The actor discusses working with Channing Tatum in director Derek Cianfrance’s true-crime drama, meeting the real woman she portrays, and her go-to reality show.

Over more than three decades in Hollywood, Kirsten Dunst has been fortunate enough to work with a remarkable roster of filmmakers: Sofia Coppola (Marie Antoinette), Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog), Lars von Trier (Melancholia), Alex Garland (Civil War)—the list goes on. For her latest project, Roofman, she teamed up with Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance to take on a true-crime tale centered on a charming fugitive, played by Channing Tatum, who hides out in a Toys “R” Us store. Dunst portrays the real-life woman who falls in love with him, but ultimately must turn him in. “It’s a very emotional movie,” the 43-year-old says. “The last scene Chan and I shot was in a room where families meet when someone’s in prison. You could feel the energy in the room—it felt very real.” For W’s Best Performances Issue, Dunst discusses her approach to the role, the Spider-Man scene her kids can’t get enough of, and the reality show she and her husband, Jesse Plemons, unwind with at home.

How did Roofman come into your life?
The director, Derek Cianfrance, gave me a little ringy-dingy and said, “Will you play this part?” And the answer was yes, immediately. I’m a director-driven gal, for sure. That’s my whole experience. I’m a part of their vision. It’s all in their hands.

Roofman is based on a true story. Did you meet the woman you play?
Yes. I met Leigh Wainscott on the set on a very intense day, working on a scene that actually got cut out. It was me being interviewed by the actual cops who interviewed her. So she was watching me do the scene, which was very surreal for her, but it seemed like it really moved her in a good way.

Kirsten Dunst discussed the progress that has been achieved in the film and TV industry since the #MeToo movement took hold during an on-stage interview on Thursday at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival.

Asked by an audience member whether male actors and directors had got the memo on #MeToo, she fired back: “I think we’ve put a lot of people away. I feel like people definitely can’t get away with what they used to. That’s for sure.”

She added: “Everybody has an eye out now. So I think that it’s a much safer environment for all of us.”

Speaking about her experience when she was a young actress, she said: “I was lucky. I had a good family, a good mother. My mother was always around. Like, I never had anything, you know, negative happen to me like that. I was very protected.”

Dunst preferred to accentuate the positive aspects of the industry in other parts of the discussion, such as when, as an 11 year old, she appeared in “Interview With the Vampire.” She recalled: “I remember everyone treating me like a little princess, that’s for sure. Like I remember it was Christmas time and Tom Cruise put a gorgeous Christmas tree in my dressing room.”

Kirsten Dunst was in full mom mode when she learned about her first Oscar nomination for “The Power of the Dog.”

“I was watching the (announcement) livestream on my phone and I guess mine was behind, because my manager called me and was like, ‘You got nominated!’ ” Dunst told USA TODAY shortly after Tuesday’s nominations, where she is up for best supporting actress. “He was crying and I was crying. I was just in bed with my kids watching cartoons. I think they freaked out a little bit because they were like, ‘Why is Mommy crying?’ “

In a happy twist, Dunst’s fiancé Jesse Plemons, her “Power of the Dog” co-star, earned a surprise nod for best supporting actor, too.

When Plemons got nominated, “I screamed,” Dunst recalls. “It was like I could release my joy more with Jesse’s nomination than my own even, for some reason? I just can’t believe that we both got nominated together for the same movie. It sounds like an old-fashioned thing that wouldn’t happen now, you know what I mean? Like the Old Hollywood days of, ‘Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were nominated…” (Laughs.) It feels amazing to have that as a family and for our families. Everyone is so excited.”

When Kirsten Dunst was in her early 20s, the director Jane Campion sent her a letter proposing that they collaborate. It took roughly two decades, but the pair linked up—and in a turn of events they’d never have foreseen back then, they did so with Dunst’s fiancé, fellow actor Jesse Plemons. The end result is The Power of the Dog, and Dunst’s performance in it just might lead to what would somehow be a first for the 39-year-old actor: an Oscar. For W’s Best Performances issue, she reveals the secret to acting drunk and revisits that legendary Spider-Man kiss.

Had you met Jane Campion before The Power of the Dog?
She wrote me a letter when I was in my early 20s about working with each other on [an adaptation of] this Alice Munro short story called “Runaway.” It never came to fruition, but I kept the letter in my phone. Jane and I actually have the same birthday, so it was destiny, I guess. She’s always been one of my favorite filmmakers. When the script came in, it came to Jesse [Plemons], my partner, first. Before he read it, I was like, “You need to do this movie. You need to be in a Jane Campion movie.” So, that’s how it came about. First, Jesse got the role.

Did you have to audition?
No, I didn’t audition. [Campion] really loved [the 2011 Lars von Trier film] Melancholia a lot. She’d joke, like, “Just be as good as you were in Melancholia.” And I was like, “Okay, Jane. It’s a totally different character, but I’ll just try my best.”

Kirsten Dunst has been acting almost as long as she’s been alive. From early starring roles in films like Interview with the Vampire and Jumanji through Bring It On and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, she’s gotten to work with some of the best directors in the business: Brian De Palma, Peter Bogdanovich, Sofia Coppola, Jeff Nichols—the list goes on. However, one filmmaker who was at the top of her bucket list and has always eluded her was Jane Campion.

The opportunity to work with the Palme d’Or and Oscar winning force behind films like The Piano, In the Cut, and Bright Star almost passed Dunst by yet again. Her role as Rose Gordon in The Power of the Dog, Campion’s adaptation of the novel by Thomas Savage, was originally occupied by Elisabeth Moss, who had recently worked with Campion on the Top of the Lake television series. Scheduling conflicts with The Handmaid’s Tale caused Moss to drop out, and so swooped in Dunst to work with this dream director in what would end up being one of the finest roles she’s had to date.

In Campion’s film, which has been racking up awards recognition and topping myriad critics top ten lists, Rose and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) find themselves at the mercy of menacing rancher Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) after Rose falls in love with and marries Phil’s brother George (Jesse Plemons, Dunst’s real-life partner). Secluded on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, Rose constantly feels the specter of Phil’s rage and jealousy looming over her. It’s a heavy character to take on, one who becomes increasingly isolated as the strain of this toxic environment becomes too much for her to take.

Krsten Dunst has been here before. The 39-year-old veteran has had one of the most expansive careers in Hollywood, and on the heels of a big, buzzy film release — this time it’s Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, streaming now on Netflix — she’s once again taken on a complicated role that’s brought her to the center of awards chatter.

In The Power of the Dog, Dunst plays Rose, a widow who remarries a gentle, wealthy man (her real-life partner Jesse Plemons) and is then subjected to the spirit-breaking abuse of her new brutish brother-in-law (Benedict Cumberbatch). It’s the sort of role she’s familiar with — and didn’t think she’d do again. “It wasn’t a role that I was dying to play,” she says. “It’s a really old part of myself — a very insecure woman — and not a fun place to rehash and try and psychologically frighten yourself in a way or make yourself feel so less than, and just live in a shallow place, self-esteem-wise.” But, as she says, “that’s also my job.”

It’s that matter-of-fact introspection, the sort that develops only after years’ worth of putting in the literal and figurative work, that makes this moment distinct most of all. As any fan of Dunst knows, her Oscars moment is long overdue, but Dunst seems concerned only with not getting ahead of herself or life and being content on her own terms. And as life would have it, at the Cut, we’ve been having conversations about the end of this year and all that’s happened or hasn’t that we wanted, so it’s refreshing to hear Dunst find validation in her abilities, her family, and her life outside of Hollywood and the awards and glamour.