Kirsten Dunst is pulling out all the stops in her bravura role on Showtime’s On Becoming a God in Central Florida. It’s only been two episodes and already she’s slaughtered an alligator and performed an outrageous talent show act. In last night’s episode, Krystal (Dunst) tried to make money giving talent show lessons and displayed her own talent involving two puppets mimicking her dance moves.
That talent was originally going to be something else, as Dunst shared with the Television Critics Association this summer. Read all about the dance she refused to do and how she learned how to do the one you saw in episode 2 of On Becoming a God in Central Florida. On Becoming a God in Central Florida airs Sunday nights at 10 p.m. on Showtime.
It was originally Snakes on a Dunst
The original script for episode 2 of On Becoming a God in Central Florida originally called for a snake dance. They made it all the way to production before Kirsten Dunst revealed her fear.
“I was supposed to do a dance with a snake, and I hate snakes,” Dunst said. “I couldn’t even move like this holding a snake. I just would be petrified. “
Show runner Esta Spalding confirmed, “That routine was supposed to be a snake dance in the original script and Kirsten was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t really want to dance with a snake.’”
Why Kirsten Dunst couldn’t fake a snake dance
Kirsten Dunst was still game to perform the dance, just without a live snake.
“So I was, like, ‘You gotta get a rubber snake. This ain’t happening,’” Dunst said. “Then the director of episode 2 was, like, ‘I can’t shoot you basically holding a rubber snake. This is never going to work.’”
How Kirsten Dunst agreed to the puppet dance
Tasked with finding a replacement talent for Krystal, On Becoming a God in Central Florida co-creator Robert Funke devised the alternative.
“Then Robert came up with, ‘What about a puppet dance?’ with two puppets attached to me on sticks,” Dunst said. “We just started practicing and learning. It was one of my favorite things I’ve ever done.”
Where they found that puppet dance
Esta Spalding added the backstory of how Funke discovered puppet dances.
“Robert Funke, who wrote that script, saw this talent online as he was researching talent things and was like, ‘Wait a second, Krystal’s a total crafter. She’s always stitching things and blinging things out with putting glitter on nursing bras or whatever. Let’s give her a more crafty talent,’” Spalding said.
How the director of ‘On Becoming a God in Central Florida’ adapted
Jeremy Podeswa had been preparing to film the snake dance. He adapted to Kirsten Dunst’s needs.
“They built that puppet rig and she learned the dance,” Spalding said. “We got a choreographer, I want to say over a weekend. Jeremy Podeswa who directed that episode who’d been preparing for the snake dance just pivoted, was like, ‘I love this. This is so cool. Let’s go with it.’ So it was just a marriage of Robert’s idea and Kirsten’s creativity and then how Jeremy shot it.”
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