A Star Is Born: Kirsten Dunst in 1994
Friday, April 19, 2024 at 9:00PM 
For all its controversies, Alex Garland's Civil War has gifted us with more than just an (a)political provocation. The chosen format limits the film's considerations of conflict journalism, and its overall construction has flaws aplenty. Yet, in the picture's lead, Kirsten Dunst delivers another worthwhile turn as a disillusioned photographer. Exhaustion laces every gesture and actorly choice, and though Garland seems to abandon her for the film's final act, whenever the camera finds Dunst, she delivers. Whether portraying cynical apathy or shell-shocked grief, apprehensive over a younger colleague's fate or breaking down at the eleventh hour, the actress can weave straw into gold and elevate any material.
Considering her latest performance, I couldn't help but reminisce about Dunst's early days and how, thirty years ago, she became a star at just twelve years old…
For contemporary filmgoers at the start of 1994, Kirsten Dunst mustn't have seemed like much of a name. Until then, the child actress' filmography comprised only a few theatrical credits, some of which went uncredited. TV seemed to be where she was making greater strides, and the March release of Greedy wasn't much of a showcase. Yes, by that point, there was little reason to assume the young thespian would become one of American cinema's best - though often underappreciated – actresses. That would change later that year when Neil Jordan's Anne Rice adaptation finally hit the screens.
Released on November 11th, Interview with the Vampire was to be Dunst's breakthrough, so startling it was impossible to look away. As little Claudia, the actress enters the film over forty minutes into the century-spanning narrative, a moribund waif weeping by her mother's corpse. In the plague-ridden New Orleans, her innocence awakens a vampire's hunger, with Brad Pitt's Louis giving in to his man-eating impulses after much repression. It's a ghoulish tableau, made more so by Tom Cruise's Lestat, jovial at the sight of his companion's surrender to temptation. After dancing with the mother's stiff cadaver, he takes Claudia back home and presents Louis with their new daughter.
This version of Rice's novel attempts to sidestep the queer nature of the text, but there's no going around the strangeness of the baby vampire's birth. Indeed, though Jordan's film is a vampire tale, it seldom taps into genuine horror. Except for Claudia's transformation, of course, but that might be more due to Dunst than her director. Suckling on Cruise's wrist, Dunst is primordial hunger in a little girl's body. Her silent cry with a bloodied mouth is more unsettling than anything in the flick so far, and the way her countenance becomes that of a living doll is equal parts wonderment, disgust, something deeply wrong yet hard to articulate.
"I want more" is her first spoken line, delivered with a naive openness that will soon be lost on Claudia's arc. Oh, but the yearning remains, that insatiable want that first makes her the perfect pupil for Lestat. She's his doll and his mirror image in killer's instinct, a predator covered in frocks and frills. At this point, Dunst is tasked with delineating her character's arc over decades in the span of a swift montage. We witness her gradual distancing from one father's psychopathy to attach to the other's melancholy. Only Dunst doesn't strike out in meandering sadness like Pitt. Instead, she becomes ablaze with fury.
The key to the performance's success lies in Dunst's ability to overcome the clichéd precociousness of many child actors. Her Claudia is no girl brimming with a temperament beyond her age. Quite the contrary, she becomes a grown woman trapped in a body and mind too little and unchanging for her true self. Exploding hatred marks her first rebellion, and then comes the cold calculation of a femme fatale with a taste for vengeance. Against her adult scene partners, Dunst is a revelation, blasting them off the screen without making it look strenuous. Consider her devilish smile when Lestat falls for his daughter's murderous ploy.
Even as the new Interview with a Vampire series proposes a much superior take on Rice's novel, one aspect remains unbeatable from the 1994 adaptation. Dunst's Claudia is the blueprint, the Platonic ideal of a nightmare beyond human comprehension. It's not just terror she inspired, either. Oh no, the little thespian already had a range beyond her years, telegraphing Claudia's longing for what she cannot have, the hollow euphoria of a pampered princess and the vampire's ultimate tragedy. Burnt to cinders, her end reverberates through the film like a 9.0 on the Richter Scale. And it's mostly because of Dunst's ungodly miracle.
