Royal treatment

LOS ANGELES -- Despite the fact that their ancestors beheaded her latest character, Kirsten Dunst has only kind words for the French. She says she adored her months filming in Paris, with an adventure -- or at least a cute cafe -- around every corner . She especially enjoyed the frankness with which people approached her and then ignored her.

``Even if people recognize you, they don't really say much," Dunst said. ``It's a more honest and nonchalant way. They'll tell you a movie they hated of yours or ask why you did that movie. They see people in movies more as people there."

Of course, back home in Los Angeles, where Spider-Man's girlfriend is instantly recognizable, Dunst tends to get the star treatment. But after a lifetime in the limelight -- as an 11-year-old she kissed Brad Pitt in ``Interview With the Vampire" -- she says it's not something she enjoys. So she avoids celebrity hot spots, and moves as much under the paparazzi radar as possible. That's not easy even when she's between movies, never mind when she's got top billing in one.

Dunst, 24, sheds a bit more of her anonymity (not to mention her clothes) as the eponymous star of ``Marie Antoinette," the new film by writer-director Sofia Coppola that opened Friday . Amid a blaring soundtrack featuring songs that range from Domenico Scarlatti to the Strokes, Dunst plays the monarch as a valley girl lost in Versailles. Hungry for her husband's affection, she gorges on parties and pastries, every inch the fashion-obsessed teen queen.

It's a pop-culture portrayal based on the book ``Marie Antoinette: The Journey" by Antonia Fraser, which Coppola used as her blueprint while writing the screenplay with Dunst in mind. The two had worked together on Coppola's directorial debut, 1999's ``The Virgin Suicides." Now, Dunst says, she was attempting something new: understanding a historical character from the inside out. Dunst's studies included dance, harp, and etiquette lessons, as well as correspondence between Marie Antoinette and her domineering mother.

``I think [Coppola] thought I could make Marie sympathetic but still be frivolous. . .," Dunst said. ``She really was a figure at Versailles and not really a human being, and it would be hard for anybody to grow up and find their identity when it feels like everyone is against you. I mean, where is there room to grow in this prison of Versailles?"

Producer Ross Katz says watching Dunst on set was almost painful some days. Due to the filming schedule, in a matter of hours she'd have to go from a carefree girl to a young woman soon to be guillotined. (The death does not occur in the movie ; some viewers may be left confused as to what became of the king and queen.)

``She seamlessly portrayed a kind of kid being thrown into this situation and a sense of loneliness and vulnerability," Katz said. ``Watching her, the way she carried herself, it was heartbreaking to see and even be around Kirsten as her character came to the end of her life. . . . She grew this character up in front of our eyes."

Obviously she had help. Wardrobe changes abound, with each dress as enticing as the confections served up by the palace kitchen. Her hair goes from braids to buns to the big pile of hair (think bees' nest) that was the rage of its day. Even the slender Dunst got corseted. But the daily discomfort helped, she says. It put her in character. It did not, however, keep her away from the pastry table. All the eating that's done in the movie? She really did it -- one éclair after another.

Dunst doesn't much like to discuss Hollywood's obsession with actresses who diet, or who don't. For the record, she insists she doesn't -- and points to the empty box of chocolate toffee on the table beside her as evidence. She also lifts her gray sweater and slaps her stomach (yes, it jiggles). In fact she happily points out that she's anything but anorexic by today's super-skinny standards, and that as a girl she used to lick her entire hand, dip it in the bag of powdered sugar in her mother's cupboard and nosh away. The long legs (decked out in stylish black peg-legged pants) and lean arms (covered by a V-neck sweater with a ruffled cream blouse beneath) are just her good luck.

Her career is another thing that Dunst insists she hasn't paid much attention to, at least not as far as planning it goes. She says she just takes the roles that appeal to her and doesn't worry when she's not working. So far, apparently, so good. There were ``Vampire," ``Little Women," and ``Wag the Dog" to name a few. Some episodes of ``E.R." More recently, however, there were the less-well-received ``Wimbledon" and ``Elizabethtown."

Dunst, no doubt, would have preferred that they were hits. But she says what interests her most these days is her actual life rather than the lives she portrays on screen. As she put it, ``I worry more about having a life plan than a career plan. I don't want my life to be going from one film set to another. I love painting. I want to learn how to cook. It's something I want to be able to do, especially one day when I'm a mom."

For now, however, she doesn't even have a particular man, not since she and actor Jake Gyllenhaal broke up a few years back. That is unless you count Spider-Man and the blockbuster franchise that made her a household name. No. 3, in which she reprises her role as red-haired Mary Jane Watson, arrives in theaters next year; she says the only work she has left on it are some blue-screen special effects. And, yes, she'd consider doing a fourth, if both director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire signed on again, too.

``I feel like we keep getting better with these movies because they become richer as we get older and because we've set up the basis from the other two," she said. ``You just keep getting more involved with these people so we can take it in more interesting, complicated directions."

Along with fattening her bank account, the movies' universal appeal has broadened her audience. Fans from all corners of the world have approached her to recount their love of ``Spider-Man." Adolescent boys can barely speak in her presence. She jokes that she'll have lots of young lovers when she's an old woman. As her character tells Peter Parker when they first meet up in the comic book (though not the movie) ``Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot!"