‘On Becoming a God in Central Florida’s Kirsten Dunst and EP Talk About the Cult at the Center of Showtime’s New Series

Kirsten Dunst is returning to television, and she’s doing it with a role that’s going to rule us all. Ahead of On Becoming a God in Central Florida‘s premiere on Showtime star Kirsten Dunst and executive producer Esta Spalding spoke exclusively to Decider at the Television Critics Association’s 2019 summer tour about what went into creating their show about multilevel marketing cults, aquatic Jazzercise, and gator attacks.

When asked what she looks for in roles, Dunst emphasized the importance of a project’s characters. “With Fargo I just knew that this girl was going to go on such a crazy trajectory based on one episode and the quality of the show is pretty good too. I could see from the first season,” Dunst explained. “But when it’s something like this you’re starting off a TV show. You’re really risking so much more. This pilot was one of the best things I’ve read between movies and TV shows.”

Typically Dunst chooses her films based on their directors, and her shows based on writers. But as much as she loves her new Showtime series, there’s something about television the actress doesn’t enjoy. “The only part of television I don’t love is sometimes you have to explain things too much. But that’s just TV, I think,” Dunst said. “I was like, ‘Ugh. God I feel like I’m explaining all this crap right now and I don’t want to do that.’”

Dunst portrays Krystal Stubbs, a young mother living near Orlando, Florida who seems to have a pretty decent life. She has a job at a local waterpark, a now-sober husband who loves her, and a daughter she adores. But that all changes once her husband Travis (Alexander Skarsgård) decides to abandon everything stable in his life to pursue a full-time career in the “not a pyramid scheme” FAM.

“It’s so funny, I was trying to explain to someone what it’s like today, and I was like, ‘Well it’s kind of like Instagram followers because you’re getting people to follow you. The more followers you get, the more advertisements you get, the more money you make. But meanwhile no one’s making money. Everyone is just following you and then buying the products they’re seeing you use. Even though it says it’s an ad,'” Dunst explained. “Man, if you can make money off of Instagram, good for you. I guess? I mean… I don’t know.”

Though modern MLM companies tend to target women, the fictional FAM drew its inspiration from similar companies that were popular in the ’90s. “It was in the ether, the idea of the scheme that could be a sale of products into the family,” Spalding said. “We were just fascinated by the way in which it could infiltrate families so as opposed to making it a female-centered thing. We wanted to see it enter the whole family dynamic, men and women.”

“FAM is family,” Dunst added.

Spalding also noted that she wanted Krystal to specifically butt heads against a male CEO. “It was so gratifying to me the thought of Crystal going after the man at the top of the thing as opposed to another woman,” Spalding said.

Dunst agreed before adding, “It’s totally a cult.”

Even though Krystal begins the series immediately skeptical of FAM, it takes a while before she can confront the man in charge of the whole operation — Obie (Ted Levine). “There’s a little bit she doesn’t know that gets unveiled and charges up the backend,” Spalding said.

When they were shooting On Becoming a God, Spalding was acutely aware of how often people are swindled by MLM companies to this day. While the crew was in New Orleans, the executive producer started talking to a local painter who asked what her show was about. Depressingly he knew too much about MLMs. “He said ‘Our wife just mortgaged our house to escape,'” Spalding said. “I literally ended up sending him links to a bunch of research I’ve done because he just found out.

“It’s crazy,” Spalding added. “It’s still happening for sure.”

But from her first moments on screen Dunst’s Krystal is skeptical of this company even as the men around her believe in it wholeheartedly. Krystal’s difference in this world and her simultaneous need to fit in and stand out is even baked into her clothing choices. Dunst made sure that in the first few episodes of the series Krystal wears the same few outfits over and over, both to show Krystal’s poverty and her discomfort with her post-pregnancy body.

“We’re always showing that she’s trying her best but doesn’t quite fit in but also doesn’t really care a lot,” Dunst said. “I think when you have a daughter and you’re losing a house you’ll do anything for her. So really it comes out of the survival. She has to survive.”

On Becoming a God in Central Florida premieres on Showtime Sunday, August 25 at 10/9c.

Watch On Becoming a God in Central Florida on Showtime