Premiere interview

The Price of Celebrity: Simon Pegg and Kirsten Dunst on 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People'
Simon Pegg and Kirsten Dunst discuss political correctness, the many-headed monster of Hollywood, and the journos who take mean pills.

By Karl Rozemeyer

Right in the middle of Kirsten Dunst's long list of credits in the past few years (the Spider-Man series, of course, Marie Antoinette, Eternal Sunshine, et al) is the romantic comedy Wimbledon. The last typical romantic comedy she did, Wimbledon stars Dunst as an up-and-coming tennis player opposite handsome Paul Bettany, who plays a hotshot on his way back down. Fast forward a few years and Dunst is back in another romantic comedy opposite another blonde British leading man. Only this time, he's not a tall, dashing tennis player; in fact, the man Dunst now falls for is a vaguely annoying and naively self-important writer played by Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) in the adaptation of the bestselling memoir, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by former Vanity Fair contributing editor, Toby Young.

In the vein of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, Young's How to Lose Friends is a series of vignettes about the British journalist's misplaced, overly optimistic attempt to take the New York publishing world by storm, and is a scathing attack on the upper echelons of celebrity culture. The author, who's earned a reputation as an enfant terrible, proved to be less disagreeable in person than Pegg had presumed: "I was expecting someone perhaps a little bit more objectionable, and a bit more rude. But he is not. He is just Toby. He doesn't really care what a lot of people think about him. He cares what a very small percentage of the population thinks about him."

However, the adaptation of Young's memoir was anything but straightforward. "A book is like an aid to your imagination," says Pegg, "and a film is a surrogate for your imagination. So they are completely different things. And I think for this film particularly [it was difficult for screenplay writer Peter Straughan] to extrapolate from Toby's experiences because the book is like a series of anecdotes, and, structurally, it is not like a movie. So he had to create a film, which is why we are fictionalized. I am playing Sidney, not Toby." The film had to find its own voice, and so Straughan turned it into a romantic comedy. "He's given it a specific genre," says Pegg.

When Sidney Young's literary magazine falters, he needs a quick fix to jumpstart his flagging career. He sees his redemption in celebrity journalism, and decides to pursue an exclusive interview with an A-lister at whatever cost. Posing as the handler of the porcine star of Babe 3, Sidney smuggles himself into a film premiere after party. But as soon as he closes in on his quarry (he pitches the script Tits of Fury to an unsuspecting Thandie Newton), his pig runs riot through the party, and Sidney is unceremoniously ejected. When the tabloid media splashes his eviction by Clint Eastwood across their front pages, the debacle catches the eye of New York media mogul Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges, riffing on notorious Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter), who then offers Young a place on staff at Sharps magazine in Manhattan. (Graydon Carter, notes Pegg, saw the film and was apparently happy with Bridges' portrayal.) Young, however, struggles to understand the protocol of celebrity publicity and the need to follow expected social decorum.

"What particularly appalled me about political correctness wasn't the creed itself," writes Toby Young in his memoir, "but the dogmatism of its proponents." And one those proponents is Sidney's colleague Alison Olsen, played by Dunst. "I am playing Alison, who did not exist in the book," says Dunst, "but [she is] based on Toby's secret crush, an imaginary dream girl." Alison is initially appalled that Sidney would openly flout standard conventions and by his naked ambition. "At first she thinks he's a douche. La douche!" laughs Dunst. "And then she thinks he's funny and sweet and just trying to get by in this weird world, like she, Alison, is. So they bond over that, and then they both figure out what they want to do, how they want to live their lives, the way they want to live it. And the pressures of the magazine world are not as important as they thought they were."

Returning to the romantic comedy genre for Dunst was contingent on finding the right vehicle. "I read the script, but I got this really beautiful letter from [director] Bob Weide who'd worked on Curb Your Enthusiasm for a very long time. And I'd worked with him when I was younger on this movie called Mother Night, which is based a Kurt Vonnegut Jr. book. I met him [again] a while ago, and he was always funny and always making me laugh. And so I read [the script], and he said that Simon was attached. So I saw Shaun of the Dead, and I was like: O. M. G." she slowly mouths, before adding, "He is the best."

