Inside Kirsten Dunst's Road to Finding Love With Jesse Plemons - E! Online (2024)

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Kirsten Dunstand Jesse Plemonsonly do dysfunction onscreen.

The couplehit it off—and earned Emmy nominations—playing the endlessly misguided Peggy Blumquist and her husband Ed, abutcher with some serious self-defense skills but really poor judgment.

"He's my favorite actor—the best I've ever worked with," Dunsttold PorterEditin 2019. "I just knew he would be in my life forever. I didn't know what capacity that would be at the time. When[Fargo] was over, I just missed him terribly. We didn't get together until a year later. We were both smart enough that we were wondering if the connection was just because we were working together. But it was real."

Sure enough, they gotengagedin 2017, welcomed sonsEnnis Howardand James Robert, now 5 and 2, andeventually married in 2022.

In the meantime, they played yet another uncomfortably wedded couple in 2021's The Power of the Dogand are in theaters now on dueling sides of a disturbing political dividein thedystopian thrillerCivil War.

But though Dunst has said she felt "an immediate connection" with Plemons when they first met, she was in no rush to share this life-altering revelation with the world early on. (Though she did tell a few people:"I didn't remember saying this," she said on theLA Times'The Envelopepodcast in 2021, "but one of my best friends told me that I said to her that 'I will know this man for the rest of my life. I just know it.'")

Itwasn't particularly surprising that she chose to keep the detailsof their relationship privateuntil the rock on her finger made the announcement for her.

Having been very famous since her breakout role at 10 inInterview With the Vampire, Dunst—who's turning 42 on April 30—had been dating in the public eye for the better part of 20 years before meeting the man she has lovingly called her soulmate, and it felt as though every male acquaintance (or co-star) was a date until proven otherwise.

When she was about15, fresh from an arc onERand the Oscar-nominated Wag the Dog, Dunst hit it off with Jake Hoffman, son of her co-star Dustin Hoffman. "He wants me to be his daughter-in-law!" she joked at the time.

But they were just a couple of kids. Dunst had a few things she needed to do first, before devoting serious time to romance—such as finish high school. She graduated from Notre Dame High in L.A. in 2000, and never looked back as her career further took off withThe Virgin Suicides andthe insta-classicBring It On.

(She and Jake remained friends, reuniting for a warm reunion at aTribeca Film Festival event in 2010.)

Asked at the Spider-Man 3 premiereif it was easier doing press with Maguire and Raimi because they'd all known each other for so long, Dunsttold a reporter, "Yes, 'cause we can wink at each other and have a camaraderie that's,you know, stronger over the course of three movies."

Nowadays, her son James is a big fan of the Marvel superhero and enjoys running around the house pretending to flick webbing out of his wrists.

Talking to Howard Sternin 2015, Gyllenhaal blamed a fear of commitment forpast relationships failingdespite having been in love a few times.

"I think it was me,"he said. "I think I probably just got scared." (There are thoughtson this subject.)

In 2007, Dunst got involvedwithRazorlight frontmanJohnny Borrell,who readily admitted later that hewasn't great boyfriend material back then.

"I guess I was constantly attempting to be what I thought I should be doing in that scenario [as a rock star],"the British musiciantold the U.K.'s Telegraphin 2013, referring to the time frame that included his relationship with Dunst. "To be fair, I'm sure there were times when I was obnoxious. But that's rock'n'roll, you know?"

According to a 2014 profile of him in the U.K.'sIndependent, Dunst dumped him not long after he rode his motorcycle through her house, leaving a trail of oil in his wake.

She was dating Rilo Kileydrummer Jason Boeselat the time.

"He's not into partying and that works," Dunst said. "We have similar schedules: long periods of time off and periods of mad work.When I've finished work, I travel to be with him. It's special."

However, she was also shootingOn the Road—and by the beginning of 2012, shewas seeing costarGarrett Hedlund.

They seemed pretty settled, too, becoming each other's other half on the red carpet and looking awfully happy about it.

But the timing seemed to be right, because Dunst was finally letting herself enjoy the fruits of her impressive career.

"I'm not as worried as I used to be," Dunst told Red magazine in 2014. "When I was younger, if I wasn't working, I would get anxiety. I'd feel like I should be doing something. But now I'm so good at chilling out. In my thirties I've become really good friends with relaxing."

Asked about Hedlund, Dunst toldin the summer of 2015, "We've been together for three and a half years, so, yes, it's going really well. We're the same age. We have similar backgrounds. He feels like family to me."

