BY DANIEL BAIG | The two people from the cast and crew of Spider-Man whom nobody had any problems hearing amidst the cacophony filling the ballroom of the Four Seasons were star Kirsten Dunst and director Sam Raimi. Indeed, people at tables at which interviewees other than Dunst or Raimi were being quizzed frequently had no trouble hearing them, from across the room and through the only-somewhat effective partitions.

As a matter of fact, a number of times that day, at the table I was at, as well as at others (I found this out later by chatting with fellow journalists), the star would break off in mid-sentence in order to listen to what was being said about him by one of the above two at another (not actually round) roundtable.

And at our table we frequently heard loud, raucous, appreciative laughter emanating from other tables when it was Kirsten being interviewed at them. It's not that Ms. Dunst is such a comedienne, but that A), she was the only person really actively trying to amuse us journalists, and, consequently, B) reporters were eager to laugh with her, as she was clearly bubbly and in high-spirits, and if she was minding having to go through all this, wasn't going to let it show. (Amusing the assembled members of the press, by contrast, seemed far less of a goal for Tobey Maguire, for example, than just resignedly, if even a bit grimly, fulfilling his obligations for the day.)

Kirsten's amiability and professionalism was even more impressive to those of us (actually, I suppose I'm just projecting my own feelings here, without actually being able to for certain say if this was true of others present) who had just four days prior sat at roundtables at this very hotel (but in rooms on "the roundtables floor," not, like today, in the ballroom) and grilled her about her starring role in The Cat's Meow  and also, of course (despite it being neither terribly appropriate nor encouraged), about Spider-Man as well.

But then, Kirsten's been doing this since she was 12 years old (the whole press thing, I mean, not acting  that she's been at since age 3 ((TV commercials)); Interview With The Vampire introduced her to things like roundtables and press conferences).

As soon as she got settled at our table, I asked her, to a bit of shock from some of the other folks at the table, though that was not my intention, if she was still coughing up blood. (For the reason behind my gross query, check out my The Cat's Meow roundtables piece.)

"Oh yeah, cuz my throat hurt so badly. Actually? You know what? I'm on my antibiotics now "

 and then another reporter interrupted her (the same guy from before who had "let everyone know" that Daredevil was starring Ben Affleck!). Apparently this guy is operating under the theory that the stars are such tired people that, whenever possible, we  by which I mean he  should just guess what they're about to say, and say it for them!

"Trying to lower your voice, huh?" he posited. (To my mild bewilderment. I didn't especially recall Dunst lowering her voice in Spider-Man; I can't even imagine why it'd be necessary. Spider-Man, after all, is based on a comic book; nobody knows what Mary Jane's supposed to sound like!)

"No, no," she replied. "I'm just talking so much lately, like, you know, doing so many interviews, it's like, it makes your voice hurt a lot, you know? You're talking so much."

Perhaps unnecessarily addicted to the idea of people getting to complete their thoughts, I followed up  "But you're better now?"

Kirsten smiled; "I'm bettah, yup! I'm on antibiotics now "

If there were words intended to follow those last four, they were clearly destined to remain unknown forever, for yet again, Kirsten was interrupted, this time by a journalist who, in her own proud words, "specializes" in asking female celebs about their clothing.

Indeed, when I said above that I waited until Kirsten was ensconced at our table and then immediately asked her about coughing up blood, I told the truth, but my question was not actually the first asked and answered.

Instead, that "honor" went to this woman, whom I have begun to positively dread being forced to be at the same table with, because she can manage to have an inordinate amount of the allotted time become devoted to discussions of things like designers and boot lengths, and because she also always insists on making everything personal between her and the actress; she seems to feel the need to proffer her opinion on the type of clothing she's just asked about, etc., as well as get the star's. (I suspect, in fact, she suffers from Joan Rivers Envy.)

That opening salvo had been, and this is a direct quote, "Could you please tell me about your clothes IMMEDIATELY?"

Not batting an eye, or indeed barely pausing for breath, Kirsten gamely replied, pointing in sequence to different parts of her wardrobe, "Marni . . . Jill Stewart . . . [and then, I guess realizing she only was wearing two identifiable/visible items of clothing] and thats about it."

