MEDIA > ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS > 2005

LITTLE GIRL, NEXT BIG STAR
from Teen Eletric News Paper, June 30, 2005
by Karen Wong in New York
AT 11, Dakota Fanning has already starred in movies which older actresses would be proud of.
But fame, it seems, has not got to her head.
When I met this perky and articulate girl in New York last week, I found her humble, almost to a fault. Yet, she was naturally exuberant.
When asked how she feels about having more experience than some actresses twice her age, Fanning replied: ''Ya know, I just feel so blessed to be able to do acting.''
Dressed in a white shirt, a pink woollen cardy and jeans, Fanning's chirpy voice and ready laughter tinkled above the noise in the room full of journalists and publicists.Her hands were rarely still. They were either busy moving in front of her as she spoke or tucking her shoulder-length blonde hair behind her ears.
Her poised, mature answers, often punctuated with a very-American ''ya know'', belied her young age.
Fanning started acting at 5. She has appeared in television series like Ally McBeal, ER, The Practice, Malcolm In The Middle and Spin City.
She shot into the limelight with her portrayal of the daughter of an autistic man fighting for her custody in the 2001 movie I am Sam.
For that performance, she became the youngest actor ever nominated for a Screen Actor's Guild Award.
Her latest part, acting opposite Tom Cruise, comes in Steven Spielberg's modern interpretation of H G Wells' 1898 sci-fi literary classic The War Of The Worlds.
It is being released today. Does Fanning know that she must be brighter than most other children her age, to play the roles that she's done and deal with all the fanfare, like meeting the press?
''I love to do acting, and it's so much fun to deal with the press because you get to talk about what you do...
''I think this is some of the fun part of it.''
Apart from her busy filming schedule and the related events and interviews, she appears to lead the life of a normal girl.
While she doesn't go to school, she has a teacher travelling with her. On the set, in between her takes, she has her lessons and does her schoolwork. ''It's not too hard,'' she said.
While her acting career is shooting sky-high, she is not about to drop her studies to concentrate fully on it.
''I definitely want to go to college.
''But I'd have to go and act at the same time, because I couldn't not act.''
Her responses may sound out of a can, but her enthusiasm for acting is probably natural.
''It's a blast. I get to go to Tokyo one day, then Mexico...All these beautiful places, which I normally wouldn't have gone if I wasn't doing movies.''
In War Of The Worlds, Fanning is Rachel, the daughter of divorcee Ray Ferrier, played by Cruise.
Caught in the centre of the alien-human war, her screams are blood-chilling.
At the press interview, Fanning was even game enough to demonstrate her signature scream - the sound of which got the hair on my neck standing on ends, despite the absence of aliens.
So does she get bad dreams from being horrified and terrified?
Fanning said: ''No. You know, after I'm done, I go home and I just kinda leave my character there.
Academy award-winning director Spielberg is ''like my dad,'' she said.
''I learnt so much from him...like about cameras, special effects and acting.''
Spielberg also discovered child talent Drew Barrymore when he made E.T. The Extraterrestrial.
Of Fanning, he said: ''You can have a laugh with her. She's got impeccable manners too.
''And she communicates with my kids.''
During the five-month-long filming, he said, she was writing letters to one of his daughters, and they were sending letters to each other so often that ''there was a whole
mail service'' going on.
Fanning watched the movie with all its special effects for the first time early last week, just two days before the interview.
She said: ''It was so amazing. To see all the aliens that I didn't get to see and to see all the explosions that I've never seen before.''
So, is it hard for this child star, starring in Charlotte's Web out next year, to fit in with her friends when her busy schedule permits?
''I'm just kinda normal with my friends. We don't talk about acting, we just talk about normal stuff,'' she said with a casual shrug.
And she's not in a hurry to grow up either.
''I just live at my age every day.''

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