Out Of The Woods

For more than two decades, the ever-beguiling kirsten dunst has moved effortlessly between the art house and the multiplex. this month, she gives psychological horror a spin.

- Molly Lambert

"In a dark Mexican restaurant in the valley..." is how Kirsten Dunst predicts I will start this profile of her. So here we are, in a dark Mexican restaurant in the Valley, eating chips and salsa under a chandelier shaped like a cactus. It’s one of her regular haunts, the kind of homey, low-lit, AC-heavy place that’s perfect to escape into on a white-hot, 90-degree Los Angeles day like today.

It’s fitting to flit between temperature extremes while speaking with the actress, who has made a career out of shifting seamlessly between cult indie flicks and superhero blockbusters. And like most of Dunst’s 35 years, this has been a busy one, from appearing in Cannes standout The Beguiled to this month’s Woodshock—the first feature film from Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy—in which she stars. Dunst recently accompanied the Mulleavys to Rodarte’s first Paris Fashion Week showing. “Their shows always make me cry because they’re two of my best friends. It’s like watching your baby walk. I’m like, ‘Aw, my friends, look what they did!’” she says in a funny, throaty, emotional voice. “And I’m always crying. I’m just that way. I cry a lot and I love my friends and I’m so proud of what they do.”

Dunst first met Kate and Laura over a decade ago, when the Mulleavy sisters had just started Rodarte. “I was the first actress to wear their clothes, and so eventually they sent me a little box of weird trinkets,” she says. “There was,like, a plastic fairy village in there and a little disposable camera.” She sent a thank-you note, and met them soon after at a Christmas party, where they became fast friends.