Kirsten Dunst as Edwina

Earlier this year, with her fellow actors from Theodore Melfi’s Hidden Figures, Kirsten Dunst shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Hidden Figures, which topped the domestic box office in January, was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture, among other honors.

The Beguiled marks her fourth collaboration with Sofia Coppola, following her cameo appearance in...

The Bling Ring and her lead roles in The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette; the latter film won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

Ms. Dunst will be making her feature directorial debut with The Bell Jar, on which she is also screenwriter. Adapted from Sylvia Plath’s classic novel, the film will star Dakota Fanning.

She previously wrote and directed the short film Welcome, starring Winona Ryder, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival; and co-wrote and directed Bastard, the short film starring Juno Temple and Brian Geraghty, which screened at the Tribeca and Cannes International Film Festivals.

Ms. Dunst recently won a Critics’ Choice Award, and was nominated for Golden Globe and Emmy Awards, for her starring role in the second season of the television series Fargo.

Her performance in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia earned her Best Actress awards from the Cannes International Film Festival and the National Society of Film Critics, among other accolades.

She got her start in the industry making television commercials from age 3. After over 50 commercials, Ms. Dunst made her film debut at age 6 in Woody Allen’s “Oedipus Wrecks” segment of the anthology feature New York Stories.

Her breakthrough role was in Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, starring alongside Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Ms. Dunst received her first Golden Globe Award nomination for her memorable performance in the film.

Among her many movies since have been, also for Focus Features, Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay; Peyton Reed’s sleeper hit Bring It On; Sam Raimi’s blockbuster Spider-Man trilogy, for which she won two MTV Movie Awards; Gillian Armstrong’s Little Women; Joe Johnston’s Jumanji; Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog; Andrew Fleming’s Dick; Michael Patrick Jann’s Drop Dead Gorgeous; Mike Newell’s Mona Lisa Smile; Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown; Leslye Headland’s Bachelorette; Walter Salles’ On the Road; Hossein Amini’s The Two Faces of January; Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special; and, upcoming, Woodshock. The latter feature is directed by Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy.

Ms. Dunst’s television work has included an acclaimed guest arc on the classic series ER. She also starred in, among other telefilm projects, Roger Young’s miniseries Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy and the Holocaust drama The Devil’s Arithmetic, directed by Donna Deitch.