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Last spring, when Alex Garland’s Civil War premiered, the evocative images of a country irreparably divided felt like a cautionary, if still somewhat distant, tale. When Deadline spoke to Kirsten Dunst, who plays war photographer Lee Smith, two weeks before the 2024 election, the film appeared to have acquired an additional layer of horror. “It’s terrifying,” says Dunst. “We made this movie three years ago, when the war in Ukraine had just started. But to set this in America was very thought-provoking and haunting.” We spoke to Dunst about immersing herself in the country’s worst-case scenario, and why, ultimately, she ran towards the challenge.
DEADLINE: When you were reading the script the first time, what were your thoughts about it?
KIRSTEN DUNST: I knew was going to do something provoking, but reading it, I was on the edge of my seat. I didn’t even feel like I was reading a script. It felt like I was holding my breath the entire time. And then, to actually start filming it, the way Alex shoots is very realistic and almost like a play. So, by the end of the film, with two weeks of just straight gunfire, it was terrifying to be a part of.
DEADLINE: As an actor, you run towards a project like this for a reason. What is it about putting yourself in this situation that’s appealing?
DUNST: To be honest, I always choose based on the director. I don’t care about my role. I really don’t. I care about my experience and who I’m working with. So, I would really have done any script with Alex Garland. I like when I go into something and feel immersed in a unique way and their own way. That’s all I really have, at the end of the day. You can hope that the movie is good, or people are interested in seeing it, but what I have is the process, so I look for what’s going to fulfill me as an actress.
DEADLINE: Before you worked with him, what drew you to him as a creator?
DUNST: He’s very truthful. He’s such an intelligent, human writer, and journalism was something he grew up with, so he’s very familiar with this world. And I believe his conviction in what he does. He always seems very passionate and driven — and also at war with himself and what he’s creating, in a way. And I liked the fact that he’s in it with you, that he’s very clear what he wants to do. He’s a brilliant mind.
DEADLINE: When you say he’s in it, what does that mean?
DUNST: He’s just very critical in a way that’s necessary for a filmmaker, especially for a film like this. He’s on every moment [making sure it] feels authentic and real. Because something like this, it has to feel like you’re on this trip with these people, and all of the surrounding stuff has to feel very real. I think he did that with the way he shot it.
DEADLINE: I imagine that this is either the most terrifying experience or, like most horror movies, so absurd that you radically distance yourself from what’s onscreen.
DUNST: Honestly, you want to know what the most terrifying thing was for me? Not looking like I knew what I was doing with the camera, like I’ve been holding it for years and years. That was actually my greatest fear. My friends who are photographers gave me the seal [of approval]. They were like, “You look so good.” So that’s all I cared about.
DEADLINE: What was your research process into photojournalism and war correspondence?
DUNST: There was still a lot of COVID precautions at the time, so as soon as I knew I got the role, I had Alex send me the camera that I was using. I worked with a photographer in Austin, Texas, because my husband [Jesse Plemons] was working there. I wanted to go to places where it was really crowded, but I couldn’t. I basically had the camera on me at all times and just shot my kids, shot Christmas, shot whatever I could. And then we watched this Marie Colvin documentary called Under the Wire. That was the most helpful for me, research-wise, but also, what these people go through and how they risk their lives and what they see is just so horrendous. That documentary was intense. It’s deeply disturbing.
DEADLINE: What’s the most unnerving thing about it?
DUNST: It just was a very unfiltered war documentary — the horrors of war and the casualties of children and all of it. And you watch her die in this documentary. The whole thing is so harrowing and makes you really think about all these journalists out there trying to tell the truth. To even be there is obviously risking your life. So that weight of capturing things and not interfering, even though on a human level, you’re like, “Should I take this picture? Should I not?” I’m sure it’s so complicated. I just have so much respect for war journalists.
DEADLINE: Ironically, I feel like some of the most real scenes in Civil War are them shooting the sh*t, while war rages around them. The scenes where there’s an overlay of music and they’re just kind of having a laugh — that part is equally jarring.
DUNST: Yeah. I mean, some people get high off of it because normal life doesn’t really do anything. I feel like Lee is someone who probably takes no pleasure in going out to dinner anymore. You know what I mean? It all feels so phony to Lee, is how I thought about it. But other people, like Wagner [Moura]’s character, get a weird high from it. It makes him feel more alive.
DEADLINE: You shot the film almost chronologically. What does that accomplish?
DUNST: I think it was valuable to be leading up to worse and worse things, to then be in the battle scenes at the White House. All the history of what we went through really amped up the feelings, and that definitely helped. But I think we were dreading certain scenes, like the scene with Jessie [Cailee Spaeny] and the mass grave. That took two days and we were all happy when that scene was over. It was so dark. And then the end; I was curious about people who get premonitions of when they’re going to die, so I watched a Netflix documentary that talked about that. I kind of used that for Lee at the end because this is how I saw it. Something was telling her not to go in because she was going to die. I used that breakdown Lee has, as her body saying, “Don’t go in there.”
