For many Gen X and millennial women, Kirsten Dunst is an icon. So many of her roles are memorable, from Interview with the Vampire to Bring It On to Marie Antoinette to the OG Mary Jane in the Spiderman movies. It’s hard to believe that Kirsten is now in her 40s, but time is real. Kirsten is still working, and was nominated for an Oscar two years ago, in addition to being mom to two young sons with husband Jesse Plemons.
In a new interview, Kirsten got real about how motherhood, and more importantly, aging as a woman is affecting the kind of work she's offered. It’s nothing new, but it’s so important to keep talking about it.
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She's being put in a box she's not ready for.
Speaking with Marie Claire, Kirsten revealed that she hasn’t “worked in two years” since her Oscar-nominated turn in The Power of the Dog. She explained “every role I was being offered was the sad mom” in that time, and she isn’t ready to resign herself to those kinds of roles just yet.
Opportunities to get good acting roles are already beginning to disappear.
“To be honest, that's been hard for me … because I need to feed myself. The hardest thing is being a mom and … not feeling like, I have nothing for myself. That's every mother — not just me,” she said of her lack of work in the last couple of years. Kirsten was very real when she said, “There's definitely less good roles for women my age.”
Kirsten isn't against being in another superhero franchise.
Kirsten also got real about needing roles to provide for her family. When asked if she would do another superhero movie like Spiderman, she immediately said she would, "because you get paid a lot of money, and I have two children, and I support my mother."
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Kirsten's words about motherhood feel too real.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kirsten sounds like a typical 41-year-old mom with a kindergartner and a toddler at home. She explained that her 2-year-old son James woke her up in the middle of the night to sleep with her while her husband was away.
While it’s certainly not the most comfortable, she admits that she loves it, even his “stinky breath.” She admitted, “I'm, like, a Volvo soccer mom right now.”
Her sons are a priority for her.
Kirsten’s 5-year-old son Ennis is “eating three lollipops at once,” and has recently “discovered Weird Mario on YouTube.” But now that he is in kindergarten she says, “I don't want to take my kid out of school for a role unless I cannot say no and it's that incredible. I just don't want to do that to him.”
She also admitted that she doesn’t have time to watch the latest movies and shows, saying “I have to go and see the Paw Patrol movie.”
