On a shelf in Kirsten Dunst's cozy Nichols Canyon home, high up in the Hollywood Hills, among volumes of poetry by Anne Sexton and biographies of Zelda Fitzgerald and Deborah Harry (whom she hopes to soon play in a movie about Blondie), sits a plastic-framed copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology Code of Honor. Kirsten, who has gone by the nickname Kiki since she was a small child and couldn't pronounce "Kirsten," is not a Scientologist. This was a relatively recent gift from Tom Cruise, with whom she starred in 1994's Interview with the Vampire, her breakout film that garnered her a Golden Globe nomination at the age of 12. She likes to show the Code to everyone who comes to visit, as if it were a piece of artwork like one of the MariEastman canvases hanging above her fireplace.
Though the 26-year-old clearly keeps the Code around less for affirmation (it offers wisdom like "Never need praise, approval, or sympathy" and "Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel, and select your own decisions") and more because it's just so L.A., Kirsten concedes that such advice is nothing to be scoffed at, especially for a young actress who is picked apart in the tabloids and scrutinized in the news media on a regular basis. Indeed, her current philosophy is "Trust yourself first." It's an attitude that came out of her time earlier this year at Cirque Lodge, a rehabilitation facility in Sundance, Utah, where she checked in for depression. Though she confesses she is doing better than ever, she hesitates to talk about the circumstances.
"I don't want to get into too much detail, because I give a quote and then it's blogged about on the Internet for the rest of my life," she explains, lighting an American Spirit at her kitchen table. Her hair is long, golden, and healthy, and she wears a casual but chic navy shirtdress. My Morning Jacket, one of her new favorite bands, plays on the speakers. The waft of a jasmine A.P.C. candle fills the room. "I don't want to be hassled about it. I would like to be a person who can help people, but privately."
"Everyone goes through a hard time in their life," Kirsten continues, sipping a cup of freshly made coffee with rice milk. "They just don't have to do it in front of tons of people and with our media the way it is. I did, and I'm lucky that I had the resources and the money to take care of myself. I learned a lot."
She describes herself prior to Cirque Lodge as “enormously co-dependent.” “I wasn’t taking care of myself emotionally. I wasn’t expressing my anger. I was making nice all the time. When you spend your entire life as a child actress, being told where to go and where to stand, you’re performing constantly for people. It definitely breeds the kind of person who’s dependent on other people’s approval. If I’d trusted myself and listened to myself all the times that I ignored myself, I would have been fine. But everyone has to learn their lesson, and now I’ve got it.
“Now,” she breathes, “I’m great.”
Women, she believes, have an especially hard time in the Hollywood pressure cooker. “I don’t buy the rag mags, but I was looking at the cover of one, and an actress’s husband apparently had cheated on her. Who knows if it’s true? But they don’t put the guy on the cover, going, Look at what this guy did. They put the girl on the cover, going, Look at what he did to her. That is the stuff that I have no tolerance for,” Kirsten explains firmly. “Guys will go do this, that, and the other and they’re cool, and girls will go out with their friends and do this and it’s ‘horrendous.’ If a guy’s flirting with me, I’m the slut. It can kill a girl’s spirit.”
Though the 26-year-old clearly keeps the Code around less for affirmation (it offers wisdom like "Never need praise, approval, or sympathy" and "Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel, and select your own decisions") and more because it's just so L.A., Kirsten concedes that such advice is nothing to be scoffed at, especially for a young actress who is picked apart in the tabloids and scrutinized in the news media on a regular basis. Indeed, her current philosophy is "Trust yourself first." It's an attitude that came out of her time earlier this year at Cirque Lodge, a rehabilitation facility in Sundance, Utah, where she checked in for depression. Though she confesses she is doing better than ever, she hesitates to talk about the circumstances.
"I don't want to get into too much detail, because I give a quote and then it's blogged about on the Internet for the rest of my life," she explains, lighting an American Spirit at her kitchen table. Her hair is long, golden, and healthy, and she wears a casual but chic navy shirtdress. My Morning Jacket, one of her new favorite bands, plays on the speakers. The waft of a jasmine A.P.C. candle fills the room. "I don't want to be hassled about it. I would like to be a person who can help people, but privately."
"Everyone goes through a hard time in their life," Kirsten continues, sipping a cup of freshly made coffee with rice milk. "They just don't have to do it in front of tons of people and with our media the way it is. I did, and I'm lucky that I had the resources and the money to take care of myself. I learned a lot."
She describes herself prior to Cirque Lodge as “enormously co-dependent.” “I wasn’t taking care of myself emotionally. I wasn’t expressing my anger. I was making nice all the time. When you spend your entire life as a child actress, being told where to go and where to stand, you’re performing constantly for people. It definitely breeds the kind of person who’s dependent on other people’s approval. If I’d trusted myself and listened to myself all the times that I ignored myself, I would have been fine. But everyone has to learn their lesson, and now I’ve got it.
“Now,” she breathes, “I’m great.”
Women, she believes, have an especially hard time in the Hollywood pressure cooker. “I don’t buy the rag mags, but I was looking at the cover of one, and an actress’s husband apparently had cheated on her. Who knows if it’s true? But they don’t put the guy on the cover, going, Look at what this guy did. They put the girl on the cover, going, Look at what he did to her. That is the stuff that I have no tolerance for,” Kirsten explains firmly. “Guys will go do this, that, and the other and they’re cool, and girls will go out with their friends and do this and it’s ‘horrendous.’ If a guy’s flirting with me, I’m the slut. It can kill a girl’s spirit.”
Posts
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment