MEDIA > ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS > 2005

GREAT STATE
from Backstage, October 12, 2005
by Jenelle Riley
One starts to notice a trend when speaking to filmmakers and actors who have worked with Dakota Fanning: They're all madly in love with her. Again and again they speak in rapturous superlatives of her professionalism, her talent, and her charm. "She is just a gem of a person, wise beyond her years, and much more mature than a lot of the adult actors I've worked with in my life," raves her Dreamer co-star Freddy Rodriguez. "She is a true professional, I love her." Agrees Dreamer writer-director John Gatins, "She is exceptional. She's a woman trapped in a young girl's body, in a way, because she's so professional and so refined as an actor." Tell the tiny 11-year-old star this, and she giggles like, well, a kid. "I'm so honored I've gotten to work with everyone I've gotten to work with," she chirps brightly. "It doesn't ever feel like work. It's so much fun."
The adoration of Fanning clearly extends to audiences as well. Not since Jodie Foster--to whom she is often compared--appeared onscreen has a young female performer captured so much attention from the moviegoing public. It helps that she's downright adorable; her big, soulful eyes could be right out of a Keene painting, and they're offset by white-blonde hair topped off with all-American girl freckles across her nose. But cute kids abound in Hollywood, and Fanning has proven she has the acting chops to back it up. She's shared billing with some of the biggest stars in the world, from Denzel Washington to Tom Cruise. She's held her own against the likes of Robert De Niro and Sean Penn in tough, mature roles that would be grueling for actors three times her age. She is the youngest actor ever nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award--for her role as Penn's daughter in I Am Sam , a preternaturally gifted performance that is made all the more breathtaking by the fact that it was Fanning's first film.
Perhaps because she is so inherently lovable, many of her roles so far have been a child in peril. The thought of her being ripped from her loving father in I Am Sam was the emotional core of the film; Fanning made us care about her character, who is more of a parent than the father, without coming off false or precocious. In Man on Fire and Trapped , she was a kidnapping victim, forcing her parental figures to violent extremes to rescue her. In 2005 alone, Fanning spent a good part of the year menaced by imaginary friends ( Hide and Seek ) and killer aliens ( War of the Worlds ).
It's refreshing to observe that Fanning's two latest films couldn't be further from the aforementioned roles and give the actor a chance to show a lighter side, one where she spends more time smiling than screaming. In Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives , she joins a stellar ensemble cast as the beloved daughter of Glenn Close. The film is made up of nine vignettes filmed in continuous 11-minute takes and is as sweet and quiet as Worlds was dark and loud. And in Dreamer , Fanning commands the screen as Cale Crane, a shy girl distanced from her horse-trainer father, played by Kurt Russell. When Cale takes on ownership of an injured racehorse, her confidence and her relationship with her father blossom. With such material, the film could devolve into sappiness, but it's held on its path by excellent performances and a thoughtful script by Gatins.

Dream Girl

Key to making Dreamer work was the casting, which is why Gatins changed the character of Cale from a boy to a girl after seeing Fanning in Man on Fire . "I realized an actor like this only comes around once every decade," Gatins says. "I had never seen I Am Sam , so I went to rent it, and I couldn't believe what a remarkable sense she had of her craft." Gatins sent the script to Fanning's agent, Cindy Osbrink of Osbrink Talent Agency, and after an awkward first meeting at which the receptionist mistook him for a child actor and potential client, Gatins was told Fanning was interested in meeting him. "I went to an office the next day, and she was seated at this desk she could barely see over," he recalls. "We just ate a bag of bubble gum and talked." Gatins, who calls himself a "former bad movie actor," asked Fanning if a specific scene in Man on Fire in which she has a smiling contest with Washington was scripted or improvised. "I saw her measuring me in that moment," he says. "And then she said, 'No, it wasn't [scripted]. We made that up.' I think it was a moment for her where she said, 'He understands what it is that actors do that makes it better than people just reciting lines.'"
Fanning signed on to the project only after Russell was attached to play the father. Although Russell had never seen Fanning's work, she came highly recommended. "Kurt had been working and focused on his family," explains Gatins. "But he said, 'Goldie says she's great, and I trust Goldie. If she says she's special, I believe it.'" Russell--a former child actor--bonded quickly with his on-screen daughter; they spent a lot of time together and even checked out a screening of Napoleon Dynamite during shooting. "My father wasn't on-set, so Kurt was like my dad," Fanning raves. "He's someone that will always be in my life and always be there for support. I can talk to him about anything." Indeed one of the hardest parts for Russell, according to Gatins, was to play distant from Fanning in the early scenes of the movie. "He kept wanting to hug her," Gatins says with a laugh. "They just love each other." At the end of the shoot, Russell surprised Fanning by gifting her with her own horse. She named him Goldie.

