Kirsten Dunst somehow managed to survive acting in teen movies during the early 2000s intact, and came out of the decade relatively unscathed compared to the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Megan Fox, who the media went to town on. When she was cast as Mary Jane opposite Tobey Maguire in the Spider-Man movies in 2002, the pressure increased even more.
In a very 2000s interview with Entertainment Weekly – which refers to “Dunst discussing the hazards of wearing skimpy costumes and her rumoured affair with Spider-Man actor Tobey Maguire” – reveals that she did have to deal with some misogynistic comments on set.
Dunst, who was only 19 years old at the time, said that the set had; “a little too much male energy. When the first assistant director nicknames you ‘Girly-Girl,’ you kind of figure that out [laughs]. Eventually [producer] Laura Ziskin came to the set, and it was so good to have a powerhouse female. Without her, I would have been kind of overblown by all the guy stuff.”
Dunst further elaborated on her experience of making the superhero movie; “I did spend three nights freezing my butt off in the pouring rain in a skimpy little outfit. We had to get multiple takes, so I’d run into a heated room on the Warner Brothers backlot, dry off, and do it all over again…and again and again.”
“The thing was, it didn’t look wet enough on the back lot because the sidewalks are a lot higher than they would be on a regular street, so they had to really flood the place. It got to the point where I was standing in water above my ankles, and let’s just say the drainage system wasn’t so good. And then, at 6 am, when I’m wet and frozen, I had to act all sexy and romantic with Spider-Man for a close-up.”