Kirsten Dunst has appeared in more than 80 movies over the course of her three-decade career in Hollywood, but even she’s not immune from the industry’s impossible beauty standards.
In a new video interview for Netflix, the award-winning actress, 39, recalled “producers wanting to fix [her] teeth” — and revealed that her director pal and longtime collaborator, Sofia Coppola, helped boost her self-esteem.
Looking back at her role in Coppola’s 1999 film “The Virgin Suicides,” Dunst said, “It was the first time I was seen as a beautiful woman, and [to] have it be a female who gave me that … it was very empowering for me at that age in terms of the way I felt about myself and my beauty.”
Dunst, who’d go on to star in 2006’s “Marie Antoinette” and 2017’s “The Beguiled,” appeared in Coppola’s feature directorial debut when she was just 16 years old.
![Kirsten Dunst laying in the grass](https://pagesix.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/12/kirsten-dunst-85.jpg?quality=90&strip=all)
“That’s a weird age,” the actress continued. “She just gave me a lot of confidence that I carried throughout my career in terms of producers wanting to fix my teeth … People just trying to change and manipulate young actresses in a way to make them the same.”
Concluded Dunst, “She made me feel beautiful for who I was, and that was a very pivotal time in my life to feel that way and to be given that.”
In a November interview with the Independent, the actress revealed that it was one of the producers on 2002’s “Spider-Man” (in which she starred as Mary Jane) who first urged her to straighten her smile — and literally drove her to the dentist to do so.
Dunst told the outlet she refused to get out of the car. “I was like, ‘Mmmmm, no, I like my teeth,’” she recalled. “Also, Sofia loved my teeth.”
![Kirsten Dunst and Sofia Coppola](https://pagesix.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/12/kirsten-dunst-81.jpg?quality=90&strip=all)