The radiant Kirsten Dunst made waves at the age of 11 by living out a common pre-teen fantasy – planting a big kiss on Brad Pitt. She got the chance in Neil Jordan’s 1994 Anne Rice adaptation “Interview with the Vampire”, and her phenomenally mature performance instantly put her on the radar.
Born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey on April 30, 1982, Dunst has been an actress since the age of three. The precocious youngster appeared in hordes of television commercials, and in 1989 had a brief walk-on in Woody Allen’s “New York Stories”. Dunst soon moved to L.A. with her mother, and while attending school her career took off with a role as Tom Hanks’s daughter in 1990’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities”, in addition to television appearances including a meaty role on a 1993 episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Her role in the gothic vampire drama earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 1994, and she soon became a popular and sought-after child actress with important roles in “Little Women”, “Jumanji”, and the Kurt Vonnegut adaptation “Mother Night”.
In high school Dunst continued a grueling acting schedule, appearing frequently on “ER” and starring in films like “Small Soldiers”, “Dick”, and the hilarious “Drop Dead Gorgeous”. Despite famously turning down Mena Suvari’s scandalous part in “American Beauty”, Dunst still got a chance to become a critic’s darling, playing the lead role in Sofia Coppola’s debut feature “The Virgin Suicides” in 1999. The well-received film helped Dunst come of age as a leading lady, and she was soon headlining films like “Crazy/Beautiful”, “Bring it On”, and “Get Over It”. However, it was her performance as Mary Jane Watson in 2002’s mega-blockbuster “Spider-Man” that put her on the A-list, and since then she has delighted in a variety of interesting parts.
In addition to a mega-hit “Spider-Man” sequel that reunited her with star Tobey Maguire, Dunst has appeared in “Mona Lisa Smile”, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “Wimbledon”, and Cameron Crowe’s “Elizabethtown”. The talented actress is refreshingly tight-lipped about her personal life, though she has been linked to “Brokeback Mountain” star Jake Gyllenhaal several times in the past few years. 2006 will see Dunst in one of her most challenging roles yet playing the title character in Coppola’s “Marie-Antoinette”, a quirky biopic of the ill-fated French queen. In addition, "Spider-Man 3" will be released on May 4, 2007, and Dunst is sure to help make it another blockbuster entry in the popular franchise. The drop dead gorgeous starlet has already had an incredible career, and she’s only scratched the surface of her potential.