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June 2004
Spiderman 2 : An Interview with Kirsten Dunst

By Wilson Morales

Spiderman 2 : An Interview with Kirsten Dunst

Not only is she one of the few child stars to make a successful transition into mature films, but she's also levelheaded when it comes to the media. Having been in major films already, doing both Spiderman films has put the pressure on Kirsten Dunst, but when her current boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal almost replaced Tobey Maguire, it was must have brought up some tension she didn't think she would encounter. In speaking with blackfilm.com about her role as Mary Jane Watson in "Spiderman 2", Kirsten talked about the romance between her and Spiderman as well as her upcoming projects.


WHEN YOU WERE READING THE SCRIPT DID YOU EVER WORRY AS YOU GOT TO A CERTAIN POINT THAT THEY WERE WRITING YOU OUT?

DUNST: Why do you say that? I'm not in the movie enough?


WELL BECAUSE IT'S MADE TO LOOK LIKE YOU'RE GONNA GET MARRIED AND GO OFF AT THAT ONE POINT.

DUNST: That's just to keep the drama going.


SO YOU NEVER WERE WORRIED.

DUNST: Yeah. Well, I'm contracted and they don't want to lose their only girl. They're not stupid.


HOW DO YOU THINK YOU'VE CHANGED AND HOW DO YOU THINK MARY JANE HAS CHANGED SINCE THE FIRST MOVIE?

DUNST: Well it's been two years since the last movie so, of course, anybody who goes from you know eighteen to twenty-two you change a lot. So, you know I've grown up, of course Mary Jane has grown up and I think that's reflective in the movie and you see that she's kind of very much more mature than Peter. He's kind of stayed I think kind of juvenile because of his, you know, he doesn't really have any social life so the last movie he kind of was the decision maker in that we can only be friends and this movie she decides for them which I'm really happy about. She's kind of the one pushing him to do things and it's usually the man in movies that often pushes the woman to like, you know, I love you. Come on; You know like, even in I remember seeing the first "Shrek" and even in that movie the ogre has to convince her that she loves him, you know? So it's like, I was really happy that it was you know, I just talked a lot with Sam about writing her to be a very strong, independent woman. You know she's moved to New York so she's changed a lot like New York does.


DID THE SUCCESS OF THE FIRST MOVIE IMPACT ON YOU DRAMATICALLY?

DUNST: Not personally. I mean now I'm known worldwide I guess so I can finance movies. On a money production, you know when you think of it that way it's changed a lot for me. You know now it's not a question whether or not I can get whatever people to come see a movie that I'm in so that all helped me and I get paid more now too.


YOU WERE ALREADY KIND OF THE MOST WELL KNOWN CAST MEMBER OF THE FIRST ONE.

DUNST: No I wasn't! Willem Dafoe?


OUT OF THE TWO (YOU AND TOBEY), AS CAST MEMBERS UNDER FORTY. YOU WERE ALREADY FAIRLY WELL KNOWN, PERSONALLY AS FAR AS RECOGNITION HAS IT CHANGED THAT MUCH SINCE YOU DID THE HUGE BLOCKBUSTER "SPIDERMAN"?

DUNST: I mean definitely. More people recognize me. I mean I still have the red wig so and you know I live in L.A. where everybody's too cool to come up to you usually anyway, they just talk; they talk about you behind your back and gossip about you in Los Angeles, but when I go to other places I realize that people know who I am because they're the ones who like want autographs, want to take pictures, but living in L.A. everybody's kind of used to it and usually they're just either talking about you behind your back more so than like admiring or being an innocent fan kind of.


WHAT KIND OF CONVERSATIONS DID YOU HAVE WITH JAKE WHEN IT LOOKED LIKE HE MIGHT STEP IN?

DUNST: That was really a complicated time, of course. And I'm just so thankful that Toby ended up doing the movie because he is Spiderman and it would have, you know I think it wouldn't have been good. I think Jake can do any movie cause I think he's one of the best young actors but, and he probably would have done an amazing job, but Toby is Spiderman and so I'm just happy that it all worked out and he could do the stunts and they worked it out.


WOULD IT BE WEIRD FOR YOU TO WORK WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND JAKE?

DUNST: Of course, yeah. It would have been weird. I mean I would like to work with him and I would, I'm happy it wasn't this because I would rather do a more intimate movie with him where I could actually have, like, many scenes with him and it's not, you know if we had done this we could never have done another movie together probably and I would rather do something else with him than this movie.


YOU HAVE A KISS IN 'SPIDER-MAN 2'; THAT WAS SUCH AN IMAGE IN THE FIRST ONE WHEN YOU KISSED AND HE WAS UPSIDE DOWN. DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN?

