"It's never comfortable, ever," Dunst said of filming love scenes.
Sixteen years later, Kirsten Dunst still isn't comfortable "kissing" on screen.
The Oscar nominee for "The Power of the Dog" met with her "Marie Antoinette" co-star Jamie Dornan during Variety's Actors on Actors Roundtable to review the 2006 film, with Dunst revealing she was "nervous" during production.
"And all of our stuff was like kissing, and I'm not comfortable with that," Dunst reminded Dornan. "It's never comfortable, ever."
Dunst, who turned 22 during production at the time, added: "I think the first time I showed my breasts was with [director] Sofia [Coppola]. She never used the shot, and I don't even think you were there. I was overwhelmed too."
Dornan called Dunst's candid reflection a surprise, saying, “You handled it well. I thought you were in control of everything.
Of course, filming romantic scenes for Dunst's latest film, “The Power of the Dog,” turned out to be a different experience given that Dunst's on-screen love interest is her real-life husband, Jesse Plemons.
"We first fell in love as creative friends," Dunst previously told IndieWire about working with Plemons. “We had a creative connection that brought us together. There was a lot of freedom whenever we did scenes together. It's like a magical, magical feeling."
Dunst continued: “Jesse and I talked about directing together because we trust each other. We are a good balance between us.”
As she did on "Marie Antoinette," Dunst collaborated with a director, Jane Campion, for "The Power of the Dog."
"Surprisingly, Jane is a very good actress," Dunst said. “Whenever we were rehearsing, she acted really well. And sometimes, behind the camera, when she wasn't on screen, he would look at her and she would deliver the lines, almost like a little mother on stage. However, she is so sweet; she's so into it. I'm sure she writes her script a bit like that. She must."
Looking back over his decades-long career, Dunst raved about her work on Lars von Trier's “Melancholia,” calling it “the best moment” during production.
“It was the coziest set and very free. And I was playing someone who was depressed," Dunst joked. “And we were all in the area together. And I feel that in Europe, we filmed in Sweden, people are freer. I think I like that European mentality when it comes to filmmaking. It seems that anything goes."
