Kirsten Dunst: Civil War Filming Triggers PTSD, Leaves Her Feeling Empty

After the completed production of Alex Garland’s action film Civil War, Kirsten Dunst struggled with post-traumatic stress condition.

Kirsten Dunst says in her Marie Claire cover story that the time of the shooting in rural Georgia, which included battle scenes and at least one car chase, “shook me to my core,” Kirsten Dunst said.

“I remember hearing them practice an explosion. We were in the hair and makeup trailer, which was very far away from set, and the whole trailer shook.”

Another dramatic scene set in the White House, “There’s so much gunfire, and then you look at the news, and it’s a school shooting again,” Dunst says.”

She “had PTSD for a good two weeks after. I remember coming home and eating lunch, and I felt really empty.”

The filmmaker Garland argued that Dunst “let herself live inside the film and feel the reality of the moments.”

Kirsten Dunst said about the film, “I think it’s a cautionary tale, a story about what happens when people don’t communicate with each other and stop seeing each other as human beings.”

Dunst says she was intrigued by the script after only being offered the role of a “sad mother.”

“There’s definitely less good roles for women my age,” she said. When she read the script for Civil War, “I thought, ‘I’ve never done anything like this.'”

The film stars Dunst, along with Kylie Spaeny, Wagner Mora, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and her husband, Jesse Plemons.

Dunst said. “What’s nice is that we trust each other so much.” Plemons also previously told EW that he and Dunst “lean on each other for most decisions.”

He said, “As soon as there’s a script or a potential project that we’re deciding whether or not to do, we’re usually just pestering the other one to read the script.”

“I respect her opinion so much. I’m always curious to know what she thinks.”