Few child stars are fortunate to have careers by the time they're in their thirties. Fortunately for Kirsten Dunst, she is part of the group of child actors who have had success in their childhood and also their adulthood. In return, she was able to earn her impressive net worth of $25 million.
As a child actor, she learned when to say no to things she didn't want to do very quickly and had excellent role models who helped her at the roughest of times. She has had some of the best roles in Hollywood spanning her thirty years in the business and is even set to reprise one of them.
But how did she get to be where she is today, and how did she accumulate that $25 million?
She Got Her Start As A Baby Vampire
Dunst started her career in 1989 and starred in a couple of films and TV movies. But her career as a child actress didn't kick off until she landed the role of Claudia in the film adaptation of Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire.
Dunst was twelve at the time and probably didn't realize the film's caliber or the fact that she was the luckiest girl for landing a film with two of Hollywood's most famous actors, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. All she probably knew were her lines and that she had to constantly sit in weird vampire makeup.
Since starring in that film, which earned her first Golden Globes nomination for Best Supporting Actress, Cruise has sent her a birthday cake for her birthday every year. She also had her first on-screen kiss in the film when she got to kiss Pitt. Not bad for a girl raised in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.
Fame hit her fast after that as 1994 proved to be a busy year. Right after Interview with the Vampire, she was cast as young Amy March in Little Women, and the year after that she was cast as Judy in Jumanji.
She credits her mother for being the person who kept her grounded during these times.
Her Career Sort Of Stalled Until Sophia Coppola Cast Her
Oddly enough, after three successful films in a row, Dunst's career sort of stalled. She continued to get roles, just not great roles.
Throughout her teens, she mainly had short appearances on TV shows like ER and starred in relatively unknown films like Strike! and the TV movie Fifteen and Pregnant.
It wasn't until 1999 that Dunst's career started to have an upturn. She was cast in Sophia Coppola's feature directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, sparking a decades-long mentorship/friendship between the two.
Coppola was also the person who told her never to fix her teeth because they gave her character, making Dunst feel like she had someone looking after her who helped give her confidence.
She explained to BUILD Series, "I feel like Virgin Suicides was a huge deal for me because it was that first, you know, I got to be beautiful, but 'of substance' in a movie. I was taken care of 'cause it was Sofia, a female filmmaker. That was a transition that I think was a very important one for me and my career."
A year later, Dunst was cast in Bring It On, which celebrated its 20th-anniversary last year. It once again put Dunst in the spotlight and prepared audiences for her next big role; Mary-Jane Watson.
She Loved Her Time In 'Spider-Man'
Most of Dunst's wealth has come from her role as Mary-Jane in the Spider-Man trilogy starting in 2002.
For the sequels, she earned $7 million and $10 million and made about $20 million for all three films collectively.
Other than one awkward moment where the producers asked her to fix her teeth and she refused, Dunst had a relatively enjoyable experience on the set of the superhero films. In fact, she wishes there was a fourth. Maybe that's the reason she signed on the reprise her role.
When Spider-Man was rebooted with Tom Holland, Dunst told Marie Claire UK, "We made the best ones, so who cares? I'm like, 'You make it all you want.' They're just milking that cow for money. It's so obvious."
Dunst went on to star in films like Mona Lisa Smile, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and then Wimbledon, which earned her $5 million. She went on to earn $8 million for both Cameron Crowe's film Elizabethtown and her second collaboration with Coppola on Marie Antoinette.
In 2011, Dunst attracted critics for her role in Melancholia, but she later moved to television for a time on the show Fargo in 2015, a decision she wound up regretting.
"I wasn't sure if I was ready to do television, but since it was a miniseries I was all for it," she told Variety. "I don't think I'm ready to be committed to a series, especially if it did OK and went for four years and I couldn't do whatever I want."
After Fargo, she made a return to feature films with appearances in Hidden Figures, and her third film with Coppola, The Beguiled...and then returned to television. She starred in ten episodes of On Becoming a God in Central Florida in 2019.
For the most part, Dunst has recently taken time out to have her son and focus more on directing, something Coppola inspired her to do. So far she's done a couple of shorts and was supposed to have her feature directorial debut with the film adaptation of The Bell Jar, but it fell through. Dunst has also revealed she'd like to produce more as well.
So who knows, maybe her paycheck will increase as she takes her career behind the camera more. All we know is that we've literally grown up with Dunst as she's grown up in movies. So not seeing her in front of the screen will be weird.