Millennial Icon Kirsten Dunst To Hollywood: It’s “Very Simple” To Work With Female Directors

It’s almost entirely impossible to imagine late ‘90s and early 2000s cinema without Kirsten Dunst. This is, after all, the actress who gave us Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides, Bring It On, Wimbledon, Mona Lisa Smile and the high-school set Shakespeare adaptation, Get Over It.  Dunst’s thumbprints are all over many millennials' most formative pop culture experiences so there’s no doubt she’s a millennials icon — but someone needs to tell her kids that. “I'll take it. I'll take it,” Dunst says of the moniker, “because at home I am not.” And while she may not be receiving the flowers she deserves from her two young children just yet, that doesn’t mean that the title — or love for her work — goes unnoticed. “It feels like, okay, we did some movies that are keeping on going, you know,” Dunst tells Refinery29. “It's amazing when younger people [say], I love Marie Antoinette, or The Virgin Suicides. It feels good that certain movies you've done are being re-watched and continue the test of time is  incredible.”

Dunst caught up with Refinery29 while walking the carpet at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival for her latest film Roofman, alongside co-star Channing Tatum. The movie, which had its world premiere at the festival and is set to be released in theatres on October 10, follows the real-life story of Jeffrey Manchester (played by Tatum), a former US military veteran who was incarcerated for robbing a 45 McDonald’s in the mid-2000s. Now on the run after escaping from prison, Manchester holes up in a local Toys R’ Us for several months. Dunst plays Leigh, his blissfully unaware love interest and one of the store’s employees. The movie is already receiving praise for its “considerable star charm,” powered by the believable chemistry between Dunst and Tatum, who play two 40-something single parents trying to navigate the complexities of life and love amidst real-life pressures (with, you know, some added criminality on the side). 

“I was so intimidated to work with [Dunst]. I really was,” Channing Tatum tells Refinery29. “She's such a beast of an actress and she's been doing it for so long.” The Roofman star, who says he has imposter syndrome and feels like a “radio winner” on his jobs, had nothing to worry about. “She is just the most warm and nurturing and just salt of the earth [person],” Tatum says. “I don't know how she has been in this industry for this long and stayed as real as she is. As far as an actress goes, I will always bow to her. She's effortless when she does it.”

Part of what makes Dunst such a force is, of course, her filmography and the roles she chooses (who else could give us the OG Mary Jane Watson and Regan Crawford, the maid of honor from hell in 2012’s Bachelorette), but also who she chooses to partner with behind the camera While Roofman is directed by Derek Cianfrance, it’s almost out of the ordinary for Dunst, in an industry that still favours propping up white men, to work with one. The actress has become known for her partnership with director Sofia Coppola stemming all the way back to her 1999 film The Virgin Suicides, and has gone on to work with the famous director on other cult fave projects including Marie Antoinette and 2017’s The Beguiled.

Dunst has also made it a point to work with other female directors including Bachelorette director Leslye Headland and Little Women director Gillian Armstrong, seeking them out. During a 2016 appearance in The Hollywood Reporter’s Emmy Actresses roundtable, Dunst’s admission of this seemed out of the norm among many of her peers; but almost a decade later, she continues to stand in the same sentiment. 

“I think that you just have to give people a chance and give people the opportunity,” Dunst tells Refinery29 when asked what she would tell anyone in Hollywood who still says it’s too hard to work with women directors. “It's very simple.”

Like we said: Truly icon behavior.