Kirsten Eats Cake!

According to hot actress Kirsten Dunst, Marie Antoinette never really said "Let them eat cake" when someone told the French queen that her subjects didn't have any bread. But, according to director Sofia Coppola's new Marie Antoinette movie, young Marie (only 14 when she was sent from her native Austria to be married) did live a decadent, anything-you-want life at the Versailles court. What Marie did lack was love and a close confidant she could trust. At our recent Beverly Hills chat, Kirsten admitted to feeling a certain kinship to her royal role. Although close to Sofia's cousin Jason Schwartzman, who played Marie's hubby King Louis the Sixteenth, Kirsten felt a bit isolated on set.

In Beverly Hills at the Four Seasons Hotel recently, we got loads of "Marie" chatter from the beautiful Kirsten, who looked classy yet casual in a classic sheer while Chloe ruffled blouse ("oh, it's an old blouse of mine"), Sass and Bide skinny black jeans and black flats. Her blonde hair is long with darker streaks. A gold necklace and small gold charm bracelet with a heart finished off the outfit and, along with telling us all about the challenges and joys of playing the famous French queen from age 14 through 37 and some insider info on the next Spider-Man film, the star giggled when we asked what she was wearing...

Kirsten: I love that the first question is always about what the girls are wearing!

TeenHollywood: Speaking of clothes.. OMG, what an amazing wardrobe for this film. We never see Marie in the same thing twice. Everything is so colorful.

Kirsten: I know but I didn't get to keep any of the costumes. I have like a nightgown and one of Jason's shirts! But when you think of a period film or like masterpiece theater, it feels a little dingy. Marie was such a fashion icon that Sofia wanted color. She wanted me to look like a macaroon box in the beginning. Then, she went through a lighter, gauzier feeling and then black obviously when she's mourning. The cuts of the costumes are more adult as she gets older as well.

TeenHollywood: Weren't a lot of the costumes very uncomfortable?

Kirsten: Well, any discomfort I was feeling, I just felt Marie might have felt. I had people helping me hiking up skirts [for a bathroom break], certain dresses were uncomfortable and certain ones made me feel beautiful or like a little pastry puff. The clothes evoked feelings within me. They were a character unto themselves.

TeenHollywood: What would you say to teenagers and young adults to recommend this film to them?

Kirsten: That they [Marie and her husband Louis XVI] were teenagers themselves and that the movie can be like high school or comparable to high school. You know, you're in that isolated world of high school and people gossip and people can make people feel so terrible and you think it's the whole world and that's it. So it's a very relatable story and I think it will make history more attainable for them and hopefully make them more interested in finding out about [historical figures], moreso than memorizing dates and facts for school.

TeenHollywood: Great reason to go! You worked with Sofia as your director years ago for The Virgin Suicides. Is working with her now different?

Kirsten: When I was 16, I don't think I was in a mind set of really observing her as a director. I remember thinking back on that film and thinking how people wanted me to be more that all American kind of cute girl. She didn't want that from me. She wanted me to feel the actual feelings that I was feeling. She hasn't changed. She's still the Sophia that I know, but she's a much braver film maker. I mean to do a movie like this about such a talked about historical figure. To take that on takes confidence and belief in your art and to not compromise that. That shows a sign of growth to me.

TeenHollywood: Is it just a better match to work with a woman director on a film like this?

Kirsten: To work with a woman on a film that is an intimate story of a woman concentrating more on the personal life, there aren't many stories like that being told. Sometimes, when you're working with a [male] director, it's more about their idea of a woman and their crush on you in a certain way. Their idea of who you are is different from a woman's perspective obviously. Sometimes you can feel like you can show ugliness more, show sadness. You just feel more comfortable in your vulnerability [with a woman director] I think.

TeenHollywood: You actually filmed some of this movie at the real Versailles in France. How amazing was that.. to really be in places where Marie stood?

Kirsten: I couldn't imagine having to shoot this in Burbank or something like that. I always sense the essence and the atmosphere of a movie. I think atmosphere is what Sofia evokes so powerfully in her films and I don't think she could have made this movie anywhere else. For me, it's a character in itself. I could walk around at night before I shot the balcony scene and look in mirrors and touch the wall and look at a clock. To be in a place where you think well maybe she looked at this clock and I wonder if she looked at herself in the mirror? Your imagination, there's so much to feel when you're actually in the places. It was so important to be able to walk in those gardens and look out a window and imagine that she looked out of this window. All of these things helped me understand what it must have been like.

TeenHollywood: Did you feel her presence there?

Kirsten: I just tried to get a sense of her perfume you know and her essence. I don't know if I could say that I actually felt her. I'm not going to sound like a crazy woman. There are moments when you're like 'I hope she's okay with me playing her.' You get those thoughts in your head and when you go into those really private areas like her theatre. Those are times when you feel like you're in a dream a little bit.

TeenHollywood: Marie had a fun-loving, child-like quality. Did you connect with that?

Kirsten: Yeah. I think part of her struggle was not being able to feel like a woman. She had no sensuality in her life other than what she was eating or wearing. She's not getting any attention from her husband. I think that her position in the court was to just be a pawn. I don't think she was treated like a human being. I think towards the end of her life, her prison years were probably when she most felt like she had a purpose even though it was doomed. I think you can't feel like a real person or alive if you're living in this place where everybody is expecting so much of you. I think it all became [child-like] 'I want to play with this, I want to watch this movie, now I want to eat sugar'. That was kind of my way of making her a sympathetic character.

