Although she received her first Oscar nomination for playing a sad mom, Kirsten Dunst contains multitudes. In Marie Claire’s latest cover story, the actor opens up about taking a two-year hiatus from acting after The Power of the Dog: “There’s definitely less good roles for women my age.” 

After a three-decade career starring in celebrated and varied films including Interview with the Vampire, Bring It On, and Marie Antoinette, Dunst finally got the attention of the Academy for her turn as Rose Gordon, alcoholic mother to Peter Gordon (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) and wife of ranch owner George Burbank (played by her real-life husband Jesse Plemons). While she didn’t end up taking home the best-supporting-actress statue—it went to Ariana DeBose for West Side Story—Dunst tells Marie Claire that she feels she’s been pigeonholed into “sad mom” roles ever since, leading her to take a break from Hollywood. 

“I haven’t worked in two years,” Dunst says. “Every role I was being offered was the sad mom.” 

While the 41-year-old Dunst has relished spending time with her two young children (James, age two, and Ennis, age five), she also misses the work. “To be honest, that’s been hard for me…because I need to feed myself,” says Dunst of her hiatus. “The hardest thing is being a mom and…not feeling like, I have nothing for myself. That’s every mother—not just me.” 

Dunst also discusses her varied career in the story, explaining how she avoided becoming a “movie-star-movie-star” after playing Mary Jane in the Spider-Man franchise opposite Tobey Maguire, and her penchant for working with female directors like Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola. “I saw the power in women very young. I think that’s helped with…not needing male attention in my career,” she says. She recalls telling her manager at a young age that she felt like she was getting hired because “I’m someone that they might want to sleep with.” 

“I think that’s probably why I migrated to so many female directors at a younger age,” she says, “because I didn’t want to feel that way.” Now, though, she’s feeling slightly frustrated again: “There’s definitely less good roles for women my age,” says Dunst. “That’s why I did Civil War.”

Dunst’s return to the screen finds her playing a photojournalist who’s covering a dystopian US governed by a third-term president played by Nick Offerman. The nation is hurtling toward a civil war as 19 states have seceded, with California and Texas forging the Western Forces alliance. “When I read the script, I thought, I’ve never done anything like this,” Dunst says. As for the real US, Dunst also shares her thoughts on the upcoming election, specifically Donald Trump’s candidacy. “He can’t win,” says Dunst, who supported Bernie Sanders in 2020. “I honestly feel like…we just need a fresh start. We need a woman”—though she did not endorse any particular candidate in the interview. “All the countries that are led by women do so much better.”