Kirsten Dunst Says Her 'Biggest Fear' Playing a Photographer in “Civil War” Was Using a Camera (Exclusive)

The actress says her "biggest fear" was "looking like I didn’t know what I was doing with the camera"

Kirsten Dunst took playing a war photographer extremely seriously.

“I just carried that camera around all the time,” the Oscar-nominated actress, 42, recalls of filming Civil War, the A24 drama from writer-director Alex Garland, in a behind-the-scenes video shared exclusively with PEOPLE.

“As soon as I got the role I was like, ‘Alex, give me the camera,’ ” says Dunst in the clip, adding that she “was a little bit insecure” about creating an accurate portrayal of her character, a photojournalist named Lee Smith.

“That was my biggest fear, actually, looking like I didn’t know what I was doing with the camera, or holding it in a way that it wasn’t like a part of my body,” she adds.

Civil War imagines “a journey across a dystopian future America,” per its synopsis. It follows “a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.”

Its cast includes Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny and Nick Offerman, as well as Dunst's husband Jesse Plemons.

Related: Cailee Spaeny Says Civil War Costar Kirsten Dunst Inspired Her to Become an Actress (Exclusive)

“It’s been the most fun I’ve had when it comes to researching a character,” says Spaeny, 25, of playing aspiring photographer Jessie Cullen. “Some of these [roles] you have to learn, I don’t know, fencing or baton-twirling or something like that. Now I know my way around a film camera, which is really useful.”

Learning the intricacies of working a camera may have even become a new favorite pastime for the Priscilla star.

“I’m going through like 20 rolls of film a night,” says Spaeny in the video. “Personally, it’s been such a great journey.”

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Related: The Ending to Kirsten Dunst's Shocking Civil War Explained

Garland, 54, was "very keen to have the photographic element accurately portrayed,” according to Civil War’s still photographer Murray Close, who says he was instructed to “work with Kirsten and with Cailee to get them to understand photography.”

“In movies sometimes people don’t hold the cameras well,” adds Close. “You can tell immediately they’re not photographers, they’re just acting.”

The Annihilation director’s commitment to accuracy throughout filming paid off. Following its April 12 release, Civil War became distributor A24's second highest-grossing film (after 2022’s Everything Everywhere All at Once) and earned positive reviews from critics and audiences alike.

Civil War is on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD and digital now.

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Read the original article on People.