Kirsten Dunst recalls biting Josh Hartnett in “The Virgin Suicides” make-out scene: 'I was so mortified’

"I had kissed a guy in real life before, but I had never jumped on him."

Kirsten Dunst is recalling a very awkward moment she had on the set of The Virgin Suicides.

The actress, who starred as Lux Lisbon in the Sofia Coppola–directed 2000 film, remembers feeling absolutely “mortified” after she accidentally bit her costar Josh Hartnett while they were shooting their make-out scene together.

“I was a very innocent — [a] 15-, 16-year-old,” Dunst said in a new British GQ video. “She’s very soft, Sofia, and very kind and generous, and it was kind of a no-brainer to work with her, but I was nervous to play that role. I wasn’t playing footsie under the table with dudes, you know? I was playing with Barbies for probably far too long.”

Dunst’s character is the most rebellious and flirtatious of the Lisbon sisters — played by A.J. Cook, Leslie Hayman, Chelse Swain, and Hanna Hall — and embarks on a short-lived romance with high school heartthrob Trip Fontaine (Hartnett). Looking back, Dunst described the moment in which Lux breaks out of her house, hops into Trip’s car, and then begins furiously making out with him as “the scene that made me the most nervous” during filming.

“I remember once, he was like, ‘Oh, I think you bit me.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I was so mortified,” she said. “And one time his wig got weird. And, I mean, I had kissed a guy in real life before, but I had never jumped on him… and the car! I just was very innocent and that was a lot for me.”

Dunst noted that Coppola tried to mitigate some of the awkwardness for her on set. “I mean, Sofia played music so it would be a little bit more relaxing," she recalled. "I think she played the music that’s actually in the movie, as I remember." (The song that plays during the scene is Heart’s “Crazy on You.”)

The actress looked back at the process of shooting the scene when Entertainment Weekly reunited the cast for the film's 20th anniversary in 2020. "The lights in the house would go off, and then I'd have to run out," she said. "It was such a long-winded thing to get in the car, jump on Josh, his wig would fall off… Then I bit him once, I remember. It was just a mess."

She added that she felt "nervous" to be "making out with all these guys in the script," but found comfort in Coppola's vision. "I just was overwhelmed and kind of a young 16-year-old," she said, "but when I met Sofia, I felt at ease, and I knew that this would be something special."

Watch Dunst reflect on The Virgin Suicides and more in the clip above.

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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.