DUNST: Yeah, but I but we didn't put pressure on ourselves. Like that was the kiss and you know you guys all saw the movie so you know that she tries to recreate that somehow and I was so nervous doing that scene cause I didn't want her to come off like, I don't know, she's marrying this guy and she's trying, you know, I didn't want Mary Jane, I was afraid of how she would come off for doing that but when I saw the movie I thought it was okay. But you know you can't top that kiss and we didn't try and we have other things that are topped in this one so I think that if we try to outdo that kiss we're just setting ourselves up for a disaster anyway.


HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WHERE YOU WANT MARY JANE AND PETER'S RELATIONSHIP TO GO IN THE THIRD MOVIE?

DUNST: Well I can't give away the movie so I mean I hope that they, cause you guys have seen it but I guess when you're writing about it, will come out before the movie right?


EXACTLY.

DUNST: So I hope that one day they'll be together.


DO YOU THINK IT WILL BECOME MORE COMPLICATED IN THE FUTURE?

DUNST: It'll be complicated because now you know, I mean if they do get together ,whatever. How am I supposed to talk about this? If they do get together it would be complicated because he's basically risking his life everyday and she's probably worried about him risking his life everyday and she's in danger and it adds tons of other layers of complications.


WHAT ABOUT THAT WHOLE IDEA OF GOING BACK TO A CHARACTER FOR YOU LIKE THE OLD FASHIONED SERIALS?

DUNST: It was nice. I feel like all my relationships develop so much more in this one. I just felt more comfortable. Sam and I just got to know each other better and I changed a lot from how I was in the first movie and how I approached my work and my relationships with them and it just grew and like I just felt it could be a more creative and open, he trusted me a lot and he knew my work and so it just made it for a very comfortable shoot where you know you could say anything and everybody knows you and you're, it just made it nice to go to work and know who's gonna be there.


WAS IT DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER JOB THEN THAT YOU'VE HAD?

DUNST: It's just the only difference is with "Spider-Man 2" you just wait around all day like five hours on set. The one big change on "Spider-Man 2" was that I got to have like my own hair and make-up person, my own person doing my wardrobe so I had much more perks in this one and so that was fun to have a little posse cause I've never had that before.


IS THREE ENOUGH FOR YOU? DO YOU THINK YOU'LL GO BEYOND "SPIDERMAN 3"?

DUNST: Three's enough. I think don't wear out a good thing too much.


SO THREE WILL BE IT?

DUNST: It will be it, yeah. It will be. I mean I'm only contracted through three and I don't see me signing on for a fourth and a fifth, you know.


WOULD YOU WANT TO SEE HER KILLED OFF OR WOULD IS SOMEBODY ELSE GOING TO TAKE OVER THE ROLE? THAT WOULD BE EVEN STRANGER.

DUNST: It would actually be really interesting if Spiderman died I think. Cause, rarely, why doesn't the superhero ever die? It would be so sad and beautiful.


THAT'S WHY THEY CALL THEM THE SUPERHERO THOUGH.

DUNST: But he's so human to and it think that if Mary Jane was like alone and pregnant and he dies, you know she could give birth to a Spiderbaby and carry on the series with another young boy or something like that. I doubt Toby would come back for a fourth or a fifth either.


SO ARE YOU SERIOUSLY WORRIED ABOUT THE CAST IF YOU STAYED ON?

DUNST: I just think three's a good number and I think Mary Jane is a huge important piece of this film. It's all about the love story but how many movies can you really make about it before people get bored; you know you want to stop it while it's still great. You don't want to keep going and then Sam wants to move on too. I mean his whole life has been this movie for so long now and you start to, you know, you gotta refresh and you can't do it too much I don't think.


HOW HARD IS IT TO CONCENTRATE ON THE HUMAN MOMENTS OF THE FILM? YOU KNOW WHEN YOU'RE DANGLING FROM A WIRE, YOU KNOW. ?

DUNST: It's so hard. I mean because it takes so long the hardest thing is just keeping up your energy and to be there and present and when you are so tired because you've just done nothing all day and then you know what is good is that Sam knows that the scenes are the most important thing and if they don't work then the whole movie doesn't work no matter how good the action scenes are and so we take all the time that we needed to get everything right and the dialogue and those scenes are the easiest for me, honestly. Those are the scenes that I like to do. It's the scenes where I have to look at this piece of tape and look at this thing blow up and then you know I get picked up and then I have to scream and my head has to turn this way. It's like all those little details and I don't like doing that kind of stuff so I would just try to nail it in one take or I'd always just try to nail any harness work right away because it's not fun for me. I don't like doing that stuff.


SPECIAL EFFECTS WORK?

