Kirsten Dunst opens up about ageism in Hollywood and why she hasn't been working as much lately.
In a cover story for Marie Claire as part of her Makers 2024 issue, the Oscar-nominated actress explained that after her role in the 2021 film The power of the dogshe was only offered one type of role: “the sad mother”.
So, instead of taking on a project, Dunst stepped away from his acting career for two years after the Film by Jane Campion because she wasn't being offered the meaty roles she wanted, that she could get lost in and that were worth her time.
“To be honest, it's been difficult for me… because I need to feed myself,” she told the newspaper after being out of work for two years. “The hardest thing is being a mom and… not feeling like I have nothing going for me. This is the case for all mothers, not just me. She added: “There are definitely fewer good roles for women my age.”
She was eventually approached to star in Alex Garland Civil war, and she said yes. She told the publication that she had never seen a script like Garland's and was eager to do something new.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Dunst also opened up about how she's often attracted to female directors, sharing that she saw the “power in women” at a very young age, which she said helped her not have craved male attention during her decades-long career.
“I feel like I'm hired because I'm someone that (male directors) might want to sleep with,” the Marie Antoinette said the star. “I think that’s probably why I migrated to so many female directors at a younger age, because I didn’t want to feel that way.”
Dunst's acting career began when she was 6 with an uncredited role in New York Stories. She was already relatively famous when she played Mary Jane Watson in the 2002 film. Spider Manwhich propelled her to stardom.
Although she hasn't done any other work in superhero films since Sam Raimi's trilogy, she would be willing to do one again, noting, “You get paid a lot of money, I have two kids and I support my mother.”
Civil war will be released in theaters on April 12.