Kirsten Dunst Tells ‘The View’ She “Felt Bad” For Signing Husband Jesse Plemons Up For ‘Civil War’ Movie: “He Plays A Brutal Racist”

Jesse Plemons wasn’t always supposed to star in the upcoming film Civil War, according to his co-star and real-life wife Kirsten Dunst — who told The View that she “felt bad” for signing her husband up to play a “brutal racist” when the original actor dropped out of the production.

The dystopian action film, which is coming to theaters on Friday (April 12), follows a team of journalists as they journey across the United States amid the Second American Civil War.

While chatting about the movie on this morning’s episode of The View, co-host Sunny Hostin pointed out how “terrifying” Plemons was as the “menacing soldier” who asks the group, “What kind of American are you?” However, he wasn’t always supposed to star in the role.

“The [original] actor had dropped out during rehearsal and I was like, ‘Jesse’s in town with the kids so…,'” Dunst recalled. “I felt bad I signed him up for that role, but I did. It’s a very, very, very intense scene. I mean, he plays a brutal racist in that scene.”

Wagner Moura, an immigrant from Brazil who also starred in the film, revealed that that scene with Plemons was the “hardest” one to shoot.

“It was hard,” he told The View. “I had read the scene before and was like, ‘This is a very strong scene.’ But I wasn’t expecting it to hit me so hard when I had Jesse asking me for two days, ‘What kind of American are you?'”

He added, “It summarizes lots of things: racism, anti-immigration feelings, xenophobia, all of that is also a result of this polarization. So it was very hard for me. In the end, we shot it for two days [and] when we wrapped, I had an emotional … I laid down in the grass and I was just crying.”

Despite Plemons’ character, Moura noted that he “loves” the actor, while Dunst described her husband as the “sweetest man.”

At the end of the interview, Whoopi Goldberg chimed in to share her praise of the Friday Night Lights alum.

“It’s wonderful to sit with actors … it’s great for me to be able to say to y’all what it’s like and how it is,” she said. “Because her husband, the nicest man in the world, is an actor — good enough to freak you out. And that is masterly.”

The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.