Kirsten Dunst Talks ‘Civil War’ and Refusing to Let Fear Into the Equation

For someone who’s about to release a cautionary tale about the current state of America, Civil War star Kirsten Dunst is remarkably unfazed. 

Alex Garland’s critically acclaimed action-thriller explores a near future in which our own present-day sound bites involving civil war and secession actually came to pass, and now rebel forces are inching toward commandeering the White House from its dictatorial president (Nick Offerman). Dunst plays Lee Smith, a seasoned and tenacious war photographer who reluctantly becomes a mentor to Cailee Spaeny’s aspiring photographer, Jessie Cullen. The duo are joined by Reuters and The New York Times reporters, Joel (Wagner Moura) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), as the quartet journey from New York City to Washington, D.C., in order to document the armed factions’ descent on the Oval Office.

You often hear actors say that they know they should accept a role when it scares them in one way or another, but Dunst is not someone who finds fear to be an effective motivator, even if her role seems frightening within Civil War’s politically charged context.

“I am the total opposite. I am not afraid. The last place I would work from is fear,” Dunst tells The Hollywood Reporter.

The A24 film, which also serves as the indie studio’s priciest pic to date at $50 million, is ultimately an anti-war movie, and Dunst is also not worried that certain partisan viewers will misconstrue the film as a call to arms.

“I think that democracy is taken for granted, and that’s dangerous, but I didn’t think that [this was our future] when I was making the film,” Dunst says. “[Civil War] will start a lot of conversations. The media is making this polarization and feeding it, but this movie really shows you: ‘Don’t do this.’ It’s really about treating each other like human beings.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Dunst also discusses how her husband, Jesse Plemons, ended up in the film at the last minute, before addressing whether the Jumanji franchise has ever asked her to reprise the role of Judy Shepherd, her beloved character from the original 1995 film.

Actors tell me all the time that they strive to accept roles that scare them, so were you afraid of this part to some degree?

I am the total opposite. I am not afraid. The last place I would work from is fear. It feels like freedom to play somebody like this, and to me, it ends up being a cathartic experience. So I don’t operate from a place of fear at all; that would close me up as an actor.

Lee Smith is a no-nonsense combat photographer who will do whatever it takes to capture her subject. You’ve probably seen a version of this mindset on movie sets, but what did you figure out about the psychology of someone who will risk life and limb to get the shot or the photo?

I was most influenced by the documentary Under The Wire (2018), the Marie Colvin documentary. When I saw that, I was like, “This is what these journalists are, and this is what I want Lee to be like,” which is not about herself in any way. She’s there to report in the most authentic and fearless way, [and communicate], “This is what we do.”

As I was watching this film, I genuinely asked myself if I was watching a sneak preview of our own future. Did you ever ponder that question during filming? 

I did not. I think that democracy is taken for granted, and that’s dangerous, but I didn’t think that [this was our future] when I was making the film. I thought about the fact that this goes on everywhere in the world, as no one is immune to war. And when I read the script, there were enough things that felt altered, even though the film is so immersive and feels very real because of the way it was shot. So that would have also made me work from a place of fear, if I was afraid to show these things about our country.

There are people in this country who claim to want a civil war. They’ve even put the phrase on T-shirts. So I do wonder if some people will misinterpret this anti-war movie as some sort of rallying cry. You really don’t have any anxiety about it?

I think that [Civil War] will start a lot of conversations. The media is making this polarization and feeding it, but this movie really shows you: “Don’t do this.” So I think that it will make people want to talk to each other and have conversations, and to me, it’s really about treating each other like human beings. The film has a lot of humanity and a lot of hope as well.

During your downtime, you functioned as Cailee Spaeny’s agent. Was there one particular day that impressed you so much that you just had to speed dial Sofia Coppola?

(Laughs.) Well, I knew that Sofia had met Cailee [for Priscilla], and Cailee and I talked about that. So I said to her, “I’m going to text Sofia.” It was the [combination] of just starting to work with her and meeting her, and then doing that scene in the [hotel] lobby together felt really effortless and wonderful. There was an energy to working together that I knew that Sofia would really love in Cailee.

I loved the way you played the green dress scene because you offered a glimmer of who Lee used to be at one point. You probably didn’t want to overplay that scene to where it’s Extreme Makeover or something, but did it take a minute to calibrate just how much light or spark to show in her eyes?

(Laughs.) I had my way of playing it, but I didn’t think that technically about my own eyes. I probably had something that I was thinking about, or a note from my script, but I don’t remember or I would tell you. But Come and See (1985) was a big influence for us, and we watched it before we filmed the movie. It shows this young innocent boy and what the horrors of war do to him. It’s a Criterion Collection Russian film. And the girl in the beginning of the film is wearing this green dress, so I asked the costume designer [Meghan Kasperlik] if we could make a green dress as an ode to that film that we all watched together.

