Kirsten Dunst

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Dunst was born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, to Inez (née Rupprecht) and Klaus Dunst. She has one younger brother named Christian, born in 1987. Her father worked as a medical services executive, and her mother was an artist and one-time gallery owner. Dunst's father is German, originally from Hamburg, and Dunst's mother, who was born in New Jersey, is of German and Swedish descent. Dunst affirmed her German citizenship in 2011 and now holds passports as a dual citizen of the United States and Germany. 

Dunst began her career when she was three years old as a child fashion model in television commercials. She was signed with Ford Models and Elite Model Management. At the age of six years old she made her film debut in a minor role in Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks, a short film that was released as one-third of the anthology New York Stories . Soon after, she landed a small part in The Bonfire of the Vanities , as Tom Hanks's daughter. In 1993, Dunst played Hedril in "Dark Page", the seventh episode of the seventh season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

The breakthrough role in Dunst's career came in Interview with the Vampire, a 1994 film based on Anne Rice's novel, in which she played the child vampire Claudia, a surrogate daughter to Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's characters in the film. The film received ambivalent reviews, but many film critics complimented Dunst's performance. Roger Ebert commented that Dunst's creation of the child vampire Claudia was one of the "creepier" aspects of the film, and mentioned her ability to convey the impression of great age inside apparent youth. Todd McCarthy in Variety noted that Dunst was "just right" for the family. The film featured a scene in which Dunst shared her first on-screen kiss with Brad Pitt, who was eighteen years her senior. In an interview with Interview magazine, she revealed, while questioned about her kissing scene with Pitt, that kissing him had made her feel uncomfortable: "I thought it was gross, that Brad had cooties. I mean, I was 10." Her performance earned her the MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance, the Saturn Award for Best Young Actress, and her first Golden Globe Award nomination. 

Later in 1994, Dunst appeared in the adaptation of the drama Little Women opposite Winona Ryder and Claire Danes. The film received favorable reviews. Critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film was the greatest adaptation of the novel and remarked on Dunst's performance, "The perfect contrast to take-charge Jo comes from Kirsten Dunst's scene-stealing Amy, whose vanity and twinkling mischief make so much more sense coming from an 11-year-old vixen than they did from grown-up Joan Bennett in 1933. Dunst, also scarily effective as the baby bloodsucker of Interview With the Vampire, is a little vamp with a big future.". 

In 1995, she appeared in the fantasy movie Jumanji, loosely based on Chris Van Allsburg's 1981 book of the same name. The story is about a supernatural and ominous board game which makes animals and other jungle hazards appear upon each roll of the dice. She was part of an ensemble cast that included Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, and David Alan Grier. The movie grossed $262 million worldwide. That year, and again in 2002, she was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. In 1996, Dunst had a recurring role in the third season of NBC's medical drama ER. She portrayed a child prostitute, Charlie Chiemingo, taken under the guidance of Dr. Doug Ross, played by George Clooney. In 1997, she was the voice of Young Anastasia in the animated musical film Anastasia. Also in 1997, Dunst appeared in the political satire Wag the Dog, opposite Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman. The following year she was the voice of the title character, Kiki, a 13-year-old apprentice witch who leaves her home village to spend a year on her own, in the anime movie Kiki's Delivery Service . 

In 2000, she played Torrance Shipman, the captain of a cheerleading squad in Bring It On. The film generated mostly positive reviews, with many critics reserving praise for her performance. In his review, A. Scott called her "a terrific comic actress, largely because of her great expressive range, and the nimbleness with which she can shift from anxiety to aggression to genuine hurt." Charles Taylor of Salon noted that "among contemporary teenage actresses, Dunst has become the sunniest imaginable parodist", even though he thought the film had failed to provide her with as good a role as she had either in Dick or in The Virgin Suicides. Jessica Winter from The Village Voice complimented Dunst, stating that her performance was "as sprightly and knowingly daft as her turn in Dick" and commenting that " provides the only major element of Bring It On that plays as tweaking parody rather than slick, strident, body-slam churlishness." Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle, despite giving the film an unfavorable review, commended Dunst for her willingness "to be as silly and cloyingly agreeable as it takes to get through a slapdash film.". 

The following year, Dunst had the lead in the teen comedy Get Over It . She later explained that one of the reasons for accepting the role was that it gave her the opportunity to sing. Also in 2001, she depicted the late American actress Marion Davies in The Cat's Meow, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Derek Elley of Variety described the film as "playful and sporty," saying that this was Dunst's best performance to date: "Believable as both a spoiled ingenue and a lover to two very different men, Dunst endows a potentially lightweight character with considerable depth and sympathy." In the Esquire review, Tom Carson called her performance "terrific." For her work, she won the Best Actress Silver Ombú category award at the 2002 Mar del Plata Film Festival. 

The success of the first Spider-Man film led Dunst to reprise the role in the 2004 sequel, Spider-Man 2. The movie was well received by critics and a financial success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America. With revenue of $783 million worldwide, it was the second highest grossing film in 2004. Also in 2004, she portrayed a rising tennis player in the Wimbledon Championships opposite Paul Bettany, who played a fading former tennis star in the romantic comedy Wimbledon. Reception for the movie was mixed, but many critics enjoyed Dunst's performance. Claudia Puig of USA Today reported that the chemistry between Dunst and Bettany was potent, with Dunst doing a fine job as a sassy and self-assured player. 

In 2007 she again played Mary Jane Watson, in Spider-Man 3. In contrast to the previous two films' positive reviews, Spider-Man 3 was met with a mixed reception by critics. Nonetheless, with a total worldwide gross of $891 million, it stands as the most commercially successful film in the series and Dunst's highest grossing film to the end of 2008. Having initially signed on for three Spider-Man films, she revealed that she would do a fourth, but only if Raimi and Maguire also returned. In January 2010 it was announced that the Spider-Man franchise would be restarted, therefore dropping Dunst, Maguire, and Raimi from the film series. 

In 2008, Dunst starred alongside Simon Pegg in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, an adaptation of the memoir of the same name by former Vanity Fair contributing editor Toby Young. After she signed on to the film, she revealed that she had joined the project because Pegg was scheduled to appear in it. Since 2010, Dunst's work has included directing the short film Bastard which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010, and was later featured at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Her next role was in a leading role opposite Ryan Gosling in the romantic drama All Good Things in which she portrays a woman from a run-down neighborhood who goes missing. The feature received reasonable reviews, and earned $640 thousand worldwide. 

Dunst supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 U.S. Four years later, she supported Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Dunst revealed that she supported Obama "from the beginning" of the presidential campaign. In support of this, she directed and narrated a documentary entitled Why Tuesday, explaining the United States tradition of voting on Tuesdays. Dunst explained that Tuesday is "not a holiday, and one of the lowest democratic countries in voter turnout." She felt it important to "influence people in a positive way" to vote on November 4. Her charity work includes participation with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, in which she helped design and promote a necklace, for which all proceeds from sales went to the Glaser foundation. She also has helped with breast cancer awareness; in September 2008 she participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, to help raise funds to accelerate cancer research. On December 5, 2009, she participated in the Teletón in Mexico, to help raise funds to treat cancer and children rehabilitation.

Reference

• Kirsten Dunst. (2013). Retrieved on August 7, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Dunst.
• Kirsten Dunst. (2013). Retrieved on August 7, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Dunst.
• Kirsten Dunst. (2013). Retrieved on August 7, 2013, from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsten_Dunst.