Kirsten Dunst deals with depression in award-winning 'Melancholia' performance

Kirsten Dunst won the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

"Pretty special," Dunst, the 29-year-old veteran of "Bring It On" and three "Spider-Man" movies, said of her award for the complex and demanding, unapologetic art film "Melancholia."

"That's one of the most prestigious awards, I've always thought of it as something that was won by these great actresses," she continued over coffee at a discreet West Hollywood restaurant. "But it was never in my mind that I would even be in a movie that would be part of that group. I am very, very proud of myself, and I'm very, very grateful."

Without editorializing too much, let's just say that Dunst has a lot to be proud of. Written and directed by the mercurial Lars von Trier, "Melancholia" runs her character, Justine, through the gamut of behaviors - from provocative confrontations to near catatonia - associated with clinical depression.

While, oh yeah, a rogue planet dubbed Melancholia is on a collision course with Earth - a doomsday scenario in which Justine unexpectedly but persuasively emerges as the best-equipped person around to cope.

Dunst gives lots of the credit for her acclaimed performance to the Danish director, who's known for guiding the likes of Emily Watson ("Breaking the Waves"), Bjork ("Dancer in the Dark"), Nicole Kidman ("Dogville") and Charlotte Gainsbourg ("Antichrist") through some of their most alarming and accomplished work.

"I had met Lars the summer before we made the film, and he opened up to me about his depression," Dunst said of the famously, well, melancholy von Trier. "He was so generous with his feelings, so I knew I was in safe hands, that I'd be with someone who would facilitate me and really be there to direct and guide me so I could be as vulnerable as possible and feel safe.

"And he's also one of the only directors writing for women," she added.

Dunst obviously drew on some personal experience, though, as someone who's been a working actor since the age of ! 3, but a lso a person who's had her own struggles with depression, so much so that she checked herself into a treatment facility in 2008.

"It's difficult to talk about," Dunst, now the picture of happiness and eager engagement with the world, admitted. "It's a very personal thing and very uncomfortable to talk about with someone who you don't know very well. But every role I've done, I've always used things in my life.

"There aren't many movies that have touched upon depression in this way, either. It's a difficult subject to shoot cinematically, I think, because most of the time people aren't doing much and don't want to do much. So it's refreshing to see, for me. I think that that will really comfort people, when they see it, who have been through something like that. That's why I make movies, to relate and help other people, and they help me to bring out things in myself."

She is worried, though, that one group of people may not draw comfort from watching "Melancholia": People named Dunst.

"My poor family!" she mock lamented. "Everything I do, they really ingest. My mom's gonna be crying when she sees it. They feel like it's actually me in every film that I do, so it just hits them 10 times harder than anyone else."

She won't be there to hold any relatives' hands, either. Beside the raw emotional material, the actress has two memorable scenes - Justine so far gone that she can't even get into a bathtub without the help of her sister (Gainsbourg), and an ecstatic bit of midnight "moonbathing" in the light of the approaching planet - in the nude.

"I warned everyone!" Dunst said with a laugh, after insisting that she just couldn't bring herself to watch any of that stuff with kin.

"My dad's from Europe so he's like, `It's for the art. I made you, you're beautiful.' My brother said, `I'll close my eyes, who cares? They're just boobs, Kiki.' OK, fine. I'm the one who's a little more weirded out than anybody else in my family."

Professionally, Dunst could hardly be in ! a better position at the moment. After a few years under the radar following the release of "Marie Antoinette" and the third "Spider- Man" movie, she has three wildly different features - the adaptation of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," the fantasy romance "Upside Down" and an R-rated all-girl comedy - in the can.