Kirsten Dunst Says She Once Had A Controlling Boyfriend
Kirsten Dunst did an interview with the Independent to promote her latest film, The Power of the Dog, which co-stars her in-real-life husband, Jesse Plemons, and Benedict Cumberbatch. This is the movie Benedict went method for and gave himself nicotine poisoning three times. His character is an old-timey asshole who bullies Kirsten’s character, and in her interview, Kiki discussed her own insecurities and not standing up for herself when she was younger. She mentions that she once had a “controlling boyfriend.” Is she talking about Jake Gyllenhaal? Is this the week all his exes agreed to take him down? First Taylor Swift, now Kiki… who’s next? Reese Witherspoon? Minka Kelly? Frank the Rabbit from Donnie Darko?
39-year-old Kirsten says, via the Independent:
When she was younger, “I never stood up for myself or said anything back. Even just saying no and knowing your worth, that’s such a big deal.” She corrects herself. “It’s not that big of a deal. Guys have been doing it forever.”
Were those old insecurities made worse by being an actor in the public eye? “I don’t think it’s an actor thing…” She thinks for a moment. “I definitely had a controlling boyfriend at one time. But it’s also like, when you’re a little girl, and you’re talking to all these older men, and doing press, it’s a weird dynamic.”
Then the interviewer brings up her 1995 interview with David Letterman, in which he grilled Kirsten about kissing a much older Brad Pitt in Interview with a Vampire:
I mention an old interview I dug up on YouTube, with an uncomfortably tactile David Letterman. She is 13, and he is probing her about her on-screen kiss with Brad Pitt, when she was 10 and Pitt was nearly 30. “Was this the first time you’d kissed a boy in a film? Was it odd?” he asked her. “I forgot about that interview,” says Dunst now. “Yeah, that’s weird. Why was that OK?”
Here’s that clip:
Kirsten also talks about the pay disparity between her and Tobey Maguire in the Spider-Man movies, feeling underrated as an actress, and how a Spider-Man producer tried to get her to fix her vampire teefies by secretly driving her to a dentist (like a dog to the vet):
Kirsten Dunst was 19 when a Spider-Man producer took her to get her teeth fixed. She didn’t know that was the plan – not until the car pulled up at the dentist’s office. Poised on the brink of stardom, preparing to play Peter Parker’s winsome love interest Mary Jane in the $130m comic-book adaptation, Dunst had everything producers were looking for: talent, youth, beauty. But wouldn’t that upside-down kiss look better with straight teeth? She didn’t get out of the car. “I was like, ‘Mmmmm, no, I like my teeth,’” says the 39-year-old now, her unaltered incisors crunching into a raw carrot. “Also, Sofia loved my teeth.”
She says she might have gotten her teeth fixed had she not just been directed by Sofia Coppola in The Virgin Suicides:
“The fact that the coolest girl liked how I looked, that’s what preserved me,” says Dunst now. “She made me feel pretty. As a 16-year-old girl, you feel like crap about yourself, right? So to have my first experience of a more ‘sexy’ role be through her eyes gave me a confidence that helped me deal with a lot of other things.” Had it been a male director complimenting her looks… “Totally different!” she interjects. “You’d be like, ‘Ew, don’t say that, I’m 16.’”
She adds that her mom, who’s “a really good mom,” may have gone along with the producer’s teeth plan cuz she’d be like, “Yeah, why not have straight teeth?”:
Dunst’s mum recently conceded to her daughter that she was “too vain” when she was younger. “I just remember her wanting to get a face lift or a boob job, those kinds of things. It never looked good. That kind of vanity… you’ve got to be really careful with that stuff.” She laughs. “It made me reject it more, I guess.” So on the poster for Spider-Man, Mary Jane’s teeth were magically straightened, and Dunst’s “snaggle fangs” lived to see another day.
But back to the controlling boyfriend. Who are our other celebrity suspects? Kiki’s exes include Adam Brody, Josh Hartnett, Tobey Maguire, Fabrizio Moretti, and Garrett Hedlund. Hmmm… my gut says, Hartnett. I feel like he would take himself way too seriously and get super pissy when things don’t go his way: “Hollywood Homicide shoulda been a HIT!!!” *throws Teen Choice Award against wall*
Pic: Wenn.com