Peggy is "so fun to play, and it's nice for me too because now I'll have more opportunities to play roles in the comedic world again," Dunst told EW.com. "People always remember the last thing you did. And I love comedy—I really enjoy playing weird characters."

Of course, the TV Academy and the Hollywood Foreign Press Associationweren't the only onesleft impressed by Dunst's performance.

Hedlundwas her date to the2015 Emmys and the 2016 Golden Globes, buttheybroke upa couple months later.

By that summer,Plemons, who had called working with Dunst "a gift," quietly swooped in and got the girl, officially putting an end tothe star'sdays of crying over the bad boys (if not crying with emotion over her partner's serious acting talent).

They opted to not do the red carpet thing just yet whenthey were both nominated for Emmys in September 2016, but they didn't hide their affection for each other at the after-party.

As Dunst has said, she needed a minute to figure out whether she was in love with working with the guy or the guy himself.

It turned out to be both.

Dunst recalledbingingFriday Night Lightsto get acquainted with herFargohusband'swork before filming got underway in chilly Calgary—"I knew he was awesome and that we were about to work together," she said on Jimmy Kimmel Live in November 2021—though she noted that she hadyet to watchBreaking Bad(in which he played anotherstone-cold killer who's tough to shake).

"That's the last thing he wants to watch with me," she explained, noting that their friend Aaron Paul's wife may not have ever seen the show, either, so it wasn't just her. (She did, however, watch theBreaking Badsequel movieEl Camino,which came out in 2018.)

But overall, she said, "We love working together. So, it's really, really easy to work with each other. We're very honest. We're very down to try anything. No one judges anybody. There's no ego. It's just how do we make this the most alive together and the most real?"

The couple went to New Zealand with Ennis to shoot the film in January 2020 and ended up on lockdown in March when COVID-19 shut down productions around the world, including their own. So, they rented a house outside Auckland, "for our son to have some grass to run around on," Dunst told theLA Times, and enjoyed the natural wildlife (their cat Sid "brings us a mouse every night") and their killer sound system, sitting inthe perfect sonic spot they dubbed "the triangle."

"Anyway," she said, "that's what Jesse and I will do when we get home. Wash our hands, put the baby to bed and sit in the triangle."

They resumed filming that June,one of the few shoots allowed to go onamid the country's strict pandemic protocols." Jesse and I were lucky we were doing a movie together," Dunst told The New York Times."We had each other through this whole thing, to laugh with, to b--ch with."

And they certainly didn't get tired of each other.

"I was like, as soon as we are done with this movie," Dunst recalled, "let's try and have another baby."

When theNew York Timescame knocking attheir L.A.-area home in August 2021, Dunst held up Ennis'baby brother, James, her "newest guy, the Big Kahuna."

"I'm so tired, I haven't slept through the night in four months," she shared. "I've developed an eye twitch, too. Yeah, I'm in a really special place!"

Civil Waractually marks Dunst's return to the big screen after a two-year break to focus on her boys (and pass on the "sad mom" roles she was being offered after Power of the Dog), though she's been no less the movie star on red carpet date nights with Plemons.

"To be honest, that's been hard for me...because I need to feed myself," she told Marie Claireof not workingin an article published March 5. "The hardest thing is being a mom and...not feeling like, I have nothing for myself. That's every mother—not just me.There's definitely less good roles for women my age."

But then sheread the script forCivil Warand, not having done anything like it, signed right up for active duty.

And when Plemons was a last-minute addition to the production, there was no chance that having thisreal-life couple on set would add any extra drama.

"Because we fell in love on a set, we fell in love creatively first," Dunst said. "I think we'll always come back to that, in a very not-involving-our-real-life way. And also, listen, we don't talk to each other on set. I left him alone, he left me alone."

But only during working hours.

"I love working with him," Dunst added. "What's nice is that we trust each other so much. He sent me a scene last night of this miniseries he's working on to get my opinion. If I'm having a hard time deciding on something, I'll have him read it. I trust his opinion more than anyone, and he cares about me more than anyone."

Maybe even more importantly, she noted, "We hate the same things."

That being said, Dunst was even more blown away by his chilling performance "'cause he is the kindest person," she gushed onLate Night With Seth Meyersin April. "He's just a really fantastic actor."

And while Dunst and Meyers are an impressive three-for-three as far as quality projects as costars go, read on for more couples who fell in love on set: