Kirsten Dunst shares name she got called as ‘joke’ on Spider-Man set: ‘I never said anything’

Kirsten Dunst has revealed that she was repeatedly called a “girly-girl” on the set for Spider-Man.

In a new interview, she said that in the early stages of her career, she didn’t have the confidence to speak up when things bothered her.

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind actor, who is now 41, starred as Peter Parker’s love interest Mary Jane in Marvel’s 2002 film Spider-Man when she was aged 19.

She toldVariety: “It was a joke, but on Spider-Man, they would call me ‘girly-girl’ sometimes on the walkie-talkie. ‘We need girly-girl.’ But I never said anything, Like, don’t call me that!”

Dunst said that “you didn’t say anything” on sets at that time, especially before the #MeToo movement.

“You just took it,” she explained.

Speaking to The Independent in a previous interview, Dunst reflected on the “pay disparity” between herself and her Spider-Man co-star Tobey Maguire, who played the titular character.

“The pay disparity between me and Spider-Man was very extreme,” she said.

“I didn’t even think about it. I was just like, ‘Oh yeah, Tobey is playing Spider-Man.’ But you know who was on the cover of the second Spider-Man poster?....Spider-Man and ME.”

For her latest project, Dunst stars as a military-embedded photojournalist in Alex Garland’s action drama Civil War, which A24 is releasing in cinemas this spring.

“There’s definitely less good roles for women my age,” Dunst told Variety.

After she earnt her first Oscar nomination for The Power of the Dog in 2022, Dunst said that “every role I was being offered was the sad mom”.

“That’s why I did Civil War. When I read the script, I thought, ‘I’ve never done anything like this.’”

Dunst said that the experience of shooting hyper-realistic war sequences for the forthcoming film left her with “PTSD for a good two weeks”.

Speaking to Marie Claire, Dunst said that combat sequences and a car chase shot in rural Georgia “shook me to my core”.

“I remember hearing them practice an explosion,” the actor continued. “We were in the hair and makeup trailer, which was very far away from set, and the whole trailer shook.”

She added that other violent scenes, such as a gunfight set outside the White House, hit home because of how closely they seemed to echo reality. “There’s so much gunfire,” Dunst said, “And then you look at the news and it’s a school shooting again.”

The actor told the magazine that she “had PTSD for a good two weeks after [the film shoot]. I remember coming home and eating lunch and I felt really empty.”