The history of Hollywood is littered with celebrity feuds: Betty and Joan, Taylor and Kanye, Vin and the Rock. Well, we can add Benedict and Kirsten to that list (but not really). For her new Netflix film The Power of the Dog, Kirsten Dunst spent the duration of the New Zealand shoot avoiding her co-star Benedict Cumberbatch. But it wasn’t personal — Dunst was simply preparing to be terrified by Cumberbatch on screen. 

Cumberbatch plays Phil Burbank, the new brother-in-law of Dunst’s character, Rose. As the film plays out, Phil terrorizes Rose psychologically, forcing her further and further into an alcohol-fueled spiral. In reality, Cumberbatch is an unfailingly polite presence, but on set, he went method to manifest the bitter energy of his character. Dunst found it helpful to avoid him so she, too, could get into character.

She also took steps to make her line deliveries even more nervous and uncomfortable. “It’s hard for Rose to vocalize,” Dunst told The New York Times. “I wouldn’t talk to anybody, just so that the first thing I uttered out of my mouth felt nervous and weird and gave me a sense of being a fish out of water.” It’s a choice that gives Dunst’s typically sunny and relaxed on-screen demeanor an element of discomfort, as if she’s struggling to keep her head above the surface of her darker thoughts.

Playing this depressed, manipulated woman unsure of her own significance was difficult for Dunst, who’s struggled with depression before. “I feel like that’s a part of a young Kirsten that I had to rehash again,” she told the Times. “And that isn’t a place I really want to live in, but for the role, you have to.”

But after spending so much time in Rose’s bleak headspace, it was a relief for Dunst to return home to her husband, Jesse Plemons (who also plays her husband in The Power of the Dog). “Jesse and I were lucky we were doing a movie together,” Dunst told the Times. “We had each other through this whole thing, to laugh with, to bitch with.” Sounds like actor and couple goals.

Rose Gordon Character Breakdown | The Power of the Dog