Kirsten wasn't attached to the project when Pegg came on board. "Otherwise, I would have leapt at it even quicker," laughs Pegg. "I just read the script. I was a big fan of Curb. And so I figured it was gonna be a good job, and I went off to do my press for Hot Fuzz, and was traveling around. And I remember I was in Boston Logan [Airport], and I got a call saying I was going to be playing opposite Miss KCD, and was extremely excited because I was a fan," before adding in jest, "Not any more."

Shooting began in New York City in 2007. "Coming from London to New York is not a huge jump," says Pegg. "But I think Toby was expecting a certain kind of approach, and it was different." Pegg recalls his first visit to Manhattan, and how it in some ways must have mirrored Young's. "I think I was 24 when I first came here... Yeah, it was like a movie set. I had seen so much of it before on the silver screen and on TV. I knew so much of it just from consuming so much of American culture. It was like being in a film set, and it was overwhelming. Now it feels like my second home. I love it. I feel great affection for it."

Pegg, who lives in North London, has for the most part, up until now, remained out of the celebrity spotlight and says he is "able to maintain a normal life." That has not been the case for Dunst who, though she's only 26, has endured media scrutiny for over two decades now. But Dunst is dismissive of the impact of stardom on her day-to-day activities. "I don't [live in the spotlight every day]. I live very comfortably. For me, I am very grounded with my friends and my family and the people who work around me, so to me, it is just about not having people around you who want to use you for the wrong [things]." Pegg concurs. "Being a stranger in Hollywood and seeing the way that it works, I'd say Kirsten differs from other people I have met in that she is there, but she doesn't necessarily participate the whole time [in the whole publicity machine]. It is a difficult balance. You are taking on a many-headed monster and the whole notion of celebrity. It is a dangerous game to play, I think. You see people fall foul of it."

While Dunst concedes that many actors have "fallen foul" of the celebrity system, she is quick to single out a few actresses that have managed to emerge from childhood Hollywood careers ? Dunst began TV commercials at age 3 ? relatively unscathed, like Natalie Portman and Jodie Foster. "It also depends on how you were raised. Everyone's situation is very different. And the media puts a lot of attention on certain things. It is harder for women too in the media. It's very misogynistic." Pegg is quick to defend her position, pointing out that "I am 12 years older than her, but there is no comment made about the fact that we come together. Yet, if it were the other way around, and she were 12 years older than me, that would have to be part of the plot. It is very skewed towards men."

Perhaps because How To Lose Friends ponders (albeit humorously) the mythology surrounding celebrity journalism and the culture of fame in America, or perhaps because he is poised to become a household name in the United States himself, Pegg, it seems, has given much thought to the topic of stardom.

"One of the by-products of acting and being in the public eye, you kind of enter into this class of people for whom it is acceptable to voyeurize it, if there were such a word. The whole notion of celebrity is voyeurism without immunity: you are allowed to stare at people; you are allowed to make comments about them; criticize them; be mean about them. And do so supposedly in the name of fun. I think it is quite unhealthy in a way." Dunst thinks that those who write negative gossip fodder about the film industry and actors are only hurting themselves. "It is honestly unhealthy for them too, because basically what they are doing is swallowing mean pills. As soon as you type something mean about someone... it is swallowing a mean pill. And karma is a bitch."

Dunst, who recently endured much scrutiny from the paparazzi and celebrity press for her stint in a rehab facility for depression in May, remains pragmatic and says that she believes that "everybody in life goes through obstacles at different times in life. But I wouldn't call them 'obstacles.' I think it is just called 'growing up.' And I think it is hard to be in the industry at such a young age. Actors are a pretty funny group of people, and if you can make it out and realize the whole bigger picture of it all, I think that you're in a good spot."

Pegg, on the other hand, has yet to experience the full onslaught of the gossip media. He jokes that he has been only three magazine covers, including Geek magazine (dressed as a schoolboy) and Angling Weekly, a British fishing journal, adding that his dog was on the cover of Dogs Today. ("She had a Facebook page. But she was ejected because she was not a human being. They are humanist. Facebook should be called Fascistbook.")

Dunst by contrast, has been gracing the covers of magazines for over twenty years. "My first magazine cover, I think I was on the cover with Tom Cruise. I played a vampire." Pegg considers this comment for a moment and announces, "I'd like to be on the cover of a magazine with Tom Cruise." Giggling, Dunst says, "It'll happen someday. You never know." She raps with her knuckle on the table. "Knock on wood."

Source: premiere.com