Kirsten Dunst Insists Brad Pitt Was Like an 'Older Brother' on the Set of 'Interview With The Vampire' Despite on-Screen Kiss When She Was 11 and He Was 30

Kirsten Dunst gushed about her time working with Brad Pitt while filming Interview With The Vampire in 1994.

Despite the movie’s controversial scene, where Pitt, who was 31 at the time, kissed Dunst, who was just 11, the blonde beauty, now 41, insisted she was “treated like a princess” throughout filming.

“Yes, it was a virtually all-male set, but everyone was very gentle and kind, and nothing ever felt weird,” she added of making the gothic horror movie, which also starred Tom Cruise, Antonio Banderas and Christian Bale.

“Brad was like an older brother to me,” she pointed out.

She noted how she has fond memories from the set, including when Cruise surprised her with a thoughtful gift during the holidays as they filmed on location at Buckinghamshire's Pinewood Studios.

“And then Tom – well, one morning around Christmas I remember going into my dressing room at Pinewood and he’d set up a beautiful tree in there for me, covered in ornaments,” Dunst recalled.

Though she did not harp on the controversial scene, where Pitt’s character vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac smooches Dunst’s character, Claudia, she previously touched on the subject shortly after the film’s release.

“I hated [the kiss] so much because Brad was like my older brother on set and it's kind of like kissing your brother. It's weird because he's an older guy and I had to kiss him on the lips, so it was gross,” Dunst told Entertainment Tonight at the time.

That same year, she promoted Little Women with costar Samantha Mathis, where she gushed, “I love Brad, he’s so nice … it was just, like, it feels awkward.”

“I mean, I’m 12. And he’s, like, 31, and it’s like, he’s a man. So why would I enjoy kissing him?” she added.

Mathis then jumped in, admitting she wouldn’t say no to smooching Pitt, noting, “Maybe you’re not into kissing boys yet, so I can relate.”

Dunst cleverly replied, “'Well, especially because Brad is 31. I mean, he’s not exactly a boy.”

Dunst maintained her stance years later, when she told Conan O’Brien in 2014, “I thought it was disgusting. I was 11, it would've been weird if I was like, ‘This is amazing.’”

In 2021, she explained to Vanity Fair that kissing Pitt and biting the neck of another costar were her least favorite memories of the shoot.

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“That was the worst thing I did and also having obviously to kiss Brad Pitt at that point,” she shared. “I was a little girl and he was like a brother to me and it was very weird even though it was a peck. I was very not into it.”

The Telegraph recently interviewed Dunst.