Kirsten Dunst on Rehab, Depression, & Dakota Fanning
In a recent cover story with Town & Country magazine, former child star Kirsten Dunst, now 33, opened up about a lot of things, including her 2008 rehab treatment. Sadly, entering rehab as an adult now seems almost like a matter of course for former child stars, but what makes Kirsten's case unique is that her rehab treatments didn't stem from drug addiction, alcoholism, or family drama. She checked herself into a rehab center at age 28 for depression, which she said in the interview was caused by the high demands and pressure of Hollywood.
Kirsten at the Summer TCA Tour to promote the second season of her TV show Fargo, August 2015
The Town & Country article can be read in full here. The most interesting (to me) parts of it are extracted below:
In her mid-20s, there were rumors of drug and alcohol abuse. Turns out, the addiction was to people-pleasing. A lifetime of doing what she was told, always being the good girl, and swallowing her feelings had led to what Kirsten later described as "extreme codependency." She had overdosed on Hollywood. In 2008, at age 27, she voluntarily checked into Cirque Lodge, a Utah rehab facility, for treatment of depression.
"What people expect of an actor is totally ridiculous," she says now. "It's unfair that an artist is expected to speak really well in public and have skin tough enough to withstand sometimes really hurtful criticism, but also, in order to do the job, be really sensitive and in touch with their feelings. So all you can do is be yourself. Just be who the hell you are."
The high number of child actor casualties indicates that it takes time to figure that out, and some never do. Surely it says something that she addressed the problem relatively early. "I know some young actresses who are better at it," she says. " Dakota Fanning reminds me a lot of myself, but she's wiser than I was at her age."
Dakota and Kirsten (with Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk) together at the Venice Film Festival, August 2014
The first Spider-Man movie provided the money for Kirsten to buy her first home, a big, gated modernist box in the Hollywood Hills that she bought in 2003. But she discovered that she didn't like living alone; the isolation only exacerbated her insecurities. After Cirque Lodge, she located to New York City, but eventually returned to California full-time, moving closer to her family. "It's not big or anything, but I still don't like sleeping alone in my house," she says. Often, when Hedlund is out of town, friends sleep over. Kirsten and last night's guest spent the morning watching The Bachelorette. "I like a lot of shitty shows," she says with a vaguely guilty laugh. "I like to zone out when I watch TV."
There was a time when not working made Kirsten anxious. "When I was younger, it definitely bothered me. Now ,I absolutely love it! After working all my life, I'm very good at relaxing," she says. "The older I get, the more I don't want to be away from my mother and my friends."
She has become pickier about the projects she'll do, and that means longer stretches between jobs - a boon, it turns out, to "building a foundation" with Hedlund, whom she met on the set of On the Road in late 2011. "We've been together for three and a half years, so, yes, it's going really well," she says when I ask. "We're the same age. We have similar backgrounds [Hedlund is from Minnesota]. He feels like family to me."
Flashback to Kirsten, then age two days from 20, at the premiere of Spider-Man, April 2002
Kirsten at the Summer TCA Tour to promote the second season of her TV show Fargo, August 2015
The Town & Country article can be read in full here. The most interesting (to me) parts of it are extracted below:
In her mid-20s, there were rumors of drug and alcohol abuse. Turns out, the addiction was to people-pleasing. A lifetime of doing what she was told, always being the good girl, and swallowing her feelings had led to what Kirsten later described as "extreme codependency." She had overdosed on Hollywood. In 2008, at age 27, she voluntarily checked into Cirque Lodge, a Utah rehab facility, for treatment of depression.
"What people expect of an actor is totally ridiculous," she says now. "It's unfair that an artist is expected to speak really well in public and have skin tough enough to withstand sometimes really hurtful criticism, but also, in order to do the job, be really sensitive and in touch with their feelings. So all you can do is be yourself. Just be who the hell you are."
The high number of child actor casualties indicates that it takes time to figure that out, and some never do. Surely it says something that she addressed the problem relatively early. "I know some young actresses who are better at it," she says. " Dakota Fanning reminds me a lot of myself, but she's wiser than I was at her age."
Dakota and Kirsten (with Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk) together at the Venice Film Festival, August 2014
The first Spider-Man movie provided the money for Kirsten to buy her first home, a big, gated modernist box in the Hollywood Hills that she bought in 2003. But she discovered that she didn't like living alone; the isolation only exacerbated her insecurities. After Cirque Lodge, she located to New York City, but eventually returned to California full-time, moving closer to her family. "It's not big or anything, but I still don't like sleeping alone in my house," she says. Often, when Hedlund is out of town, friends sleep over. Kirsten and last night's guest spent the morning watching The Bachelorette. "I like a lot of shitty shows," she says with a vaguely guilty laugh. "I like to zone out when I watch TV."
There was a time when not working made Kirsten anxious. "When I was younger, it definitely bothered me. Now ,I absolutely love it! After working all my life, I'm very good at relaxing," she says. "The older I get, the more I don't want to be away from my mother and my friends."
She has become pickier about the projects she'll do, and that means longer stretches between jobs - a boon, it turns out, to "building a foundation" with Hedlund, whom she met on the set of On the Road in late 2011. "We've been together for three and a half years, so, yes, it's going really well," she says when I ask. "We're the same age. We have similar backgrounds [Hedlund is from Minnesota]. He feels like family to me."
Flashback to Kirsten, then age two days from 20, at the premiere of Spider-Man, April 2002