Birthplace: Point Pleasant, New Jersey
Best known as: Mary Jane in the Spider-Man film series
Kirsten Dunst is known to mainstream movie audiences as Mary Jane in the 2002 super-hero flick Spider-Man. (She reprised the role in the sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007); all three movies starred Tobey Maguire as the web-spinner.) Dunst was only seven when she made her movie debut in the Woody Allen-directed portion of the trilogy New York Stories (1989). She made her mark as a young up-and-comer by playing the creepy tot Claudia in Interview With the Vampire (1992, with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt). As the century turned she was suddenly grown up in a raft of movies including the drama The Virgin Suicides (2000, directed by Sofia Coppola), the battle-of-the-cheerleaders comedy Bring It On (2000, with Gabrielle Union) and the high school romance Get Over It (2001). Her other films include The Cat's Meow (2002), Mona Lisa Smile (2003, with Julia Roberts) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, starring Jim Carrey). She had the title role in the 2006 Sofia Coppola film Marie Antoinette.