Our inveterate Lois Lane then felt the need to utilize a portion of the time allotted to us all to talk to Kirsten to share with her, "I gotta tell ya, I was wearing that belt in 1971."

To which Kirsten replied, "Im sure you were."

Ah, if only she had left it at that. It would have sounded like a nice, pithy response to needless information.

But, alas, she quickly added, "And then Marni copied it  "

But simultaneously, still for some reason laboring under the misapprehension that what she was wearing in 1971 might have been remotely interesting to anyone else at the table other than herself, the reporter blurted out, "You werent born then."

Did she think she was with this revealing something shocking? Did she think Kirsten or the rest of us might somehow have fooled by her jauntiness into thinking that, despite her forty-something looks, she was perhaps a teenager herself? Or, perhaps, she thought Kirsten was unaware of her own birth year?

Kirsten, in a tone of voice that seemed to say We can move on whenever youre ready . . .?, replied, "No, I wasnt!"

At which point it was that I jumped in to inquire about coughing up blood; you might now believe me when I tell you that Kirsten looked almost grateful for my question.

This time, however, the fashion correspondent actually had a question about the making of the movie! "So tell us about your upside-down kiss. What was it like, and "

"That's like, THE QUESTION, the upside-down kiss," Kirsten acknowledged, referring to the fact that shes been asked more about that one scene in Spider-Man than far and away anything else. The reporter indicated it was an area of the utmost fascination.

"Yeah, yeah," Kirsten gamely nodded; then, as if her answer were memorized by this point, "it was freezing, it was probably like, you know, three in the morning, I was exhausted, Tobeys exhausted. Hes hanging upside-down, and blood is like rushing, you know, to his head, and he cant breathe, cuz I pull up the mask to like here [indicates to her  well, you know, youve seen the scene by now]. So . . . it was really an awkward, unromantic kiss. But it looked really great, so thats all that matters, right? It looked really sexy and hot. Really I was like [she shivers], uhuhuhuhuh [my attempt at spelling shivering noise] like in between each take, and then, and then, you know, you just have to snap into it and just go for it."

I asked her if she had had to wear a wig to play Mary Jane.

"Yes. It was a wig from here [indicates all but her bangs] back, and then they dyed this part of  the front  red. It was only half because my hair was really short when I did the film, so I couldnt dye all of my hair, because, you know, it just wouldnt make sense, [because] I needed longer hair anyway, cuz, you know, itd look sexy or whatever. My hair was too short from doing The Cats Meow."

So you had kind of a weird look when you were walking around on your days off [without the wig, with just your bangs dyed red], somebody commented.

"It was okay; it was kinda cool-looking, actually! Like, people would . . . Yeah, I was kind of into it, I gotta tell ya."

But she added that for next time, "I look forward to dying my whole head red."

SPOILER ALERT

I asked Kirsten about her and Tobeys final scene together, at the graveyard. "After Peter kisses you and walks away, youre like, [sudden flash of enlightenment face]! Is that you realizing that hes one and the same guy?"

"Yeah!"

"So was it the kiss that tells you, is that the idea?"

"Oh yeah, babee!" she responded in a mock-sultry voice that got the whole table laughing. And then she did an even more comical voice as she exclaimed, "I recognize that kiss!!"

END SPOILER

It was pointed out that Mary Jane hadnt recognized that Peter Parker and Spiderman shared the same voice throughout the movie.

Kirsten objected strenuously: "No, but he sounds a little different. He deepened his voice a little bit whenever he was in the suit. He did!"

But then she seemed to reflect very briefly. "But, yeah. Whatever. I know. Like, how do you know it wasnt some old guy under that mask? and Id be like, Man, what if it was like some old dude, like I dont know, you lift up the mask, youre like, "Whoops!! Never mind!!"" She laughed.

Had Kirsten been a fan of the comic book at all?

"No. I mean, I looked through it after I got the role."

A reporter told her for the rest of her life shed be stalked by obsessive comic book fans.

She did a quick impression of one such imagined fan, acting like a zombie-ish guy approaching her, drooling out shakily like hes not used to speech, "Mary Jane, hi!!!!!" [Her hi!!!!! sounded a bit like Stitch in the dog pound when he first introduces himself to Lilo.]