DEADLINE: How would you describe her state of mind at the beginning of the film?
DUNST: Lee having this be on her home turf is a whole new level of… not thinking that it could happen. I have a line in the movie that’s like, “I sent these warnings home, all the time, and nobody listened.” So, I think that there’s a drive and a mission and a depression, and when you hold all that inside for so long, it’s going to come out in some ways. She’s a pretty hardened person at that point.
DEADLINE: When she meets Jessie, she becomes a reluctant mentor of sorts. What is her relationship to Jessie?
DUNST: At first there is an unspoken kind of thing, where it’s like, “Oh, you were me. I was you.” And for the first scene we have together in the lobby where we actually talk, I said to Cailee, “What if underneath all this, we were mother and daughter in a past life?” so that there was a deeper thing happening, rather than just saying things about like, “OK, make sure you have this vest or this camera or a helmet next time.” Whatever it is that I was saying, there’s a deeper connection between them. I always like to play around with those unconscious feelings, so things are deeper rooted than they appear.
DEADLINE: I feel like Lee is trying to dissuade her from going down that road.
DUNST: Of course, she doesn’t want to be there when she dies. She doesn’t want that responsibility on her shoulders, Lee.
DEADLINE: Or for Jessie to turn into Lee.
DUNST: She’s warning her. Yeah, because it’s miserable being Lee.
DEADLINE: You have been working for 36 years. Is there a situation at work that you haven’t on some level experienced before?
DUNST: I don’t know. In my older age, I don’t tolerate people not being nice to the crew at all, and I haven’t experienced that in a very long time. But that’s something that really bothers me. I feel like the more you distance yourself from the community of this group that’s all together making this movie, it’s so isolating and would make me feel so weird. I haven’t experienced that with an actor. I did experience that briefly with a director, but I was so young. I was just like, “Whoa.” He just yelled, and it was ridiculous, and I can’t tolerate that, just not being kind to other people.
DEADLINE: Do you find that you’re more of a collaborator now, with directors or whoever you’re working with?
DUNST: Yeah, I feel like we’re in this thing together. We are collaborators, and we have to trust each other and be there for each other and be kind because everyone’s being very vulnerable. You want a supportive group.
DEADLINE: Especially when you’re shooting things like Civil War. You mentioned the mass grave scene, but what were those other scenes that you were really dreading?
DUNST: The men hanging in the car wash. Honestly, driving through the fire. I know it was safe, but it felt very dangerous. I was like, “There’s sparks all around us and we’re in a car.” That freaked me out and it was not supposed to be a freakout moment. Sometimes the way Wagner would drive, I was like, “Oh, that was a big bump.” Yeah, I wasn’t looking forward to all the gunfire. Just hearing that much gunfire is unsettling. And Alex liked to use full rounds instead of half rounds of blanks, so it was very, very loud. I’m not used to that, so it does something to your body. I think it took me two weeks to just feel kind of normal again.
DEADLINE: What was the aftermath of this project like?
DUNST: I always like when things feel as real as possible with people on sets and in acting. But coming home, it just was a little weird, like, “Oh, we went to lunch with the kids and went to the park.” It just didn’t feel real. It just felt like my body had to calm down, but what do you do? You just have to get back to normal life. Yeah, it just felt very loud. The last two weeks were very intense, so I think that whether it was gunfire or whether you’re doing scenes that are very emotional, it does take a toll on your psyche, your body and your mind. Certain movies are harder than others to come down from. And this took me a sec.
DEADLINE: I assume you ended up watching the final product. How did you feel, living through it again?
DUNST: It kind of feels almost like you’re watching a home video, because I’m just thinking about where we were shooting and what happened that day, what we ate. I know that sounds silly, but it was just laying on these cots in these tents for hours. I just think about what happened that day.
DEADLINE: Maybe that’s the healthiest approach to a film like this, because what you described earlier is how war correspondents describe coming home, how everything feels not real.
DUNST: Yeah, I can’t imagine it for real, for real. But watching the movie, I was impressed by the way Alex had put it together and edited it. I felt like I was watching something I didn’t expect, with the music and I really loved the way that he ended the film, with that image developing. I think this movie’s very different and I can say that I’m proud of myself. And, also, the fact that it was successful. You don’t know. No one knows. I feel like that doesn’t always happen. So, I was really excited that it did so well in the theaters.
DEADLINE: What’s next for you?
DUNST: Well, next I’m going to do a movie with Derek Cianfrance called Roofman. And then I’m going to work with Ruben Östlund, and I’m really excited about both.
DEADLINE: They are very different as filmmakers. How is it to adapt to these auteurs?
DUNST: I don’t feel like I’m adapting. I feel like there’s a reason that we all wanted to work together. There’s a quality in me and there’s a quality in them that we relate to, on some level. I think that that’s a beautiful thing, to create art with people that you admire and then they want to work with you, too. That’s the dream, as an actor. I feel like the older I get, the more I have to give. So, in turn, it is more exhausting at the end of the day, but also more satisfying.
