"I was very not into it": When Kirsten Dunst opened up on having to kiss Brad Pitt as a child in an old interview

American actress Kirsten Dunst debuted as an actress at the age of six with her role in Woody Allen's short film Oedipus Wrecks. Ever since then, the young actress has had a perennial accent in her acting career as she bagged role after role. While this had indeed made her future as an actress quite bright, there were some hurdles and challenges along the way, which the actress now regrets in retrospect.

In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2021, the actress spoke about an uncomfortable and unpleasant experience that she had to face while filming as a child actor. Kirsten Dunst had been cast as Claudia in the Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise starrer Interview with the Vampire in 1994.

Recalling the incident, the actress said:

"I was very not into it."

Kirsten Dunst, then 11, was made to kiss Brad Pitt, who was then 30 years old, against her wish. The actress had since then been very vocal about Hollywood's lack of consideration for the consent and will of the actors and actresses on set.

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Kirsten Dunst opens up on how she had to struggle with the script as a child actress

The Marie Antoinette actress addressed this moment as the most uncomfortable moment in her acting career. She said that, for the most part, she was treated like a "total princess" on set, but no one took a minute to consider the amount of discomfort she might have felt while kissing a fully grown man when she herself was just a child. She recalls struggling a lot with the script but had to do it anyway, despite all the reservations that she had had.

She said:

"That was the worst thing I did and also having obviously to kiss Brad Pitt at that point."

Kirsten Dunst opens up on how the scene with Brad Pitt made her uncomfortable (Image via Warner Bros)

In the concerned movie, Interview with the Vampire, 11-year-old Kirsten Dunst was cast as Claudia, a 10-year-old girl who had been turned into a vampire by Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, played by Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, respectively. The actress was made to kiss Brad Pitt, who was in his thirties, and it also happened to be her first kiss.

In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2021, the actress said that she saw Brad Pitt as her brother, but the entire scene had been "very weird."

"I was a little girl and he was like a brother to me and it was very weird even though it was a peck," the actress railed.

Kirsten Dunst opens up on how scene with Brad Pitt made her uncomfortable (Image via Warner Bros)

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Kirsten Dunst also spoke about hating the kiss in many previous interviews

The Spider-Man actress has been lauded by fans for being so vocal about the situation she faced. The actress first spoke of her experience to Entertainment Tonight after the filming for the movie was over. She spoke about how she "hated" the kiss and that it was "gross" because her co-star was an "older guy."

The 11-year-old said:

"I hated [the kiss] so much because Brad was like my older brother on set and it's kind of like kissing your brother. It's weird because he's an older guy and I had to kiss him on the lips, so it was gross."

In 1994, during the promotional tour of Little Women, young Kirsten Dunst was seen taking a stand, and the video went viral on TikTok for the way the actress stood up for herself at such a young age. She said there that she felt "awkward" kissing her adult co-star and that maybe if Brad Pitt had been a 15-year-old boy, it could have been doable.

She said:

"Well, especially because Brad is 31. I mean, he’s not exactly a boy."

Actresses in Hollywood are often dealt with an unfair hand. Reese Witherspoon, in the interview with Harper's Bazaar on July 12, 2023, also opened up about being forced to do an explicit scene with Mark Wahlberg in the 1996 movie Fear.

With actresses being more vocal about these issues, a change can be expected in Hollywood in the foreseeable future.