I can only imagine general audience's surprise when, less than a month later, Dunst showed up in a very different literary adaptation, showcasing her gifts in a starkly different register. For Gillian Armstrong's Little Women, Dunst plays Amy March, the book-burning menace of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel. She's another brat, not unlike Claudia's surface-level appearance, but that's a nasty reading of the younger March sister. Indeed, Dunst is able to show us the girl's immaturity and the source of her behavior, the love for pretty things and, again, the yearning. Monstrous no more, Dunst feels natural, captivating, the first spark of a star's life.
Looking back at Little Women '94 in the context of the other Alcott adaptations, one may also see Amy as a simultaneous triumph and failure. Just like Dunst's casting is one of the film's most remarkable feats and its undoing. She's so impactful as Amy that Samantha Mathis can't help but fade as the adult version of the same character. She never shines as brightly, the complexity of her want reads flatter than when we saw her little. As much as I might prefer Florence Pugh's take on Amy for the Greta Gerwig 2019 film or even Elizabeth Taylor in the Mervyn le Roy 1949 adaptation, Dunst's version will always have a special place in my heart. I despised her as a kid and learned to understand her as an adult re-considering a child's follies – I grew up with her.
And that was just the start of Dunst's career, one scant glimpse into her genius. Thirty years later, she's even better, one of Hollywood's most essential actresses.
Interview with the Vampire is streaming on Paramount Plus and Apple TV+. As for Little Women, you can find it on the same platforms, as well as Showtime.
Reader Comments (8)
1994 was my breakout year too, as a cinephile, and I was so obsessed with Kiki’s Claudia to the point I could credit all my love for Interview with the Vampire on her. When the ‘95 Oscars came, I was very upset with her absence as a Supporting Actress nominee (it was her first - only? - almost there). These days I still dream about a perfect world where Rosemary Harris and Helen Mirren were replaced by Kirsten Dunst for Interview… and Virna Lisi for Queen Margot. My first Oscars, my first disappointments too.
1994 is a great year in cinema. Even though Kiki first made her on-screen appearance in Woody Allen's Oedipus Rex in New York Stories and later as Tom Hanks and Kim Cattral's daughter in the horrendous Bonfire of the Vanities. 1994 really belonged to her as she was OK in Greedy which was an OK film but oh... she fucking won my heart with Interview with the Vampire as I also loved in interviews promoting the film. She always dissed Brad Pitt in the film as that was hilarious. While I would also prefer Florence Pugh's performance as Amy, Kiki's performance as Amy in Little Women was a delight to watch as I would watch her grow throughout the years.
I'm glad she's being showered with praise as well as getting a lot of respect into the roles she's played as I'm wondering where is her fucking Oscar!
Like Julianne Moore her face aging and without stupid surgery become more interesting year by year.
In paricular I appreciate how she built a very selected filmography: Spiderman, Jumanji, Interview with the vampire, Von Trier, Jane Campion, some Oscar bits as Hidden Figures. And of course Civil War now.
Anybody watched her 4 favorites movies interview on Letterboxd? She has also an exquisite taste!
Her performance is so iconic that I can't imagine anyone else in this role. And even more amazing is the fact that she almost wasn't cast. She was almost considered too old/tall for the part and Tom Cruise apparently told her to sit a certain way during taped auditions to seem more demure.
Also she has been acting in big projects for 30 years and it seems that people are just now starting to appreciate her filmography. As Gallavich mentioned above- it is quite diverse. If she doesn't get an Oscar down the line, she seems a prime candidate for the honorary one. Her films alone stack up to quite a career.
(just throwing it out there as I said Jaime Lee Curtis would probably have to get an honorary award and then won. Maybe the same thing will happen with Kirsten Dunst.
She should've been nominated for this movie...
She should've been nominated for Interview with the Vampire and Melancholia for sure.
Of course, arguments could be made for many other movies (Marie Antoinette and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind off the top of my head), but IwtV and Melancholia are the most egregious snubs in my opinion (partially bc they were actually in the realm of possibility in their respective years).
She was obviously the Best Supporting Actress of 1994. The unsubstantiated rumor I've heard (and do believe) for her omission is that after Anna Paquin's win in 1993, Academy members didn't want to let a child win two years in a row. So therefore, they passed her over. What other explanation could there be for her glaring omission? Among the nominees, my choice is easily Uma Thurman for Pulp Fiction. Like Antonio, I also was very impressed by Virna Lisi in La Reine Margot.
Phillip@ how I forgot Marie Antoinette? Still her best performance
And Eternal Sunshine and Fargo…
She and Virna Lisi should have been in that lineup, but the ones they should have replaced were Thurman and Tilly.