal life, Dunst has dated playwright Jeff Smeenge, actor Jake Gyllenhaal and Razorlight frontman Johnny Borrell.

Biography

Early life

Kirsten Dunst was born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, the daughter of Inez and Klaus Dunst, who are divorced. She has a younger brother, Christian.² Her father, a German medical services executive from Hamburg, initially remained in New Jersey but now lives in Los Angeles, California.² Her mother, a Swedish former art gallery owner,³ also moved to California. Dunst attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California and then attended the Ranney School in New Jersey, before leaving to pursue acting.² She is a Lutheran.⁴

Career

Dunst began her career as a child fashion model at the age of three in television commercials.³ She was signed with Ford Models and Elite Model Management.³ In 1989, Dunst made her film debut in Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks, a short film that was released as one-third of the anthology film New York Stories.³ Soon after, she landed a small part in The Bonfire of the Vanities as Tom Hanks' daughter.³ In 1993, Dunst played Hedril in "Dark Page", the seventh season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.⁵ At the age of fifteen, Dunst was the voice of Kiki in the 1997 anime movie Kiki's Delivery Service.⁶ She also had a recurring role as a child prostitute, Charlie Chiemingo, on ER.²

Dunst during the 2005 Toronto Film Festival

Dunst portrayed young Amy March in the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women.³ The film received widespread praise; critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film was the greatest adaptation of the novel, and also remarked on Dunst's performance: "The perfect contrast to take-charge Jo comes from Kirsten Dunst's scene-stealing Amy, whose vanity and twinkling mischief make so much more sense coming from an 11-year-old vixen than they did from grown-up Joan Bennett in 1933. Ms. Dunst, also scarily effective as the baby bloodsucker of "Interview With the Vampire," is a little vamp with a big future."⁷ She made her feature film breakthrough in Interview with the Vampire, a 1994 film based on Anne Rice's novel, in which she played the child vampire Claudia.⁸ In the Chicago Sun-Times review of the film, critic Roger Ebert wrote: "One of the creepier aspects of the story is the creation of the child vampire, Claudia, played by Kirsten Dunst, who is about 12 years old. The character was six in the novel, but even twice as old she is disturbing, trapped in her child's body as she ages, decade after decade. Dunst, perhaps with the help of Stan Winston's subtle makeup, is somehow able to convey the notion of great age inside apparent youth."⁹ Todd McCarthy in Variety remarks that: "Dunst is just right in the difficult part of the child vampire."¹⁰ The film featured a scene in which Dunst, then aged eleven, received her first kiss from Brad Pitt, who was twenty-nine.¹¹ Her performance earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination,¹² the MTV Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and the Saturn Award for Best Young Actress.²¹³ She also starred alongside Robin Williams in Jumanji in 1995.¹⁴ That same year, she was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People,³ which she repeated in 2002.

In 1997, she was the voice of Young Anastasia in Anastasia.¹⁵ Dunst was also offered the role of Angela in the 1999 Academy Award-winning film American Beauty, but turned it down because she did not want to appear in the film's suggestive sexual scenes or kiss co-star Kevin Spacey.¹⁶ The same year, she had the role of troubled adolescent Lux Lisbon in Sofia Coppola's independent film The Virgin Suicides.¹⁷

In 2000, she played the captain of a cheerleading squad in Bring It On.¹⁸ She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man film series based on Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's comic book, alongside Tobey Maguire.¹⁹ She portrayed the neighbor and romantic interest of the mild-mannered superhero in the first film.²⁰ She was generally well-received in the role,²¹²² and had a now-famous and often-parodied scene in which she kisses the hero while he hangs upside-down from his web.³²³ The success of the first film led her to reprise the role in two sequels, Spider-Man 2 in 2004 and Spider-Man 3 in 2007.²⁴²⁵ Dunst initially signed on to appear in three Spider-Man films, and has said that she would not appear in a fourth film unless director Sam Raimi returned to direct.²⁶

Dunst at San Diego Comic-Con International in 2006

At the 2002 Mar de Plata Film Festival, Dunst won the Best Actress Silver Ombú for her performance as silent film actress Marion Davies in Peter Bogdanovich's The Cat's Meow.²⁷ In 2004, Dunst starred in the critically acclaimed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.²⁸²⁹ She was ranked at #59 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars.³⁰

At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Marie Antoinette premiered.³¹ It was released in North America on October 20, 2006.³² In the film, her second with director Sofia Coppola, Dunst plays the title character and uses an American accent in the role.³³ Dunst was next seen in the film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, co-starring Simon Pegg³⁴ and released in October 2008.³⁴ She will portray peace activist Marla Ruzicka in Sweet Relief scripted by Lorene Scafaria for Warner Independent Pictures in 2009.³⁵³⁶ She is rumored to play the role of Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry in director Michel Gondry's upcoming biopic about the band.³⁷ Dunst also expressed interest in playing Jean Seberg in an upcoming biopic.³⁸

Music

Dunst made her singing debut in the 2001 film Get Over It, performing two songs written by Marc Shaiman.³⁹ She also lent her voice to the end credits of The Cat's Meow, singing Henry Creamer and Turner Layton's jazz standard "After You've Gone".⁴⁰ In Spider-Man 3, she sings two songs as part of her role as Mary Jane Watson, one during a Broadway performance, and one as a singing waitress in a jazz club.⁴¹ She also appeared in the music video for Savage Garden's "I Knew I Loved You".⁴² Dunst also sang two tracks, "This Old Machine" and "Summer Day", on Jason Schwartzman's solo album, Coconut Records.⁴³

Personal life

In an article for Premiere, Sam Raimi confirmed the long-standing rumor that Dunst and her Spider-Man co-star Tobey Maguire had "a thing" going on during the 2001 shooting of the first film. As Raimi explained for the article, "I'm so dumb, because I met with them for dinner one night during the shooting to talk about the next day's scenes. And I go, 'Okay, well, that's it for the meeting.' And then I ask Kirsten, 'Can I drive you home?' And they look at each other and she goes, 'No, no, I'm going to play a game of Touch 10 with Tobey.' I don't know, it was some game. I thought, 'That's weird. She's got to work tomorrow.'"⁴⁴

After briefly dating her longtime friend, playwright Jeff Smeenge, she started dating actor Jake Gyllenhaal in September 2002, after meeting him through his sister, Maggie her Mona Lisa Smile co-star.⁴⁵ However, they broke up in July 2004.⁴⁶⁴⁷ In March 2007, she dated frontman Johnny Borrell of Razorlight.⁴⁸ However, they broke up in the fall of 2007.⁴⁵

Dunst was featured on Richard Blackwell's famous Best Dressed List for 2005.⁴⁹

Dunst confirmed that she was treated for depression early in 2008.⁵⁰ She sought treatment at the Cirque Lodge treatment center in Utah.⁴⁵⁵⁰ She explained that she had been feeling "low" in the six months prior to her going to rehab.⁵⁰ In late March, she checked out from the treatment center and began filming All Good Things. In May, she went public with this information to "highlight the struggle faced by so many other successful women" and to dispel false rumors that had "been very painful for my friends and family".⁵¹⁵²

Filmography

References

Further reading

• Hill, Anne E. Kirsten Dunst. Lucent Books, 2005. ISBN 1590187156
• Hurst, Brandon. Kirsten Dunst. A-Jot, 2007. ISBN 1905904495

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kirsten Dunst

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Kirsten Dunst

• Kirsten Dunst at the Internet Movie Database
• Kirsten Dunst at Yahoo! Movies
• Kirsten Dunst at People.com