Last August, Kirsten Dunst’s past comments about her uncomfortable kiss with Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire resurfaced online.
Kirsten was just 11 when she starred as Claudia in the 1994 Neil Jordan movie, alongside Brad Pitt, who played Louis de Pointe du Lac, and Tom Cruise, who portrayed Lestat de Lioncourt. Both Brad and Tom were in their early 30s when the gothic horror was filmed.
At one point in the film, Claudia kisses Louis on the lips — something that has been deemed wildly controversial over the years, given the stark age difference between then-31-year-old Brad and 11-year-old Kirsten.
Ever since the movie was released, Kirsten has repeatedly maintained that she found it “weird” kissing Brad.
Shortly after filming had wrapped in 1994, Kirsten candidly said that she “hated” the kiss and found it “gross.” She told Entertainment Tonight, “I hated [the kiss] so much because Brad was like my older brother on set and it's kind of like kissing your brother. It's weird because he's an older guy and I had to kiss him on the lips, so it was gross.”
A few years later, she once again noted that she was “so uncomfortable” while kissing Brad. “Kissing Brad was so uncomfortable for me. I remember saying in interviews that I thought it was gross, that Brad had cooties. I mean, I was 10,” she told Interview magazine.
More recently, in 2021, Kirsten said that kissing Brad was one of the “worst” things she had to do in the film. “I was a little girl and he was like a brother to me and it was very weird even though it was a peck. I was very not into it,” she said.
While Kirsten has clarified her thoughts on the controversial kiss, she has also maintained that she felt comfortable on set and was treated “like a princess.”
And now, Kirsten has looked back on her experience shooting Interview with the Vampire again in a new interview.
Sitting down with British GQ this week, Kirsten recalled how her acting coach taught her to make “sexy” facial expressions without being “inappropriate.”
“I worked very hard with my acting coach, and he would give me tools to make things look like maybe I had a sexy look on my face,” she said.
“He would say, ‘Pretend your brother’s looking for his toy and you know where it is, but you’re not gonna tell him.’ And that immediately gives someone a mischievous look without having to deal with any of the inappropriate things for that age,” she explained.
Kirsten went on to note that she felt “very protected on set.”
“I felt like Brad’s little sister, and Tom made me feel like a princess. At Christmas time, he put this gorgeous tree in my dressing room. They just spoiled me in a really sweet way,” she said.