The photos that made it into the movie belonged to the still photographer, but assuming you and Cailee had working cameras, did you still compare your developed photos?

I used a digital camera with a Leica lens so I could pull my own focus. I wanted to do something. I didn’t want it to be automatic focus; it’s not as cinematic. But, yeah, we would look at our photos, and I saw some of [Cailee’s photos] developed. So we actually took photos, and she actually had film in her camera during the whole movie.

Lee deletes a very powerful photo at a certain point. Was that a personal line she just couldn’t cross? 

Alex and I did a lot of different versions of that scene: I was crying, I didn’t delete it, I deleted it. There were so many versions, and that’s the one he chose. And, to me, [that photo] is so burned into her mind that she doesn’t need it on her camera.

Lee has a panic attack during the third act war zone. Did the sounds on the day do a lot of the work for you?

The last two weeks of filming were very intense. The sound [on the day] was similar to the film because Alex chose to use full rounds of blanks instead of halves or quarters, which are usually used on a film. He wanted it to feel as immersive as possible in the way that he portrayed it. So it was very, very loud for two weeks, and it definitely got into our bodies.

If Lee Smith was able to enjoy this movie as an audience member, I think she’d be beaming with pride over how the final sequence unfolded. The mission was the priority. Do you agree or disagree?

I haven’t spoken to any war journalists about the film, so I’m very curious what their point of view will be on the way that we performed the film as a group. So, yeah, I just hope that … As soon as I got the role, I was like, “Give me the camera Lee works with,” and I never took the camera off. I just wanted to look like my camera was part of me. In a way, [Civil War] is a love letter to war journalists, so I would just hope that they felt like we did them right. Alex Garland also grew up with war journalists. His father [Nicholas Garland] is a political cartoonist for a newspaper, so that really was his way into writing this film.

Did Alex see Jesse Plemons loitering near your trailer one day and say, “Hey, you. Get in makeup”? 

(Laughs.) During our rehearsal, the actor that was supposed to play that role fell out. And after Alex got off the phone, I was like, “Jesse’s here.” So they talked about it, and [Jesse] did us a favor, because — even though it’s a very impactful and difficult role to play — who really wants to play that role?

I love movies that leave you with an equation to solve, and Power of the Dog did that in such an impactful way. I can still feel the tension of your famously uncomfortable piano scenes. Between you practicing piano and Jesse practicing his El Camino song, “Sharing the Night Together,” whose practice rounds took up more oxygen in your household? 

For sure, my piano. I hadn’t played piano since I was little, and that doesn’t really count. So I just played over and over and over again, and I learned another piece, too. So that definitely [took up more oxygen]. But Jesse has done things that have taken over as well. One was something he never did, but it was something he worked really hard on. So it depends on what you’re playing or the craft. It’s like me with the camera; I suddenly took pictures of everyone all the time.

I wrote this before the hubbub over a recent interview, but I worship at the altar of Midnight Special. Was that the movie that helped open the floodgates of “sad moms,” as you put it?

With every last film you do, you get a lot of scripts that reflect what you’ve just done. So, after Melancholia, I was getting a lot of more depressing roles, and then I did Bachelorette instead. And then, after Power of the Dog … So it just happens that way, and that’s why I did this movie.

I know you’re anxiously waiting for me to ask about MJ, but I’d rather ask about Judy Shepherd. Have the producers of the new Jumanji movies ever approached you about a cameo at the very least? 

They have not!

Their loss!

(Laughs.) My son likes to watch Jumanji [1995]. Well, not as much anymore, but he used to. He’s over it.

I do have some MJ-related trivia for you, though. It’s been making its way around the internet this week. You (as MJ), Emma Stone (as Gwen Stacy) and Zendaya (as MJ) have all played characters who dated Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and then all of you went on to play tennis players as well. How’s that for a Venn diagram? 

That’s very fun. I’ve never thought about that, but I love it. I don’t even know what to say, but it’s kind of cute.

I’m a very messy toothbrusher, and so the famous scene in Bring It On always perplexed me because Torrance and Cliff were both such neat and tidy toothbrushers. Was any part of your real-life toothbrushing style on display there?

No, not at all! They clearly had a crush on each other, and brushing your teeth in front of someone is very intimate. So that was reflected in how we brushed our teeth. It was a conversation rather than actual teeth brushing. It was a tension and a chemistry of two people who like each other, doing something really intimate together. So it was a little more performative in the brushing.

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Civil War opens exclusively in movie theaters April 12.