Brad Pitt Used Crude Humor to Entertain Kirsten Dunst on the Dark Set of ‘Interview With the Vampire’

Now 39, Kirsten Dunst is an actor with decades in Hollywood under her belt. But when she was still only a child, she worked alongside two very in-demand actors — Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise — for her breakout role.

It was more than 25 years ago. And she starred as child vampire Claudia in the horror classic, Interview With the Vampire.

Some observers might think that the film’s dark subject matter could spark fear in a pre-teen kid on-set. However, Dunst said Pitt entertained her with crude humor to “balance out” the scarier stuff. But what kind of jokes did he tell? Plus, how did Cruise assist her in their audition together?

Brad Pitt’s fart jokes ‘balanced out’ the darkness of the ‘Interview With the Vampire’ set for Kirsten Dunst

Dunst talked to Entertainment Weekly about working with Pitt when she was a kid of about 12. The setting of the novel and the fact that all of the characters are vampires in Interview With the Vampire required a lot of night shooting in some pretty creepy locations.

While some readers might think it would be scary for a child to be involved in such work, she said the way her co-stars tended to her helped keep her comfortable.

“They treated me so sweetly. I was such a princess on that set,” Dunst said “The darkness was always balanced out by fart jokes by Brad.”

Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise treated Kirsten Dunst like a ‘little sister’

According to Dunst, Pitt and Cruise treated her like a “little sister” and were “very sweet” to her while making Interview With the Vampire. As she told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show in 2019, she was just a kid doing her job and was “very innocent” at the time.

However, she did admit that she was a fan of both actors before working with them. She told Colbert, “I feel like I watched Brad in A River Runs Through It, and Tom was in Far and Away, which I loved. So it was more like romantic fans.” 

She confessed being so smitten with Pitt at one point, she planned to name her first son after one of his film characters. For the record, she didn’t follow through with that. And despite her crush on him, she thought it was gross to share a peck with him for the movie when she was a kid.

Tom Cruise helped Kirsten Dunst in her ‘Interview With the Vampire’ audition

Dunst told Entertainment Weekly that she thought Cruise might have liked her during their audition together. That was because he gave her a bit of advice that might have even helped her land the role of Claudia.

“I was the tallest girl [at the last audition]. So he had me tuck my legs under, so I looked shorter when he picked me up,” she explained. “I felt like he was already like, ‘I like this kid.'”

And as Dunst noted while talking to Vanity Fair, it was the role that kick-started her childhood career. Soon after, she was also in Little Women and Jumanji.

But now engaged to fellow actor Jesse Plemons and a mother of two, Dunst has come a long way in Hollywood since her time taking audition tips from Cruise and taking comfort in Pitt’s fart jokes.