Actress Kirsten Dunst, the star of controversial new movie “Civil War,” blames the media for the nation’s cultural divide.
During a recent interview promoting the film, which depicts a near-future United States at war with itself, the “Interview With the Vampire” star said it’s the media, not politics, is driving a wedge between Americans.
“Media really stokes it big time,” she told Variety. “The media is forcing us to choose a side. Everything’s a lot more complicated than that.”
In the film, Dunst plays a photojournalist attempting to document how the “Western Forces,” comprised of California and Texas, have succeeded from the nation to revolt against a third-term president who broke the constitution and disbanded the FBI.
Civil War (2024) [Official Trailer]
pic.twitter.com/Hw0AoR1qeH— My Movie HQ (@MyMovieHQ) February 22, 2024
Despite the subject matter, Dunst claimed that the flick is an “anti-war film” and that the “fascist president” portrayed by Nick Offerman isn’t based on former President Donald Trump.
“It feels fictitious to me,” she told the outlet. “I don’t want to compare because that’s the antithesis of the film. It’s just a fascist president.”
“But I didn’t think about Nick’s character being any certain political figure,” Dunst added. “I just thought this is this president, in this world, who will not abide by the Constitution and democracy.”
Offerman himself said that he did not think about Trump while he was portraying the character.
“When you see the movie, it’s so unattached to anything in modern politics, not only in our country but any country,” he told Deadline.
“It’s like doing a play where I’m playing a baseball player, and people say, ‘Did you ever think of your favorite team, the Cubs?’ And I say, ‘No, it’s a brilliant piece of fiction.’”
Nick Offerman says there were zero discussions about Donald Trump during the making of #CivilWar pic.twitter.com/A97I8jgeiE
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) April 3, 2024
“From the get-go, it clearly wasn’t based on anything in reality, and so, that’s a distraction, and my job is to immediately say, ‘Who is this guy? And how can I best serve Alex [Garland’s] vision,’” he noted.
Garland, who is British, said that he wrote the film in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and of course the presidential election.
“I think all of the topics in in [Civil War] have been a part of a huge public debate for years and years,” he commented about his inspiration.
“These debates have been growing and growing in volume and awareness, but none of that is secret or unknown to almost anybody.”
While the film is set in the United States, Garland said he doesn’t mean for it to be a direct criticism of the country, but rather commentary that a civil war can break out anywhere.
“America’s divisions are echoed almost precisely in many countries around the world,” the British director stated. “In the case of America, there’s an extra danger given its power and importance in the world.”
“America has an internal concept in its exceptionalism that means it feels it’s immune to some kinds of problems,” he explained. “One of the things history shows us is that nobody is immune. Nobody is exceptional.”
He stated that the same issues exist in the United Kingdom, but because of the United States’ global dominance, “the implications here are much greater.”
Garland also pointed out that the prominence of gun ownership in America has little to do with the likelihood of an internal war breaking out.
“Any country can disintegrate into civil war whether there are guns floating around the country or not,” he concluded.
“Some civil wars have been carried out with machetes and still managed to kill a million people.”
Meanwhile, Dunst, who wished that Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke had done better in 2020, isn’t thrilled about her choices in the upcoming Presidential election.
“I’m gonna vote for Biden. That’s my only option. Right?” the Democrat lamented.
“It’s just shocking that we’re in this position again,” she said about a choice between the current and former president. “Everything is broken. Everything needs to be fixed.”