Kirsten Dunst recently shared her bluntly honest thoughts on superhero movies, admitting she'd jump at the chance to star in another because it would mean making a lot of money.
GQ recently brought those comments up and put it to her that actors don't typically talk about that sort of thing. "They don’t?" she laughed. "Really? That’s the reason people do those movies!"
Reflecting on shooting 2002's Spider-Man, Dunst says the genre "was more innocent, I think," adding, "Sam Raimi was like a cult director, so it felt like we were making an indie disguised as a superhero film."
The Civil War star has said on multiple occasions that she'd be willing to return as Mary Jane Watson if asked, but what about in Spider-Man: No Way Home? (which featured her co-stars Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, and Alfred Molina).
Early drafts of the script are thought to have included Dunst's MJ and Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy, but was she ever asked to return? "No, no...I would have," she confirms.
As for how she'd like to revisit the character, she says, "It would be funny to be like, OK, let’s take Tobey [Maguire] and I and do it in a weird indie way where it’s like a different kind of superhero film. Like how they did that movie Chronicle. It could be cool."
Sam Raimi has expressed interest in making Spider-Man 4, but with Maguire likely to reprise the role in the next Avengers movies, we're not banking on that happening (unless Sony Pictures decides to launch its own, separate Spider-Man franchise with Maguire and/or Garfield).
Dunst also looked back at her time making Spider-Man and recalls those involved with the movie making repeated attempts to change her appearance.
For example, a producer took her, without warning, to the dentist and encouraged Dunst to get her teeth straightened. "I was like, 'No, I like my teeth.'" When she wore dark lipstick and a black dress to Spider-Man's London premiere, Sony had some feedback.
"The studio was like, 'She looks very goth.' And they didn’t like that, probably because they wanted me to look like a sexy young woman who would appeal to a broader range of whoever gets seats in the theatre. I was never that girl. I never did it."
With any luck, Dunst will get another chance to play MJ. Whether there will be room in Avengers 5 or Avengers: Secret Wars for any sort of cameo appearance obviously remains to be seen.
Check out what Dylan Baker recently had to tell us about scrapped plans for The Lizard in Spider-Man 4 below.