Photo: Patrick McMullan
So there we were, with Kirsten Dunst at last night’s 303 Gallery party in Chelsea, jawing away about the things you normally talk about with a press-shy A-lister, when the actress abruptly changed the subject. “Actually, I’m gonna plug the documentary I’m directing,” she announced. (So THAT’S why she agreed with talk to us. We tried not to look hurt.) “My friend Jacob Soboroff is executive director of this nonpartisan organization called WhyTuesday.org. It’s a Website. So we’re making a documentary together about why we vote on Tuesday.”
It’s all about America’s agrarian roots, see? November is the end of harvest, Dunst explained, and the Tuesday vote allowed Sabbath-observing country folk enough time to horse-and-buggy it to the polling stations before Wednesday market. Worked all right back then, apparently. But today, “it’s not a holiday, and we’re one of the lowest democratic countries in voter turnout,” Dunst explained. Lest her doc turns out to be dutifully evenhanded, we demanded to know Dunst’s personal opinion on the matter: “I would keep it the same day, just make it a holiday.” You heard it here first.
Dunst’s other political project of late has been cheering on Obama — who’s been her man “from the beginning,” she emphasized — the best way she knows how. “Because I get photographed a lot, sometimes I’ll wear certain T-shirts and promote things,” she said, including Barry O. paraphernalia. “Like, I’d just bought a Rolling Stone with Obama on the cover, so I purposely was holding it so you could see it.” Certainly beats placing cold calls. —Darrell Hartman
