MEDIA > ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS > 2005

FANNING TURNS STARDOM INTO A GROWTH MARKET
from NY Daily News, June 26, 2005
by Joe Neumaier
Most 11-year-olds hate to do homework. But Dakota Fanning says she tries hard to learn something on every movie she does. Her latest assignment: co-starring in Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds," opening Wednesday.
"I always think I might never have this opportunity again," says Fanning, "so I try to cram a lot of information into my brain".
"I still have my normal school," she adds, "where I learn about spelling and math and science and all that stuff, but I feel when I go on a movie set, I'm learning about movies. I learned 100 lessons a day from Steven.
Everything that came out of his mouth, I thought, 'Okay, I have to remember that!'"
Fanning, a native of Conyers, Ga., began acting at age 5 in local theater. That led to commercials, then TV shows ("Ally McBeal," "ER"). By age 7 she broke through with "I Am Sam," in which her performance as Sean Penn's daughter earned her a Screen Actors Guild nomination (she was the youngest ever to receive one). Fanning was in the Sci-Fi Channel hit "Taken," and her later films included "Uptown Girls," co-starring Brittany Murphy, and "Man on Fire," opposite Denzel Washington.
This spring, she got equal billing with Robert De Niro in the thriller "Hide & Seek," which opened at No. 1. "I try to challenge myself all the time," she says, "playing varied characters who may be going through different stages in their life."
Articulate and knowledgeable about film, Fanning became the era's top pre-teen talent by avoiding the cliches often associated with kid actors. She's never cutesy or cloying, and her performances capture the tone a movie needs without overacting. Even in emotional scenes, it never seems like she's "playing."
"Dakota is unaware of how talented she actually is," says Spielberg. "During filming, she quickly understands each scene or situation, measures it against how she'd really react, and acts the truth every time."
"Worlds" screenwriter David Koepp says that Fanning raises the bar for her co-stars.
"Her relationship with acting is so direct and simple," Koepp says. "In rehearsals, other actors get sort of stunned, and you can see them thinking, 'Okay, hold on, I can match this 11-year-old.'"
Next year, Fanning will star in "Charlotte's Web," as a farm girl who enlists a spider (voiced by Julia Roberts) to help save the life of an extraordinary pig. And a pair of films based on "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" are in the works.
But despite comparisons to the young Jodie Foster, Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood, Fanning still "likes to do normal kid stuff" — and is happy to have found her calling early.
"It's fun to know what I want to do — you know, 'When I grow up,'" she says. "I have friends who say, 'Oh, maybe I'll be an astronaut or whatever.' But it's cool to want to do this forever."

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