Is that why you want to work less in the future?
''Oh, God, I see where this is going. I can just see your headline now: JULIA ROBERTS RETIRES!''
What a difference a year makes. Last December, Kirsten Dunst was bouncing around the set of Mona Lisa Smile in a tan velour sweat suit with ''J.Lo'' embroidered across the right butt cheek, holding a Starbucks cup, and doing a caffeinated jig. But now, 10 months later, with the film in the can, Dunst looks and feels burned-out. She just flew into L.A. from London, where she was volleying with Paul Bettany (Master and Commander) in the romantic comedy Wimbledon. She also has a raging headache.
In Mona Lisa, Dunst plays Betty, ''the most stuck-in-her-girdle of all the girls. She's a real bitch.'' When interviewed on the set, Dunst said, ''This movie's about messed-up women. I don't want it to be some cute '50s The Women meets Dead Poets Society.'' But now that she's seen the film, she hedges: ''I can't judge my films. I pretty much think they're all bad. I think this is a movie-movie, you know what I mean? It's period and pretty and it has a message.... It could have been darker. Actually, my husband [in the film] was originally supposed to be gay, but I think they thought that would be too much.... I'm not saying our movie is a stupid film. But it's pretty safe.''
Dunst was already a star at 12, after sharing her first screen kiss with Brad Pitt in Interview With the Vampire. And sometimes she feels like she hasn't stopped working since. After Spider-Man, Dunst completed Mona Lisa, Jim Carrey's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Spider-Man 2, and Wimbledon. Now she has to rejoin Spider-Man 2 for two more weeks before she can finally take a three-month breather, during which she hopes to find a house and, with any luck, the time to read a book or two -- anything besides scripts. Then, in January, Dunst heads off to shoot Cameron Crowe's next film, Elizabethtown. ''I just need to slow down, or it doesn't become fun,'' she says. ''Lately I've been work, work, work, and I haven't taken a breath to live my life and enjoy what I'm doing. And you can see it in your work and it's not good. I feel like I'm not discovering anything about myself anymore. It just becomes like 'All right, let's get this scene done with.'''
When asked where she'd like to see her career go in the future, she says, ''I'm learning you have to go to the people you want to work with and find the roles because there aren't a lot of women roles out there. I've been frustrated playing the second lead to the guy. Being the supporting role. And some of those roles are so sexist.'' Here, Dunst says that she's come to regard Roberts as a role model. ''She's such a strong woman. The way she handles everything is very graceful, and the fact that she's probably the most powerful woman in this industry -- it doesn't come from being nice to everyone. Which is my problem. I want to be liked by everyone. I really admire her balls. That's something I need to grow.''