DUNST: Well that was more physical than "Spiderman 2". Actually romantic comedies are the hardest to do. I mean it's just hard to not, like dig into it too much and realize sometimes what you're saying, don't try to over analyze and it's you know, if a scene doesn't work, I mean it's so much easier to make a dramatic since work I think. It's just hard to be in that momentum of love everyday, you know what I mean, when sometimes you're in a horrible mood. Some of the words are hard sometimes to say and I don't know. You'll see the movie. It's an adorable movie, it's great, it's just hard to like keep those romantic scenes fresh and feeling great and fun on take forty or whatever.


WHAT MOVIE IS THIS?

DUNST: "Wimbledon". It's hard to keep that, you know, just that freshness of flirting you know what I mean when you're on take twenty and it's a different person's close-up and you're like still delivering these lines that are cute and this and that and you know has to be sexy or whatever and it's just, you know it's hard to keep pumping those things out and feeling in the moment with what you're saying kind of.


KIRSTEN, IF YOU COULD HAVE ONE SUPERHERO POWER YOURSELF WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

DUNST: I knew I'd get these questions. Um, I mean with the state of our country right now I would maybe take our president out of office (laughs) and political superpower, I don't know, I would rearrange pretty much all the circumstances in the world right now if I had a superhero power.


JAKE HAD A BIG HIT WITH "THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW". "SPIDER-MAN 2" LOOKS LIKES IT'S GONNA BE ONE OF THE BIGGEST MOVIES OF THE SUMMER. HAVE YOU NOTICED A DIFFERENCE IN THE MEDIA WITH YOU TWO?

DUNST: Yeah, the paparazzi follow us everywhere in L.A. It's really sickening actually. In the grocery store and we don't do anything interesting either so it's really obnoxious. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT?

DUNST: You know if you get mad they just like it even more so I just ignore them. But we were at the dog park one day and we bought eggs and everybody at the dog park was throwing eggs at the paparazzi so that was our, you know, and it was Easter so it was perfect.


ARE YOU GUYS COMPETITIVE ABOUT WHO'S SUMMER MOVIE WILL BE BIGGER?

DUNST: Oh, God no. That would be not a very good relationship if we were competitive about that.


WHAT DID YOU THINK OF HIS LAYOUT IN GQ MAGAZINE?

DUNST: Um, I thought the cover was really cute. I didn't like the clothes they put him in though, I don't know. DO YOU OFFER EACH OTHER CAREER ADVICE?

DUNST: Yeah, of course.



THAT'S ONE ADVANTAGE OF BEING TOGETHER?

DUNST: Well, you know he's my best friend so of course I'm going to ask him his opinion about everything.


DO PEOPLE SAY YOU DON'T PLAN ON WORKING TOGETHER BECAUSE THE PUBLIC DOESN'T LIKE COUPLES?

DUNST: I think, you know even I was talking to Amy Pascal; she would do a movie with us together. Like certain people are, think it's ridiculous that it should even be questionable and certain people are against it and everybody has a different point of view on it and I think we probably could do a small movie together. I wouldn't be nervous about it. We're actors they treat us separately in the press. We're in like every magazine together basically right now because he has a movie coming out and I do and I think that's great that they wouldn't think twice about putting us together in a magazine because if we really were such a spectacle they'd be like, "Well we can't put Kirsten and Jake in the same magazine" so I don't think it's really a problem.


DO YOU PLAN ON CONTINUING TO ONLY DO BIG MOVIES?

DUNST: I haven't only done big movies. I mean I did "Eternal Sunshine" recently so I don't really look for a big or small movie, I just look for whatever story I want to tell.


IS "SPIDER-MAN 3" IMMEDIATELY NEXT?

DUNST: No. I'm doing this movie with Cameron Crowe next. Called "Elizabethtown."


HOW IS THAT GOING?

DUNST: It's going really great.


WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

DUNST: It's a hard movie to talk about what it's about because we just started and Cameron's very private and I just know that to respect him I'm not really gonna talk about it yet.


IS IT A DRAMA OR A COMEDY?

DUNST: Um, it's not a drama. It's not a romantic comedy.I don't know how to really say it but you know Cameron's movies. It's like "Say Anything", it's just like more about people and that's it.


DO YOU HAVE A PERSPECTIVE ON MARY JANE YET? CAUSE YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE AN OWNERSHIP OF THIS CHARACTER ON A DEEPER LEVEL.

DUNST: Um, I don't know. I just, when I read the first one I mean I just thought it was so emotional and there were like real scenes in it and you never find big movies that have that center to it still. And I thought it was like a very small film in a big film's bill and I just fell in love with "Spider-Man." I loved the love story was the most important thing and yeah, that's, yeah, I just really liked the material. I just loved it when I read it.

 

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