“Lying there naked with rose petals?”: When Kirsten Dunst instantly turned down ‘American Beauty’
Kirsten Dunst has always had a good eye for what roles won’t age well, even if they seem celebrated at the time.
There has been no shortage of ‘Best Picture’ controversies in the last several decades of the Academy Awards, with Crash’s shocking win over Brokeback Mountain, the debacle involving La La Land and Moonlight, and the Coda upset all being prominent examples. Although it didn’t receive much backlash at the time, American Beauty is one of the strangest films to ever win the top prize, and it has continued to get a more negative critical reception with age.
In a generous reading, American Beauty is a satire of the prophesied ‘American dream’ that reveals every member of the nuclear family to be living in a delusional state about who they really are, and what they would do with an opportunity should it be presented to them. This is epitomised by the character of Lester Burnham, a mild-mannered media executive who develops an obsession with the teenage girl Angela Hayes, played by Mena Suvari, who is best friends with his daughter Jane, played by Thora Birch.
Lester is revealed to be a charlatan who is unable to cure his loneliness and self-hatred, and is humiliated in a tragic ending where he is killed by his own wife, Annette Bening’s Carolyn. Although it should have been fairly obvious that Lester was not intended to be a sympathetic character, audiences in 1999 perceived American Beauty to be a more traditional psychological tragedy. The creepy undertones of the film have been made even worse given the allegations of misconduct made against Spacey.
Despite the fact that the film swept the Oscars’ top categories, Suvari struggled to find notable roles in the aftermath. She unfortunately took the brunt of the blame for such a problematic storyline, even though the image of Angela covered in petals is perhaps the most iconic shot of the entire film.
However, she only took on the role after Kristen Dunst dropped out, who, upon being sent a copy of the material, said that she knew well enough that the part wasn’t going to work for her.
“When I read it, I was 15, and I don’t think I was mature enough to understand the script’s material,” Dunst said, “I didn’t want to be kissing Kevin Spacey. Come on! Lying there naked with rose petals?”
With acclaimed roles in Interview with the Vampire, Jumanji, Wag the Dog, and Little Women, she had already achieved more before turning 18 than most actors would reach in their lifetime, wielding a significant amount of power at this point in her career, which was unusual for a child star. Although turning down a part in a film that would go on to be a sensation may have been looked down on at the time, it’s one that certainly helped Dunst out later in her career.
One of the reasons that American Beauty’s ‘Best Picture’ win is considered to be so unusual is the competition that it faced in one of the greatest years in cinematic history. Even if she didn’t appear in it, Dunst did some of her best work in 1999, including the political satire Dick, the dark comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous, and Sofia Coppola’s groundbreaking directorial debut The Virgin Suicides, and unlike American Beauty, these are films that have only gotten better with age.
