HOLLYWOOD, June 27, 2001 — Kirsten Dunst is a little weary. After wrapping up her dark, rebellious turn in the upcoming film crazy/beautiful, she set off for Berlin to shoot The Cat’s Meow for director Peter Bogdanovich. Then she landed the highly coveted role of Mary Jane Watson, girlfriend of Tobey Maguire‘s Peter Parker in Spider-Man. Five months of highly technical filming commenced, and when it was over Dunst relaxed by … hosting the MTV Movie Awards.
Why? To reach adulthood in eyes of Hollywood, something the 19-year-old has been focused about doing. While her fellow twentysomething actors continue vying for high school parts and WB roles, Dunst is going as far as to say that crazy/beautiful is her last teen-oriented film. Her very last.
And it’s hardly your typical happy-go-lucky teen flick at that. As the troubled, neglected daughter of a congressman (Bruce Davison), Dunst’s Nicole focuses her life on booze and skipping classes. When she meets the poor, studious Carlos (newcomer Jay Hernandez), the opposites begin a romance that rocks both their lives and those around them.
Dunst calls her role a “contradiction” to the peppy cheerleader she played in last summer’s highly successful Bring It On.
“I just wanted a younger person’s movie that wasn’t such a cheesy romance, [but] more realistic. A role where I could be a slob and a mess, which I’m surprised the studio even let me do,” Dunst says. “It’s funny the stuff we even got away with. They cut a lot out.”
One thing that wasn’t cut, however, is Dunst’s rumored first nude scene … And that’s because the actress says it was never filmed.
“It was in the script, but I would never do that and they knew that,” she says emphatically. “I don’t feel comfortable with that, and I have younger people watching my films and I wanna be a good role model. And I don’t think it’s necessary either. It’s tasteless for a girl my age to be doing that in a film.”
But she does admit that a little sex appeal is OK, especially if it breaks down the button-cute image she acquired during her child-star days with films like Interview with the Vampire, Little Women and Jumanji. The transition, she says, was marked by her decision to do a sexy cover for Maxim magazine.
“It’s something that I thought was a career choice and it helped with Bring It On, I think. But that’s in my past now so I won’t be doing any more with those,” she says. “I did that, I’m done with that. It helped show me in, like, ‘Kirsten’s grown up.'”
Now crazy / beautiful is the last nail in the coffin for the teen-film phase of her career.
“I’m done, that’s it,” Dunst says. “I feel like all the things I’ve done are important to get to this adult stage now, and now I’m getting all these adult offers so it’s working.”
“But,” she sighs, “Spider-Man will come out and I’ll be the Girl Next Door … and I’ll have to contradict that.”
crazy / beautiful opens June 29.
