Kirsten Dunst CHALLENGES AGEISM IN HOLLYWOOD
Kirsten Dunst made her Hollywood debut as an eight-year-old in and then earned rave reviews opposite Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in when she was 12. She’s since become an indie darling, thanks to regular collaborations with acclaimed director Sofia Coppola, most recently starring in Coppola’s Civil War-set thriller (2017), a feminist remake of the 1971 Clint Eastwood film. She was also nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe for her performance in the second season of But that clout goes only so far in Hollywood’s maledominated, youth-fixated environment, Dunst tells Sharing the struggles she’s faced while kicking off her directorial debut – a long-delayed adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s starring Dakota, the TV hit centring on the twilight rivalry between Hollywood stars Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. “I was getting depressed watching I was like, ‘I’m an aging actress!’ But they also had a lot more leverage, because [back then] they had contracts. So even though they were stuck, they could also bully the studio back. Now you work for nothing on independent films, and you rely on the fashion industry to support artistic endeavours.” Dunst isn’t the first star to speak out against Hollywood’s lack of opportunities for aging actresses. Meryl Streep and Susan Sarandon are among those who’ve previously criticised the lazy roles written for older actresses and the way older male leads are often paired with younger starlets. year, Maggie Gyllenhaal was turned down for a role because, at 37, she was deemed “too old” to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man. A recent study also found that the older an actress gets, the less dialogue she receives in Hollywood films, while another survey from suggested women’s careers in Hollywood peak at around 30, compared to 46 for men However, society’s fixation on youth extends beyond Hollywood.