TeenHollywood: In the film, you ate so many French pastries. How did you not gain weight?

Kirsten: I don't know. I don't really pay attention because I always pretty much stay the same[lucky girl]! I just didn't want to put anything in my mouth that wasn't a pastry or a raspberry or something buttery and delicious. I thought that was Marie Antoinette's relationship with food. Just the sweets.

TeenHollywood: Some journalists are comparing the young life of Marie and her court friends to the lives of young Hollywood actresses today. Do you see that? Can you relate?

Kirsten: Well there is definitely a lot of frivolity. Girls are trying to grow up in a business that is very difficult and you lose yourself and I think that you can compare Marie Antoinette to high school. They are just teenagers. I guess growing up and having that attention and having people gossip about you and all of that [compares] but they're not running a country. They're acting. You know you can move to Austin, Texas and be okay if you don't want to be followed and you don't want that life. Marie Antoinette really had no choice. I mean [in L.A.] you can make a decision when you go out the door whether you want to go grocery shopping in the valley or have lunch at The Ivy, you know what I mean?

TeenHollywood: What most surprised you when you were researching Marie?

Kirsten: I didn't know she was so young! And just little things like she had this dog named Mops. I was surprised at her innocence and [that she was] people pleasing. Her mother was overbearing. I was just so surprised to see and look at her as a real person rather than just a historical figure.

TeenHollywood: What was it like working with Jason Schwartzman as the king?

Kirsten: I adore Jason. We're such good friends, and we became better friends in the movie. I mean, to be a husband and wife is such a special thing. Those scenes with him always took a weight off of my shoulders because it was like he was the only other character in the film that could understand what was a similar feeling, so he was just a great support for me throughout the whole film.

TeenHollywood: Wasn't it difficult because you actually don't have much dialogue with him?

Kirsten: Yeah it was hard because we're such good friends. Even though it was hard for [Louis] to talk to [Marie] and they had an awkward relationship, I think by the end they were brother and sister and had such a love for each other. They became more like best friends and that's what Jason's and my relationship is. I think that need to want to communicate, but then not [be able to] makes the scenes more interesting. It's like we get each other, but we just don't know what to do about it.

TeenHollywood: Everyone knows Marie was beheaded on the guillotine. You didn't shoot that, right?

Kirsten: No. That would have been odd; skipping the prison years and then it runs over the credits like this is an extra? (Laughing) My brother was bummed out. My brother was like, 'I really would have liked to have seen that part.' Guys all want the gore. I've seen guillotines in London when I've gone into prisons or the London dungeons. When I was in Paris, I don't know if I went to a museum with a guillotine in it.

TeenHollywood: So, the film would have been a mini-series if you had gone to the end of her life?

Kirsten: Well, already we fill such a long span of time, and it's a span of innocence, and it's not like she really grows up or becomes a woman until she's faced with the reality of the situation, that doomed destiny. Her prison years were such a long span of time and that's a whole movie unto itself. That's Part Two, you know?

TeenHollywood: Sofia contemporizes the story in a lot of ways. Like Marie and Louis don't talk with clipped accents.

Kirsten: She didn't want us to have accents, and she just didn't want us to put on airs or to act like what I thought a queen would act like. There's definitely a different performance when you're with the king or addressing the court, but people didn't act differently. Maybe we didn't use all of the right words that would have been spoken, but we just wanted to be really as relatable emotionally as possible.

TeenHollywood: With all of the singing and dancing and etiquette lessons you had to do, what was the most grueling, or was it just fun?

Kirsten: I loved taking my singing lessons. It was difficult to try and sing in French; I learned the whole song, I mean, it was only a little snippet, but to understand the words [was hard]. [Marie] wrote the music herself. Dancing wasn't hard for me; I've always been, you know, easy with that kind of stuff.

TeenHollywood: Okay, let's talk a bit about the next Spider-Man film. You were the lead girl in the first two films. Now Bryce Dallas Howard will be competition for Mary Jane. How did you feel bringing on another lead female character?

Kirsten: It's so funny. Everyone asks me that like it's a competitive thing, but Bryce and I got along better than anybody. I was happy to have another girl to share all of that testosterone with. It was nice to come to set and have a girl to hang out with. Her character adds another type of woman that puts Peter in conflict with me and all of those things just create more drama in our relationships.

TeenHollywood: Are you completely finished shooting it?

Kirsten: We're done. I have some more blue-screen things to do. There's always additional special effects things that are tweaked. I have a little bit more to do in November. I think it's going to be a real huge [movie], just so many characters and villains and everything. It's a lot. I think I'm going to be surprised when I see the movie.

TeenHollywood: Those Spidey movies have certainly cemented your career and let you go on to do other things.

Kirsten: It helps so that you don't have to worry about finances. That helps, and also it gives me opportunities. I can make any film I want and it can be a risk and [I don't have to worry about box office]. Well, everything comes down to that for some people, I mean for the studios; of course they want Marie Antoinette to do well, but I want people to be moved by it mostly.

TeenHollywood: What were you most surprised about when you saw the finished "Marie" film?

Kirsten: How personally it encapsulated my time there and what it meant to me. I just felt such an overwhelming feeling of pride. Every time I've seen it afterwards I've gone away because you just start picking apart your performance and everything. But, the first time I saw it, though, I was really moved that all of the feelings that I had while shooting, that memory was in this film in such a beautiful and poetic way. I was really very proud when I first saw it.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.