by Paul Fischer
by Paul Fischer
After a day spent dutifully bouncing from press
table to press table promoting her latest film, 
Wimbledon, Kirsten
Dunst was clearly becoming
annoyed at the press's obsession with her private life (she had recently
split up with boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal). Forcing
a half
smile,
the
pretty Hollywood star says that she is not quite sure
why her personal life of such paramount importance to the media. "I don't know, maybe because of Spiderman
II and Wimbledon, I guess I'm in the limelight more,
I suppose. Also, I live in Los Angeles where everybody is, so I think
it's
hard to keep things private."
So it is time to move on to her latest movie, Wimbledon, a charming romantic comedy that casts the diverse Dunst as a tennis star on the rise who falls for a former champ (Paul Bettany) who discovers his game on the verge of retirement. Dunst said during the Spider-Man 2 junket that shooting Wimbledon was in some ways tougher than that action film. "Spider-Man which, first of all I love, is more juvenile than this one. Paul and I would go again, and he'd be like fresh and sexy. It's hard to keep that thing going when it's a different take on a different angle, and it's so in the moment with the dialogue. Sometimes we have such little quips, and the challenge is to make them seem natural. It's sometimes difficult to get that balance."
On screen, Dunst plays an overly confident and toughly aggressive player, whose serve is as powerful as her verbal barbs, something she had to search for within herself to find. "I think I had the confidence to be that way because I got really good at certain parts of tennis. To have that base makes you feel more confident. It was exciting to be that kind of a player. For me it was fun for me to throw those racquets on the court." As convincing a tennis player as she appears, Dunst had never been interested in tennis, especially before shooting this movie." I never really watched it or played it," she laughs. Even after training with the legendary Pat Cash, she didn't have the courage to challenge anyone of note to a tennis match. "I think they'd beat me pretty bad, so I think I'd stick to amateurs, such as my Dad."
Asked what makes a good romantic comedy, which is perhaps the toughest genre to pull off, Dunst says that "in the Working Title world, [the producers of Love Actually, etc], they seem to find a good balance. I think that English humor really helps out making it not so cutesy and the fact that I'm really the masculine energy in the film is different from most romantic comedies. In Wimbledon, you have a tennis world which sets up a lot of comedy moments. I think it's just a good balance in the movie. It's hard to make it not too cutesy." As for working with Paul Bettany, Dunst admits that he did teach her some of the finer points of British profanity. "He uses expletives like he's saying the word 'water'. I mean, he has the worst mouth ever."
It was Spider-Man that ultimately cemented her huge success, and despite that franchise's whirlwind publicity juggernaut and an intrusive media, Dunst says that knowing the effect of that film on her life, she would take it on again if offered to her today. "It's given me the opportunity to have more choices and more opportunities and, perhaps, people who will see Spider-Man might go see another movie I'm in that they wouldn't go to see normally, like Eternal Sunshine. The fact that I have that power now is really great and that I can be the lead in a movie and that they would finance it with me because I'm known in places that I've never been to, all helps."
Dunst remains passionately proud of the films, especially Spider-Man 2. "I'm completely proud of that movie. I think that we made a great blockbuster. All of us really loved the story and are moved by it. I think that's why audiences responded because I really do put myself in that." While Dunst is committed to Spider-Man 3, a fourth seems unlikely, and she regrets her previous comments that she wants her character to die. "I was totally joking when I said that," but wouldn't be drawn out as to whether she would be convinced to continue on.
There is certainly more to Dunst's career than Spider-Man,
as she takes on the daunting task of playing the tragic Marie Antoinette for
director Sofia Coppola, which is to be shot on location in Paris
and the Palace of Versailles. Though a historical epic, Dunst says "it
sounds like a big movie
but the script takes it in a very personal way." Her Louis will be played
by Jason Schwartzman, and Dunst jokingly says that she "will have
no problem playing an Austrian character because my Dad's German."
The perpetually busy actress is still in the middle of shooting Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, a project shrouded in secrecy. "I think Sofia and Cameron are two really amazing directors and respectfully they want to keep things private because why give away the movie when you can see it in a year. It's more exciting to wait and wonder what it's about, and we'll talk about it plenty in a year or so."
After Marie-Antoinette it's back to the world of Spider-Man, and Dunst hopes to try and have a break somewhere during that hectic schedule. "I finish Cameron's movie at the end of September, then I don't work again until March, which is a big break. After that, Spider-Man 3 will probably start in the Fall." Dunst hopes that during her break "I'd love to learn French because I'm going to be spending a lot of time in Paris. I don't know what I'll do but get into the zone of Maria Antoinette, read a lot and take classes."