The same reporter mentioned something about, those conventions."

"You know what?" Kirsten replied. "[From] Interview With the Vampire I got a little taste of that kind of fan kind of . . . thing. I mean, that was a little scary. I mean, I went to Anne Rices Halloween party, and people were like, throwing flaming roses at me, and thanking my mom for giving birth to me, and, like, asking her to cut off locks of my hair for them, and . . . They get like, bonded vampire teeth on, some people, like, forever, for, you know, whatever, for, everyday life, little fangs."

A reporter surprised her by naming the neighborhood where she lived. She answered,

"You know what? [Dropping into a mock-serious whisper,] Im not gonna comment on that!"

Then she pretended to cry in a beleaguered fashion, "Why do you want to do that to me? You have an agenda, man! YOURE THE STALKER!!"

And then she pretended to be a less-than-helpful reporter: "Wait, Kirsten, when you go out, what restaurants do you eat at . . . "

The journalist said that it was just that he had friends who lived down the street from her, to which Kirsten asked,

"Oh, really?"

He went on  its such a great area.

Teasingly, Kirsten replied, "That is a great area, but, I dont know if I live there or not!"

I asked her about the stunt scenes she had to do on Spider-Man. Did she really have to be dropped from great heights?

"Oh, all the time, all the time! Theyd string me up to the top of the sound stage, which are [sic] huge sound stages, they really are. And then theyre like, "One! Two! Three!" And Id just be there, getting ready, and then Id be like, Whoop! and theyd drop me. And then theyd kind of slow it down at the end so that Id land softly, but it was . . . Its very scary sometimes."

The bridge stuff, I asked, was that all indoors on soundstage, or was any of it down outdoors?

"No, nothing, no, no, no, no, nope, all blue screen."

I asked her if she had say, ever gone bungie-jumping prior to this part.

"Bungie-jump? No, [shaking her head emphatically] Im not that kind of girl!" Shes afraid of heights, actually, she said.

So she wore a harness in the drop scenes, right?

"It was a harness, and actually, it was really, like, unflattering to the figure, too. It was like these bulky things and paddings . . . And I see in the movie, Im like, I look like I have these, like, big hips, because I have these, like, pads and all this stuff on, on, on, on my body . . . I have, like, tons of padding. Yeah, the harness is really uncomfortable, actually."

But, luckily, computers can do some pretty neat stuff these days:

"They shave it [her added bulk/exaggerated profile from the padding] down [digitally]! They kind of just, like, help me out a little, you know? But it didnt really work [enough], though, because I see shots where Im like, Eew, I look so awful, and I know thats its like, all this padding on my butt."

A reporter asked about the falls, because Kirsten had just repeated that she was actually afraid of heights, Did you scream on the way down?

"Well, you know what, truthfully? When you fall, you dont scream, cuz it kind of takes the breath out of you. Thats such a clichi in movies, that [imitating a falling airhead] AAAAAAAaaaaaa, Im FALLING!!!! AAAAaaa! And really, youd just be like, [inhales sharply], so, like, youd probably go into shock and die of a heart attack!"

A reporter then asked, "And what about the wet T-shirt scene?" And lest you think it was some chauvinistic male journalist, Ill tell you that actually it was the womens fashion reporter again.

Kirsten said that the one thing she had insisted on was, "No discoloration! No discoloration! Because I didnt want you to  its like, I dont mind, youre cold, whatever, big whoop!, its nipples, you know? I mean, get over it. That was fine, that doesnt bother me. But, I just didnt want any, like, discoloration, you know, anything like that."

Not quite following, I felt a tad embarrassed, but asked confusedly, "?Discoloration?"

Somebody asked her if she had any ambitions for future roles.

"I would like to play either Sylvia Plath, or Edna St. Vincent Milay. I think Zelda would be an interesting character to play, F. Scott Fitzgeralds wife [no connection to the video game]. I think Id love to play, like, a psychopath serial killer like Silence of the Lambs-style, like, really great!, you know what I mean, like, nutty girl. Id like that!"

It was suggested shed already played a serial killer.

"What? I did that a little bit? Oh, well, Vampire, kind of. But I just want to play, like, just like, a nutcase."

