Actress Kristen Dunst did not bite her tongue when a film director tried to manipulate her into succumbing to conventional beauty standards.
That’s what the 39-year-old “The Power of the Dog” star told the Independent in a piece released over the weekend that after she got the role of Mary Jane in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, a producer from the film drove her to a dentist in an attempt to get her teeth “fixed”.
Dunst said she had no idea it was on the agenda until they pulled into the office parking lot. She refused to get out of the car.
“I thought, ‘Mmmmm, no, I like my teeth,'” Dunst said of her unique, and now trademark, front teeth, adding:
“Also Sofia [Coppola] loved my teeth. ”
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Coppola cast a 16-year-old Dunst as the alluring Lux in “The Virgin Suicides” from 1999, and Dunst said the director’s perception of her was incredibly influential.
“The fact that the coolest girl liked how I looked is what has kept me going,” Dunst said. “She made me feel beautiful. As a 16-year-old girl, you feel good about yourself, don’t you? So having my first experience of a more ‘sexy’ role through her eyes gave me a confidence that helped me to deal with a lot of other things. ”
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That apparently includes dealing with Coppola himself later in his career.
Dunst told Variety in 2017 that the director asked her to lose weight for her role as Edwina in “Beguiled”. But Dunst refused.
“It’s so much harder when you’re 35 and hate exercising,” Dunst told the magazine. She then used the film’s location in Louisiana as an excuse for why she could not shed the pounds.
“I eat fried chicken and McDonald’s before work. So I say, ‘We have no choice! I’m sorry I can not lose weight for this role, “she said.
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