Sofia Coppola explains why she asked Kirsten Dunst to lose weight

Record ID: 876762

  • Title: Sofia Coppola explains why she asked Kirsten Dunst to lose weight
  • Date: 24th May 2017
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, ELLE FANNING, SAYING: "Like, we were supposed to, when you are in those homes with all this history, you should be dressed that way. You should have, I don't know, a certain poise. So being in those homes, it made you want to stand up -- also, like, the corsets helped." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, KIRSTEN DUNST, SAYING: "It makes you lie down a lot. We had that one bed, I was always like lying down between takes." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, ELLE FANNING, SAYING: "We figured out that laying on your stomach --" (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTRESS, KIRSTEN DUNST, SAYING: "Oh yeah, lying face down felt really good with the corset on."
  • Embargoed: 7th June 2017 20:48
  • Keywords: lose weight Sofia Copolla interviews The Beguiled Cannes film festival
  • Location: CANNES, FRANCE
  • City: CANNES, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Film,Sport
  • Reuters ID: LVA0046I78EVH
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Director Sofia Coppola explained on Wednesday (May 24) why she asked actress Kirsten Dunst to lose weight for 'The Beguiled'.
    In an interview with Variety in May, Dunst said Coppola asked her to slim down for the role. She told the reporter that she declined, saying it would be difficult. It prompted several online media outlets who picked up the story to applaud Dunst for her decision.
    "Yeah they just took it out of context. I would never put pressure on an actress to lose weight but because the story I wanted to show -- they were all, and Colin (Farrell) had to lose weight, I told him he had to get in shape, he had starved himself for the role, but really it was because it was the Civil War time, and they didn't have a lot to eat," Coppola said.
    She brought her remake of "The Beguiled" to Cannes, putting Colin Farrell through the pleasures and pain that Clint Eastwood experienced in the 1971 original.
    Nicole Kidman plays the head of a school for gentile young ladies trapped behind the gates of a country mansion as the American Civil War rages around them. The arrival of Farrell, an injured Yankee soldier, awakens repressed desires from the female characters, including Dunst who plays the schoolteacher.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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