Kirsten Dunst Has Advice For Her Fellow Actors: ‘Just Be Who The H— You Are’
Kirsten Dunst feels the pressure of being an actress in today’s society of social media and higher accessibility, and Kirsten wants fans to give actors a break. Fargo‘s Kirsten Dunst is featured on the September cover of Town & Country, but it’s Kirsten’s interview that draws more attention.
“What people expect of an actor is totally ridiculous,” Ms. Dunst said in her interview. “It’s unfair that an artist is expected to speak really well in public and have skin tough enough to withstand sometimes really hurtful criticism, but also, in order to do the job, be really sensitive and in touch with their feelings.”
It’s a heavy burden, according to Ms. Dunst, and it’s one that landed her in a clinic for depression in 2008. Kirsten reveals that managing the pressures of living a high profile life has taken time to master.
“I know some young actresses who are better at it,” Dunst mused. “Dakota Fanning reminds me a lot of myself, but she’s wiser than I was at her age.”
As Kirsten returned home following her stay in that clinic, she found the need to stay in close contact with family. Ms. Dunst reveals that she doesn’t like to be far from loved ones.
“It’s not big or anything, but I still don’t like sleeping alone in my house,” Kirsten said.
Ms. Dunst, who is joining the FX series Fargo in its second season, says she manages the stresses of celebrity life and the elevated expectations of the public by being honest and true to her own spirit.
So all you can do is be yourself – just be who the h— you are,” Dunst said.
Kirsten also speaks of gender equality in Hollywood, an issue that Ms. Dunst believes has been improving over the years. Kirsten says working on the Spider-Man movies in 2002 and 2004 left her feeling like she was intruding on an all-boys club, but things have changed for Kirsten in recent years.
“But the older I get, the less I feel that way. What I’ve found is that the cool guys now want to hang out with the cool girls,” Dunst reveals.
Of her Fargo character, Ms. Dunst finds that crazy fits the theme.
“She is very much like me at my craziest, my mother at her craziest, my grandma at her craziest,” Dunst said. “I could really combine the nutsiest parts of the women in my family. Some of the things [my grandma] would say, how she said them—I had a lot of that inside me already.”
Fargo, which also stars Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, and Allison Tolman, will premiere on FX in October.
[Featured image: Kirsten Dunst courtesy of Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]
