Like most actors, Kirsten Dunst is not a fan of filming sex scenes. “I don’t like it, I don’t like it,” the “Hidden Figures” actress told E! News at CinemaCon while promoting Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled.” She explained, “To be honest, I’m like, ‘Let’s get this over with as fast as possible.” Dunst went on to say that her experiences filming sex scenes varied according to who was behind the camera.
While male directors want “to shoot it from every angle,” longtime collaborator Coppola has a starkly different approach. “At least Sofia’s like, ‘We’re going to get this done quick, we’re just gonna shoot it here, we’ll do three takes, be done,’” she revealed.
There are many horror stories about male directors (and actors) exploiting their power over young stars in the vulnerable position of acting out sex, oftentimes in various states of undress — accounts from the actresses of Cannes winner “Blue Is the Warmest Color” come to mind. But we’re betting that most times, actresses don’t speak out for fear of being labelled too sensitive or difficult.
It doesn’t at all sound as though Dunst was vilifying male directors, and she didn’t go into further detail about the subject, so it’d be presumptuous to assume that she was preyed upon. It seems moreso like she was pointing to the value of working for a filmmaker who understands a woman’s perspective, and can relate on a personal level.
“I am on the floor and my clothes are being ripped,” Dunst said of her sex scene in “The Beguiled.” No wonder she was happy to be working for someone who realized that shooting this from every angle would make the actors deeply uncomfortable — someone who wasn’t oblivious to how much they were asking of those in front of the camera.
Dunst previously worked with Coppola in 1999’s “The Virgin Suicides” and 2006’s “Marie Antoinette.” The “Fargo” actress also made a cameo in 2013’s “The Bling Ring.” Dunst is set to make her feature directorial debut with a big screen adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar.”
Set during the Civil War, “The Beguiled” centers on a Confederate girls’ boarding school that is thrown into chaos after taking in an injured Union soldier to convalesce. Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, and Colin Farrell co-star. The drama opens June 23, but we’re hoping to see the film make its world premiere at Cannes in May.
