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The final time I spoke with Kirsten Dunst, for her work in Alex Garland’s 2024 pulse-pounder “Civil Struggle,” it got here with an sudden coda: a win on the Nationwide Arts and Leisure Journalism Awards for that story. So once I was on deck to interview Dunst once more, alongside her “Roofman” co-star Channing Tatum, I pulled out the star-shaped award I obtained for the respect. No stress for this interview, I joked.
“What’s it say?” Dunst requested, leaning ahead to get a greater look. “Effectively, it’s after we talked for ‘Civil Struggle,’ and the title of my piece was Kirsten Dunst Is Our Most Cheap Film Star,” I informed her.
Tatum beamed. “I like ‘affordable,’ as a result of that’s proper. If I ever actually wanted to get an actual perspective on one thing, I might completely come to you,” he mentioned, turning to his co-star. “I might 100% wish to have your perspective, as a result of I do know it will be an inexpensive one. On each side! You wouldn’t simply attempt to take my aspect.”
Dunst laughed and tried to demure. “No,” she mentioned with a smile. “You’d!” Tatum mentioned. “You’d be like, ‘Effectively, it’s best to in all probability have a look at this as effectively,’ and I’d be like, ‘Rattling it. No, you’re proper.’”
Whereas Derek Cianfrance’s fact-based characteristic marks the primary time Dunst and Tatum have starred collectively, the pair are longtime admirers of one another’s work. That admiration is clear, even by the display screen of a Zoom interview, because the pair comfortably traded tales (and compliments) concerning the different and the way that respect and appreciation translated to 2025’s most charming onscreen pairing.
Dunst and Tatum don’t even actually work together till the movie is nearly at its halfway mark. As a substitute, we watch Tatum’s Jeffrey Manchester — primarily based on a very actual dude, who turned notorious within the late ’90s for breaking into numerous quick meals joints by the roof, then robbing them in fairly respectful trend — admire Dunst’s Leigh Wainscott from afar, sort of. Manchester’s crimes did meet up with him, and when he was thrown into jail in 2000, the way-too intelligent former soldier cooked up a daring escape, which ultimately led him to a natty hiding spot: in a suburban Toys “R” Us.
In Cianfrance’s movie, which he wrote alongside Kirt Gunn, Dunst’s Leigh works at that very same Toys “R” Us (the true Wainscott didn’t). As Jeffrey carves out an odd (and generally enjoyable) existence inside the shop, he notices Leigh, a single mother with a sterling work ethic and an actual conscience. And when he simply so occurs to run into her at her native church (the place the true Manchester and Wainscott met), their fast chemistry turns right into a heat romance.
In a movie stuffed with insane particulars — most of them true! — Dunst and Tatum are so plausible and so actual that their bond turns a nutty true crime story into one of many yr’s most sudden crowdpleasers. Step one for each of them? Possibly some nerves about sharing the display screen with somebody they already preferred a lot.
“I noticed ‘Interview with the Vampire,’ however I wasn’t an actor then, so I didn’t have that [feeling of], ‘I wish to work with that little beast of a lady in that film,’” Tatum mentioned of the primary time he remembered taking discover of Dunst. “That film? She’s actually blowing [out of the water] two of the most important film stars and greatest actors of any technology … I don’t know the way that little individual simply had that in them. She’s now just a bit taller, and it’s the identical hearth in there.”
Dunst appeared to acknowledge Tatum’s vary early, noting that she beloved him in each “Foxcatcher” and “21 Bounce Avenue.” “I knew working with Chan was going to be… I simply knew,” she mentioned. “I had a sense about him, and I used to be proper.” (Cheap!)
Tatum credit Cianfrance for recognizing that his stars would vibe, each in entrance of and behind the digital camera.
“Derek actually knew that Kirsten and I had been simply going to right away join and get one another,” Tatum mentioned. “We’re very related in a number of methods, in the way in which that we method the world or transfer by the world. He simply knew, finally, that that was going to work, after which we’re simply going to genuinely like one another. I believe our performing fashion may be very related. Typically you’re employed with people who find themselves so conscious of the digital camera and what they’re doing, and saving their actually great things for the close-up. And it feels slightly, I don’t wish to say manipulated, as a result of generally that actually works. I don’t ever choose anyone’s course of, as a result of man, some individuals give unimaginable performances that approach.”
Dunst was extra to the purpose: “It’s egocentric, actually. I prefer to work with people who aren’t egocentric actors,” she mentioned. She didn’t want to fret about that with Tatum, who nonetheless beams when he thinks again to the primary day the pair set to work collectively.
“If something, they saved hiding us from one another throughout the prep for this film,” Tatum mentioned. “Derek actually wished the primary time that we genuinely received to attach and actually discuss and meet one another [to be] on digital camera for the very first time, and that was the very first take of the Crimson Lobster scene. There’s, I don’t know, what, 14, 15 different actresses at that desk? And Kirsten simply turned my secure house. I used to be so nervous to get to behave together with her, after which, take one, we simply checked out one another for the very first time, and I used to be identical to, ‘Oh, OK. All the things’s going to be OK.”
