Kirsten Dunst’s Sweet Story About The Way Sofia Coppola Supported Her During Uncomfortable Kissing Scenes Age 16 Is Being Used To Highlight The Importance Of Women Directors

The star has always been incredibly vocal about her experience as a child actor, and just last year, an old interview with 12-year-old Kirsten resurfaced online.

In the clip, young Kirsten is speaking out against having to kiss her much older costar Brad Pitt in the movie Interview with the Vampire.

For those who don’t know, Kirsten played 10-year-old Claudia in the film, and Brad — who was 31 years old at the time — played a vampire called Louis de Pointe du Lac.

“Did you really hate kissing Brad Pitt?” the interviewer asked, to which Kirsten replied: “Yeah because, well, y’know what, I love Brad, he’s so nice… it was just, like, it feels awkward.”

“I mean I’m 12,” she added. “And he’s, like, 31, and it’s like, he’s a man. So why would I enjoy kissing him?”

And Kirsten doubled down on this in a 2021 interview with Vanity Fair, saying that kissing Brad and having to bite the neck of another actor on set who was heavily sweating were the two worst parts of making the movie. 

After describing the neck-biting scene, Kirsten added: “That was the worst thing I did and also having obviously to kiss Brad Pitt at that point. 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 told the Guardian in 2000: “I didn't want to be kissing Kevin Spacey. Come on! Lying there naked with rose petals?,” and added in a new Variety interview that was published on Wednesday: “I think I just turned down the meeting or something. But yeah, I just didn’t feel comfortable with the sexuality.”

The role ultimately ended up going to 19-year-old Mena Suvari, and Kirsten instead took on the lead role in Sofia Coppola’s movie adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel The Virgin Suicides.

Released in 1999, the film follows the lives of five sisters, with Kirsten playing the central character, Lux Lisbon, who is the most rebellious of the siblings. 

Kirsten was around 16 years old at the time of filming, and was left relieved when Sofia stepped in to support her.

“I was very nervous,” Kirsten admitted. “Because there’s a sequence where I’m making out with all these boys on a roof of the house. [Sofia] was like, ‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to make out with any of them. Just cover your hair and nestle into their neck. We’ll make it all work.’”

Sofia also recalled her approach to these scenes to the publication, explaining: “I always felt protective towards her and sensitive to what it might be like for her and that she was young.”

A tweet posted by Variety that quotes Kirsten’s comments has had a huge reaction on X, formerly known as Twitter, racking up thousands of likes, retweets, and bookmarks as people flocked to share their response.

Quote-tweeting Variety, one popular tweet simply reads: “this exactly how a director should protect and care about their cast and crew ❤️”

“this is so sweet, especially after she’s talked about how much she hated kissing brad putt [sic]  in interview w a vampire. the difference between male and female directors,” somebody else said.

“i absolutely love this, every director should be this protective of their actors,” another user tweeted. “and i never want to hear 'oh it won’t look realistic' because you can NOT tell that Kirsten isn’t actually kissing.”

“The importance of a female director especially when working with young talent,” one more wrote, before saying of Kirsten: “and people wonder why she makes such an effort to work with female directors.”

If you need reminding, Kirsten was on the roundtable with Julianna Margulies, Jennifer Lopez, Kerry Washington, Sarah Paulson, Regina King, and Constance Zimmer, and during the conversation, the other actors agreed that there is a lack of women directors.

“I’ve worked with so many female directors,” Kirsten interjected at the time. “I really love women. I have really strong female relationships.”

After reeling off examples of some of the women she had worked with, she continued: “I think it’s up to us as actresses to give the opportunity to first-time directors. I mean, most of those people, it was their first time.”

“And also, sometimes, I’m like, I just want to work with women,” Kirsten concluded. “I’m like, I’m done. I don’t want to work with all these dudes all the time, and then I find it. You’ve just gotta find it.”