Hot Shot

Fanning's career began in Atlanta, Ga., where she first attended a one-week course at the Performing Actors North, a drama camp. "When I was little..." Fanning starts, before catching herself. "Well, littler, I used to play around the house and pretend to be different things. My mom saw that and got me involved in the playhouse." At the end of the week, the head of the playhouse recommended to Joy, Fanning's mother, that the young actor get an agent. She soon signed with Joy Pervis of Hot Shot Kids, and booked two commercials in one week. Hot Shot Kids is affiliated with The Osbrink Agency, and Pervis felt Fanning should try her luck in Los Angeles. She sent a tape of Fanning to the sister agency, and Osbrink immediately asked for a meeting. "I knew the minute I saw the tape," Osbrink tells Back Stage West . "We asked her to come out for six weeks and try L.A. And she never went home." Osbrink calls Fanning a "booking machine," recalling how she landed five guest spots on series CSI and ER within five weeks. At age 6 she landed her first film--sharing the screen with the likes of Sean Penn, Laura Dern, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Although it was a whirlwind, Fanning recalls being not at all nervous. "I was just really excited, not scared, about getting to do a movie," she says. "I learned a lot."
Audiences and critics were immediately taken with the charming young actor who seemed wise beyond her years, and Fanning soon became the go-to girl for meaty children's roles. When it came to choosing her roles, Fanning says she would read scripts and look for what she felt was right for the time. Asked if her mother ever helps her choose her projects, she laughs. "Not really. She reads them, but doesn't really say," Fanning explains. Gatins recalls how during shooting Dreamer the script for War of the Worlds was flown to the set. "I've seen that movie, and I'm not even sure I completely understand it," he notes. "But she took the script and went into a room and came out 50 minutes later and said, 'It's good. I get it.' She has amazing instincts."
When it comes to defining Fanning's abilities, people seem to be at a loss to explain how this tiny girl is capable of portraying such a wide range of emotions in her roles. Ask if it was hard to play terrified nonstop in Worlds , and she shrugs. "Not really. I just did it," she says. Ask if she ever has trouble doing a sad scene and leaving it behind her, and she says, "No. I think that's what acting is, you know? You act it and when it's done, it's done." Man on Fire director Tony Scott remembers a conversation with Fanning during which he explained to her that co-star Washington liked to stay in character and might not always be friendly and outgoing around her. "She just looked at me and laughed," Scott tells Back Stage West . "She said, 'I know, I know. I worked with Sean.'"

Research Project

Fanning can make her job sound easy, but that's not to say she doesn't work hard at her craft. She throws herself into her roles in ways even her most Method of co-stars would envy. For Man on Fire , she learned to dive, play piano, and speak Spanish. For Dreamer , she took six weeks of riding lessons and devoured all the information she could find about horse racing. "She approaches roles like any great actor would," Gatins explains. "She came to me with lots of specific questions. We sat down and immediately she was, like, 'Okay. How many furlongs in a mile?' She wanted to have all this information for her character and have it totally mastered. That's how she is." Indeed, when asked about the story behind Dreamer , Fanning quickly explains the history of the racehorse Mariah's Storm, on whom the film is based. She knows everything about the horse's history, including the name of her offspring. Fanning is even upbeat about the difficulties she faced in learning to ride. "I got thrown off twice, but it wasn't ever bad," she says casually. "That's just part of the racehorse experience."
Fanning insists she's never had a negative experience on-set, and she plans to continue the pattern for the rest of her life. While many young actors have had a tricky time navigating the path to adult stardom, she appears to have no concerns. "If I ever did want to stop doing this, that would be fine with everyone," she says. "But I don't think that would ever happen. As I get older, I might not be able to play certain roles, but more roles will open up. I'm excited about that." Gatins, for one, has no trouble believing she will make the transition smoothly. "She's a prodigy; the same way some kids are piano- or violin prodigies or chess champions, this is a gift she has," he says. "I've met very cute kid actors with a great look who know how to hit marks. Dakota is different. She's the real deal."
Those close to Fanning are quick to point out that her refusal to get caught up in being a movie star will help give her career longevity. Time and again, her family is mentioned as keeping her grounded--younger sister Elle is also an actor, currently shooting Babel with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett--yet the family isn't wrapped up with the glamour of Hollywood. "If Dakota said tomorrow that she wanted to move back to Georgia, the mom would be happy to do it," Gatins says. Agrees Osbrink, "She's just a neat kid from a neat family."
Fanning says she concentrates on the work and isn't interested in getting caught up in the Hollywood scene. She offers the following advice to her fellow actors of all ages: "Just do what you love to do. It's no fun to do something that you don't want. So I think you really have to love it." BSW

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