Kirsten Dunst at 43 Looks Virtually Unchanged From Her Spider-Man Days More Than 20 Years Ago
Kirsten Dunst has been working in front of cameras for most of her life, and even now at 43, she still feels like a constant presence in Hollywood.
Long before she became known around the world, Dunst was already building a career. According to industry profiles and early casting records, she started modeling when she was just three years old. She appeared in TV commercials through agencies such as Ford Models and Elite Model Management.
Not long after, she stepped into acting. One of her earliest television moments came in 1988 when she appeared on Saturday Night Live, playing the granddaughter of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush.
Small roles followed. She showed up in Woody Allen’s short film Oedipus Wrecks, which was part of the New York Stories anthology. She also appeared in The Bonfire of the Vanities and even had a guest role in Star Trek: The Next Generation. These early appearances helped her slowly move from commercials into film and television.
Kirsten Dunst for The 32nd Annual Actor Awards. 📷 pic.twitter.com/3TdPPjb5iD
— GoldenSeries (@series_golden) March 2, 2026
Her real breakout moment came in 1994 with Interview with the Vampire. Acting alongside Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, she played Claudia, a child vampire trapped in an eternal life. Critics noticed her immediately. Even years later, she joked about her first onscreen kiss with Pitt, saying, I thought it was gross, that Brad had cooties. I mean, I was 10. The role earned her major recognition, including a Golden Globe nomination and wins at the MTV Movie Awards and Saturn Awards.
After that, her career grew quickly. She appeared in Little Women and Jumanji, where she worked with Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt. But it was in 2002 that she truly became a household name. She starred as Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man opposite Tobey Maguire. The film became a global hit and made more than $800 million worldwide, according to box office reports. She returned for the sequels, securing her place as one of the most recognizable faces of the early 2000s.
Over time, Dunst chose to mix big studio films with more serious projects. She worked with director Sofia Coppola on Marie Antoinette and appeared in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. Her performance in Melancholia won her Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, according to festival records. She also explored different genres, from teen comedy Bring It On to drama The Virgin Suicides and more recent films like Civil War.
In her personal life, Dunst has been open about her struggles. In 2008, she publicly shared that she sought treatment for depression at a facility in Utah. Over the years, she has also had well-known relationships, including with Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Garrett Hedlund.
Since 2016, she has been with her Fargo co-star Jesse Plemons. The two got engaged in 2017 and married in 2022 in Jamaica, according to public reports. They now have two sons, born in 2018 and 2021, and live in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
Today, Dunst continues to work steadily in film and television. She has also explored music and voice work, including singing in Spider-Man 3 and appearing in music videos for Savage Garden and R.E.M.
More than twenty years after Spider-Man made her a global star, she is still acting, still choosing interesting roles, and still balancing work with family life.