She’s in a house of horrors.”ĭunst began her career at the age of three and appeared in 70 commercials throughout her childhood. I feel like Rose is almost in The Shining. “But most of my prep was about finding Rose’s deep psychological pain and her source of insecurity to allow this man to infiltrate her brain. Playing with two hands when you are older and learning a new instrument is very difficult.”īefore each piano scene, she would plunge her hands in buckets of ice to ensure they were stiff and shaky. “So that was really annoying in our household,” she says, “our friends hearing the same piece of music over and over every night. We live in a patriarchy, so hopefully this will continue to change’ (Photo: Araya Doheny/FilmMagic)ĭunst’s dedication to the role also led her to take piano lessons, as she worked to perfect Johann Strauss’s Radetzky March, which Rose plays repeatedly in the film while Phil taunts her by playing the same piece on his banjo.
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“I feel like men were threatened by a Sofia Coppola or a Jane Campion. “But sometimes I’d mess up and I’d see Ben and be like, ‘Hi.’ And then he’d be doing that ‘Hi’ that you swallow, and I’d make a point of not looking at him.” In the end, they chose to ignore each other on set. If falling in love with Plemons’s George was hardly a challenge for Dunst, portraying her inner torment at the hands of Cumberbatch’s malevolent Phil was more difficult. The brooding Western psychodrama – set in 20s Montana, but filmed in the director’s native New Zealand – is filled with unspoken menace, as Dunst’s widowed Rose navigates her way between her kindly new husband George – played by her real-life partner Jesse Plemons – and Benedict Cumberbatch’sīullying Phil, while she tries to protect her teenage son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Now 39, she delivers a mesmerising performance in The Power of the Dog, as a tormented rancher’s wife who turns to alcohol to cope with the cruelty of her husband’s brother.īased on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, the film marks the return to the big screen of acclaimed director Jane Campion after 12 years. Kirsten Dunst is one of those rare former child actors whose work has only grown in intensity and confidence with age.