The scene in query follows Jeffery (going by the title “John Zorn”) and Leigh’s first official assembly, when she invitations him to a post-church meal at a neighborhood Crimson Lobster with a bunch of different singletons (all ladies) from their congregation. Even at a giant desk in the course of a series restaurant, the pair’s giddy chemistry is clear.
For Dunst, that scene felt “dorky and enjoyable,” the beginning of one thing new for each of the characters. “I simply needed to really feel like a girl who’s blown away by this man and making an attempt to determine it out,” Dunst mentioned. “I really feel like she’s somebody who hasn’t giggled genuinely shortly, or had these emotions that she’s feeling. It was simply embracing your inside happiness.”
After the pair go away the restaurant, a blushing Leigh makes a little bit of a transfer on Jeffrey, shyly asking him out on a date. It’s a lightweight, pretty second, constructed on the primary flush of romance. “Simply leaning into all that, as a result of it makes it really feel actual,” Dunst mentioned. “And that’s what Derek is at all times fishing for: probably the most actual and genuine performances.”
“The true Jeff informed me that Leigh was truly the one transferring it ahead,” Tatum added. “I believe she pushed him towards a van and kissed him first, and he was like, ‘Whoa! Jesus.’ Very ahead and powerful, and he preferred it. And he’s goofy, so I get to be goofy in that scene, and the scene exterior by the automobile is simply actually candy. We don’t actually know one another but, so we had been nonetheless making an attempt to determine it out.”
[Editor’s note: Spoilers for the last act of “Roofman” follow.]
One in all Dunst’s greatest scenes, no less than by Tatum’s estimation, isn’t even within the last movie. Jeffrey’s misdeeds and actual identification are, in fact, ultimately came upon. Because the partitions begin closing in, Jeffrey begins to flee, heading to the airport and away from Leigh and her two daughters, who’re anticipating him for Christmas dinner. However when Leigh calls him, he can’t resist her mild asks as to when she would possibly count on him.
And although it’s not solely clear to Jeffrey at that second, because the viewers, we get an inkling of what’s taking place: Leigh has been tasked with bringing him again in. Within the last movie, we solely see Tatum’s aspect of the dialog, however Dunst’s was additionally shot, with a cadre of cops round her, forcing her to trick the person she loves.
“God, considered one of Kirsten’s best-acted scenes within the film, they’re all nice, however there was this one,” Tatum mentioned. “I watched the entire scene. I used to be there watching the scene, and it’s simply crushing. She’s getting interviewed by the true cops that really arrested Jeffrey, and so they had been interviewing her like they’d an actual suspect, and she or he simply nails this factor. It’s killer.”
The scene didn’t finally make it into the movie, largely as a result of everybody agreed it gave an excessive amount of away and detracted from the uncooked vitality of what Tatum is experiencing in that second. Dunst doesn’t get fussed about that kind of factor. Even when that scene is just not within the movie, the emotion is.
“The true Leigh was there that day,” Dunst mentioned. “It didn’t hassle me in any respect, though different individuals projected that it ought to hassle me. But it surely didn’t in any respect. And I felt like, ‘Oh, we shared one thing in life, sort of’ in that second for her.”
When Jeffrey arrives at Leigh’s house, we all know what’s about to occur: He’s going to get caught. As a distraught Jeffrey is grabbed by the cops, a horrified and heartbroken Leigh sits unseen in a cop automobile, mere yards away. Dunst’s face in these moments is a revelation, her feelings so current, her expression so uncooked.
“I don’t actually take into consideration what I’m doing with my face, as a result of then I in all probability wouldn’t be real,” she mentioned of that scene. “I did hearken to a Nina Simone music throughout that take. Typically, I search for different individuals’s performances, whether or not it’s a dwell efficiency [or something else], and that connects me to the realness of being a human being. I believe your job is simply to offer your guts. You understand what I imply? And so I simply try to put myself in a spot that feels genuine for myself, and I believe that individuals can odor whether or not one thing feels real or not.”
Tatum nodded subsequent to her. “‘Give your guts’! I really like that. I’m stealing that,” he mentioned.
Dunst chuckled. “In any other case, what am I doing right here? You understand what I imply? It’s a job that I do,” she mentioned. “I don’t suppose, ‘Oh, individuals are going to observe this and choose me.’ I don’t choose myself, I don’t choose… And you recognize what? If individuals don’t like me anymore, then I’ll go do one thing else. It’s like, I don’t know what to inform you. That is what you get.”
Tatum smiled at his co-star. “I believe you’re good. I believe they prefer it. I don’t suppose you must do anything.”
A Paramount Footage launch, “Roofman” is now obtainable on digital platforms.
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