Kirsten Dunst said she will not reprise her role as Torrance Shipman in a new Bring It On sequel, telling Entertainment Tonight that she prefers to “leave good things where they are.” The 43-year-old actor, who starred in the 2000 cheerleading comedy that launched a long-running franchise, said she does not feel the need to put on a cheerleading outfit again and would rather hand the role to someone new.
"I’m like, leave good things where they are," Dunst said. "I don’t need to put on a cheerleading outfit. I don’t even know what I would do—be a coach or something? Let’s leave it." The comment comes roughly 25 years after the original film, which followed rival high school squads, the Toros and the Clovers, as they prepared for a national competition.
Dunst’s Bring It On co-stars included Gabrielle Union, Eliza Dushku and Jesse Bradford. The franchise has since expanded with multiple direct-to-video sequels and spin-offs, including 2006’s Bring It On: All or Nothing, which starred Hayden Panettiere and Solange Knowles.
While she dismissed a new Bring It On entry, Dunst has offered more tentative remarks about a possible return in recent years. In 2024 she told Entertainment Tonight, "I mean, it depends... As long as it’s not embarrassing." That same year she attended a screening of the film at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, embraced the fandom and reenacted Torrance’s introductory cheer for the audience.
Dunst also said she would consider joining a different kind of franchise, naming the Minecraft movie as an example of the type of big-budget project she'd like to be part of. "Maybe I can just make a movie where I don’t lose money," she told Town & Country in August. Forbes reported that the summer film became the highest-grossing movie domestically in 2025.
Off-screen, Dunst discussed family life and a recent health scare involving her youngest son. She said that while filming in Budapest in January on the project The Entertainment System Is Down, her youngest child, James, 4, experienced a "serious health scare." Her partner, actor Jesse Plemons, 37, and their older son, Ennis, 7, returned to Los Angeles with James; Dunst said she at times felt isolated while alone on the Budapest shoot and briefly flew home during the episode.
Dunst, who married Plemons in 2022, said details of the incident have been kept private but confirmed the children are now fine and that the event drew the family closer. "I have never seen that movie," she said, referring to the film Final Destination only as a metaphor for worst-case scenarios a parent imagines. "But I know the concept. That’s how it feels to be a mother at times."
Dunst’s remarks underscore a common trend among performers who return to early career roles: some embrace reunion projects while others prefer to preserve the original work’s place in pop culture. Her comments come as film studios continue to mine established properties for sequels, reboots and franchise entries, even as performers weigh creative interest, personal priorities and commercial considerations when choosing roles.