Kirsten Caroline Dunst (born April 30, 1982) is an American actress and singer.
Dunst was born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey to Klaus and Inez Dunst. She has a younger brother, Christian. Her father was a medical services executive and her mother was an artist and former gallery owner. Dunst is of German descent on her father's side, and Swedish on her mother's.
Dunst lived in New Jersey until the age of six, where she attended Ranney School, before she moved with her mother and younger brother to Los Angeles, California in 1991. In 1995, her mother filed for divorce from her father. In 1996, she began attending Notre Dame, a private Catholic high school in Los Angeles. Dunst graduated from Notre Dame in 2000 and left to continue her acting career. When asked if she had any regrets about the way she spent her childhood, Dunst said: "Well, it's not a natural way to grow up, but it's the way I grew up and I wouldn't change it. I have my stuff to work out... I don't think anybody can sit around and say: 'My life is more screwed up than yours.' Everybody has their issues."
Dunst began her career at the age of three as a child fashion model in television commercials. She was signed with Ford Models and Elite Model Management. At the age of eight Dunst made her film debut in Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks, a short film that was released as one-third of the anthology New York Stories (1989). Soon after, she landed a small part in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), as Tom Hanks' daughter. In 1993, Dunst played Hedril in "Dark Page", the seventh season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Dunst portrayed young Amy March in the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women. The film received favorable reviews; critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film was the greatest adaptation of the novel, and also remarked on Dunst's performance: "The perfect contrast to take-charge Jo comes from Kirsten Dunst's scene-stealing Amy, whose vanity and twinkling mischief make so much more sense coming from an 11-year-old vixen than they did from grown-up Joan Bennett in 1933. Ms. Dunst, also scarily effective as the baby bloodsucker of Interview With the Vampire, is a little vamp with a big future." The breakthrough role in Dunst's career came in Interview with the Vampire, a 1994 film based on Anne Rice's novel, in which she played the child vampire Claudia, a surrogate daughter to Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's characters in the film. The film received generally unfavorable reviews, but every film critic complimented Dunst's performance.
She later appeared in the fantasy film Jumanji (1995), loosely based on Chris Van Allsburg's 1981 book of the same name. The story is about a supernatural and ominous board game which makes animals and other jungle hazards appear upon each roll of the dice. She was part of an ensemble cast that included Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, and David Alan Grier. The movie grossed $100 million worldwide. That same year, she was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, which she repeated in 2002. In the 2002 film Spider-Man, the most successful film of her career to date, she played Mary Jane Watson, the best friend and love interest of the title character, played by Tobey Maguire. The film was directed by Sam Raimi. The film earned $114 miliion during its opening weekend. The success of the first Spider-Man film led her to reprise the role in the 2004 sequel, Spider-Man 2. The film was relatively well received by critics. Spider-Man 2 was a big financial success, setting a new opening weekend record at the North America box office. With revenue of $783 million worldwide, it became the second highest grossing film in 2004. The film's success of Spider-Man 2 led to another sequel Spider-Man 3 (2007). Although Spider-Man 3 received generally mixed reviews from critics, in contrast to the previous two films' highly positive reviews, it stands as the most successful film in the series worldwide and it has become her highest grossing film to the end of 2008. Initially, Dunst was signed on to appear in three Spider-Man films. When asked if she would return for a fourth film, she revealed that she would do it only if Raimi and Maguire returned.Dunst was next seen in the 2008 film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, opposite Simon Pegg.
Dunst made her singing debut in the 2001 film Get Over It, performing two songs written by Marc Shaiman. She also lent her voice to the end credits of The Cat's Meow, singing Henry Creamer and Turner Layton's jazz standard "After You've Gone". In Spider-Man 3, she sings two songs as part of her role as Mary Jane Watson, one during a Broadway performance, and one as a singing waitress in a jazz club. Dunst revealed that the songs were recorded earlier, in which she lip-synced to it when filming began. She also appeared in the music video for Savage Garden's "I Knew I Loved You". Dunst also sang two tracks, "This Old Machine" and "Summer Day", on Jason Schwartzman's solo album, Coconut Records.
In an article for Premiere, Sam Raimi confirmed the long-standing rumor that Dunst and her Spider-Man co-star Tobey Maguire had "a thing" going on during the 2001 shooting of the first film. As Raimi explained for the article, "I'm so dumb, because I met with them for dinner one night during the shooting to talk about the next day's scenes. And I go, 'Okay, well, that's it for the meeting.' And then I ask Kirsten, 'Can I drive you home?' And they look at each other and she goes, 'No, no, I'm going to play a game of Touch 10 with Tobey.' I don't know, it was some game. I thought, 'That's weird. She's got to work tomorrow.'"
After briefly dating her longtime friend, playwright Jeff Smeenge, she started dating actor Jake Gyllenhaal in September 2002, after meeting him through his sister, Maggie her Mona Lisa Smile co-star. However, they broke up in July 2004. In March 2007, she dated frontman Johnny Borrell of Razorlight. They ended their relationship later that year.
Dunst supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 US presidential election. She supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Viewed as a sex symbol, she was ranked in the "Hot 100 List" by Maxim magazine in 2003 and 2004. She was ranked at number 59 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars. Dunst was featured on Richard Blackwell's famous Best Dressed List for 2005.
Dunst confirmed that she was treated for depression early in 2008. She sought treatment at the Cirque Lodge treatment center in Utah. She explained that she had been feeling "low" in the six months prior to her going to rehab. In late March, she checked out from the treatment center and began filming All Good Things. In May, she went public with this information to "highlight the struggle faced by so many other successful women" and to dispel false rumors that had "been very painful for my friends and family".