A now-fully-grown Kirsten Dunst opened up about the 'very weird' moment she had to film a kissing scene with Brad Pitt when she was just a child.
Now 41 years old and extremely well-established as an actor, Dunst probably wouldn't think twice about a scene in which she had to kiss a man a few years older than her.
Obviously, though, things are very, very different when one of the people involved in such a scene isn't even a teenager yet, while the other has been legally able to drink for a decade.
It's not hard to see that this is wrong in all sorts of ways, but it's exactly what Dunst had to face when she was 11 years old and acting in Interview with the Vampire.
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Dunst played 10-year-old Claudia in the film; a character who had been turned into a vampire by Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, who were played by Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.
In one scene, Claudia kissed Louis on the lips - which meant Dunst had to do the same to a then-31-year-old Pitt.
Knowing it was strange even at 11 years old, Dunst recalled the scene in a recently resurfaced interview with Vanity Fair in 2021, in which she also discussed a scene where she had to bite the neck of a very sweaty actor.
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“That was the worst thing I did and also having obviously to kiss Brad Pitt at that point," she said. "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.”
Dunst admitted that she was 'treated like a total princess on set' most of the time, though the Vanity Fair interview wasn't the first time the actor opened up about the kissing scene.
After filming the kiss, when she was just 11, Dunst 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.”
Though that scene in particular didn't sit right with Dunst, the actor assured in 2019 that she'd had a good experience working with her co-stars on the set.
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Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she said: “I feel like I watched Brad in A River Runs Through It and Tom was in Far and Away, which I loved. They treated me like a little sister. It was very sweet... I was just doing my job and they were very sweet to me.”
Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity, Brad Pitt
Emily Brown