Then the journalist Ive mentioned a number of times now piped up. "I write for a fashion magazine . . . And I have a weird question, but they want to know, what your favorite skirt is." (The thing is, though, I know she was, well, lets say, fibbing slightly. You see, at every single junket, at every roundtable ((if its a female star)), she always claims that the fashion magazine she writes for  she used to actually name a certain, very respected magazine, but I asked her about this one time, and it turns out she actually pitches different fashion magazines after she has one of these tidbits to sell; now she just tells the talent, "a fashion magazine"  has asked her to ask the star this question, but, as I said she told me, thats not quite the truth. She also will always ask, both male and female interviewees, what their favorite toy was as a child. She tells the stars its her "trademark question." In an elevator once after a press day, I asked her about it. She said she sells the "story" to different toy trade publications. Very smugly, with a proud smile, she informed me and everyone else in the elevator, Its the easiest money there is!")

"My favorite skirt??" Kirsten asked, in slight disbelief. "That is weird." But then, gamely, as she had been for the whole roundtable, she volunteered an answer. "Probably a Marc Jacobs jean skirt."

Okay. Now, heres where I began to get really annoyed. Its one thing that this reporter was wasting everyone elses time with this. (I mean, really, she should try for a one-on-one all about fashion, under the auspices of one of these magazines she contributes to.) But she got an answer! Could we move on? Well 

"Ah! In regular jean color?

And she went on.

Another woman, Im pretty sure all of a sudden realizing that this was a lucrative game she could play as well, by selling a "story" to, perhaps, a womans (self-improvement) magazine, piped up with,

Whats the best workout tip anyones ever given you?

"Workout tip???" Kirsten asked. But it turned out the question was moot. "I dont work out."

She explained that she doesnt have the time. "Its a crazy, gypsy life we lead."

(Yes, she actually said that, and no, she didnt say it ironically. I love it!)

"I dont want to turn into one of those people whore like, I need my trainer! Im fat! Ugh! [She shudders in disgust.] I need my trainer on set . . . blah blah blah."

The fashion lady struck again, wanting to know if Kirsten was interested in some handbag thats out there now thats so popular that theres a waiting list for it.

I really liked Kirstens answer: "No. You know what? The fact that it has a waiting list is so stuffy and, like, stuck-up. Screw them! If they dont want people to have the bag, whatever!"

Somebody asked about what she thought of Star Wars. She told us shes only seen The Phantom Menace (though she couldnt actually name it), and none of the original three. And then, reflecting, she said that actually she only saw "a little bit" of Menace, and "I didnt even watch the whole thing."

What movies has she watched a lot?

"I watched Annie over and over again . . . I watched Dirty Dancing."

The fashion lady started saying something to Kirsten about how she had been dating Tobey.

Kirsten interrupted to contradict her  "I wasnt dating Tobey."

To which, immediately, from his position at the "Dad" end of the table, Mr. I Like To Interrupt, loudly intoned, "Oh????" followed immediately by a disapproving, frowning, "Hmmm . . ." in a voice and with a facial expression which he might try getting a patent for in the category of "extremely fey extreme skepticism."

"Never, ever!" Kirsten protested.

"What about the newspapers and everybody  " the fashion lady replied,

and for once it was Kirstens turn to interrupt: "  making stuff up? You know what? Its good publicity for our film, so."

Somebody asked her who her favorite director to work with was.

"Peyton Reed. I just love that man." Peyton, who directed her in Bring It On, is, of course (if you read Part I of this interview series), the guy whos doing The Fantastic Four.

So I suggested to Kirsten, "How about a cameo in The Fantastic Four?"

"I know. Hes [Peyton] like, Yeah, Mary Jane should pop in!"

Fashion Reporter girded her loins once more, and alerted Kirsten, "I have one more goofy one."

Kirsten said, "Uh-oh," and then pretended to be the reporter as she predicted what was to follow: "[in a shrill, nasally voice] Whats your favorite moisturizer?"

"No, no. What was your favorite toy when you were a kid?"

Sigh. And it turned out to be the second-to-last question of the interview. The very last, following up on Kirstens answer to the above ("my Barbie dolls") was, "Which ones did you have?"

These people are insatiable.

Funnily enough, I didnt know that there had been an Interview With the Vampire Barbie doll . . .