Featured Image Credit: Alamy
Topics: Brad Pitt, Film and TV
Claire Reid
Kirsten Dunst opened up about what it was like having to kiss Interview With The Vampire co-star when she was just 11 and he was 30.
Dunst was just a child when she appeared alongside Pitt in the 1994 gothic horror flick, based upon Anne Rice’s 1976 novel of the same name. You can see a trailer for the movie here:
For those who haven’t seen it, the movie centres on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Pitt) telling the story of his unending life to reporter Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater).
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Dunst played Claudia - a young girl who was dying only to be given eternal life by Louis after he turns her into a vampire.
Louis then takes the immortal youngster under his wing, and she goes on to become a well educated and accomplished young woman.
Except, of course, she doesn’t age and Claudia becomes more and more frustrated by her life and desperately wants to become an adult woman.
It’s a deeply eerie performance by Dunst, which the late, great film critic Roger Ebert described at the time as being ‘one of the creepier aspects of the story’.
During an interview with Vanity Fair in 2021, Dunst spoke about the brief kiss between Claudia and Louis, with her character giving her guardian a quick peck on the lips during one scene.
Dunst, who is now 40, recalled having to bite an actor's neck who was sweating profusely, saying: “That was the worst thing I did, and also having obviously to kiss Brad Pitt at that point.
"I was a little girl and he was like a brother to me and it was very weird even though it was a peck. I was very not into it.”
However, the Elizabethtown actor appeared to be otherwise happy with her time shooting the movie, revealing, ‘other than that I was treated like a total princess on that set’.
Dunst has previously opened up about the weirdness of the kiss, per Entertainment Tonight, with archive footage showing then 12-year-old Dunst revealing that she ‘hated it so much’.
Speaking at the time, Dunst said: “Brad was like my older brother on the set and it’s kinda like kissing your older brother. I don’t know. It was weird kissing an older guy. And I had to kiss him on the lips so it was gross.”
Interview With The Vampire, which came out the same year she played spoiled Amy in Little Women, proved to be Dunst’s break-out role, and led to her being nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.