Kirsten Dunst

Kirsten Dunst should be in school right now, but her teachers have grown used to her strange excuses for playing hooky. Today, Dunst is cutting class to give an interview about which CDs she plays in her car and how she got into R-rated movies before she was old enough.

"If you really wanted to go, you'd just have someone buy your tickets," she giggles.

Instead of studying math at her high school in Southern California's suburban San Fernando Valley, the chirpy blonde actress is in a plush Beverly Hills hotel mastering Marketing 101. Dunst cheerfully announces that she listens to Fiona Apple's newest album, along with "Madonna: The Immaculate Collection." And with the shrewdness of a publicity pro, she is careful to mention the new CD from the trippy French duo Air. It is the score for her new film, "The Virgin Suicides."

Sofia Coppola, the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, makes her directorial debut with "The Virgin Suicides," adapting the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. The 18-year-old Dunst plays the oldest of five alluring sisters in the emotionally charged dark fantasy. Suffocating under the oppressive domestic rule of parents played by James Woods and Kathleen Turner, the sisters all suffer silently. The title hints at the film's outcome, but Dunst feels it does not glamorize the subject.

"At the end, it's really about loss, how these teen-agers were just blooming and at the peak of their teen-age years," explains Dunst. "They were going to the prom and being teen-agers and experimenting, and they're living in this household that's telling them it's all wrong. The mother even takes them out of school. Hopefully, people will see the movie and get the message that this isn't the right way for the sisters to deal with it. You should talk to someone about it. You should get help."

When Dunst first met Coppola, their connection was strong. Although Dunst's real family life is supportive rather than stifling, the young filmmaker could not believe how perfect she was for the role. The character has a worldliness about her, and yet there is an innocence, too. Dunst captures both. The maturity of her performance comes from a lifetime in front of the camera, beginning with modeling gigs at age 3 through her breakthrough pre-teen role opposite Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in "Interview With the Vampire." The simplicity came from her cool-headed approach to all her success.

"Some guys, I think they feel intimidated by me," observes Dunst. "But guys at school, my peers, they totally don't even see me as an actress. They just say, 'Oh, that's Kirsten. She does her thing.' And they respect me, too, for what I do because I'm out of school so much, but I still get good grades and I'm balancing it all. A lot of them want to be musicians or start working at what they want to become. I think that I've almost helped them see that they can achieve their goals at a young age, that it doesn't really matter what age you are."

She has several films awaiting release after "The Virgin Suicides," including the Gothic comic-book nightmare "The Crow: Salvation;" a cheerleading satire with the working title "Jump;" and an independent daydream romance called "Deeply." Dunst also aims to build on her acting success. She is already forming a production company for which she hopes to write screenplays herself.

Despite her accelerated childhood, Dunst is proud that she has managed to live a relatively normal social life. She has friends who have other interests, so their conversations are not always about acting or the movies. She gets to go to the pep rallies, dances and football games that every other kid takes for granted.

"I think that's so important, because I don't want to miss that aspect of my life," Dunst declares. "I have missed some of it, but usually, for all the really important things, everyone has made time for me. They realize you're only a teen-ager once."

But when she graduates in June, Dunst will definitely not miss school too much.

"There comes a point where you just don't care about math anymore. I can't wait until it's over, although I actually got straight A's on my last report card. I feel like I have to impress my teachers extra hard because I'm away. I don't want them to think that I don't care. I always get my work in. I always get good grades.

"But now I'm so over school at this point," Dunst laughs. "I got a case of senioritis this year!"

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: Joey Berlin