MEDIA > ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS > 2005

FANNING SEEKS HER DREAM OF WORKING WITH DE NIRO
from Zap2it, January 30, 2005
by Mike Szymanski
At 10-years-old, Dakota Fanning is able to says she's done something that most actors aspire to their whole careers - co-star in a movie with legendary method actor Robert De Niro.
"He made me feel comfortable and he was so kind to me," Fanning said during an interview for "Hide and Seek," the horror film which has her playing De Niro's daughter.
"I learned so much from him, just getting to watch him act. He's so committed and focused."
The actress doesn't really have a list of people she'd still like to work with, because frankly, who's left? She began her career with Sean Penn in his Oscar-nominated performance for "I am Sam," played a young Reese Witherspoon in "Sweet Home Alabama," was saved by Denzel Washington in "Man on Fire" and this summer Tom Cruise plays her dad in "War of the Worlds" with Steven Spielberg directing.
"Maybe Jodie Foster, I really like her movies a lot and I would really love to work with her one day," says the girl who looks like a young Foster.
She reflects back on her career since she was 6 with aged wisdom.
"When we lived in Georgia, my mom took me to this playhouse where you'd study a play and do a play at the end of the week. And they said that I should go to an agency, and so we did and then we came to California for six weeks for a pilot season. Then it all kind of started," she says.
She landed a Tide commercial in Florida, had a small part in the comedy "Tomcats" and now commands her own projects, like an upcoming production with Kurt Russell.
"I know, I can't believe how much I've learned since then and have just been to new places and explored different things," she giggles. "I can't imagine how much I've grown." Famke Janssen, who plays De Niro's co-worker in "Hide and Seek," says, "You just forget that she's a child. There's nothing childlike about her. She's an immature grownup. She's very smart and very together. I had a great time working with her."
And, Elisabeth Shue, who plays a love interest for De Niro in the thriller, says, "She's like a little woman. I mean, we all joked about how she was much more mature than any of us were."
Fanning isn't sure where she gets her maturity. She knows she likes acting, and she loves movies. She's seen De Niro's PG-13 "Awakenings," but not some of his more gritty roles.
In "Hide and Seek" she plays a withdrawn girl whose mother dies and she develops an imaginary friend who becomes more and more real - and threatening.
For the first time, Fanning wears dark hair, not the perky blonde she's known for, and it was director John Polson's idea.
"John convinced me, and it made me look a bit more scary for some reason, a little Christina Ricci in `Addams Family' or Winona Ryder in `Beetlejuice,'" Fanning says.
She doesn't always do heavy roles, and points out, "I did `Uptown Girl' (with Brittany Murphy) which was a comedy and kind of a crazy character, and then `Cat in the Hat' (with Alec Baldwin and Spencer Breslin) was kind of nutty and fun."
Soon, she's traveling for three months with her mom to Australia to film the classic children's book "Charlotte's Web." She says, "They're doing it with real animals, I'm very excited, that book always makes me cry."
Then, there's talk about a live action film version of "Alice in Wonderland," one of her favorite animated Disney movies. With all this work, she's being home schooled, but is always around other kids, and says there're always other kids to play with on the set. She's also determined to go to college, like Shue did.
Even last Halloween, when filming in Louisiana, she dressed up as one of her favorite film characters and went trick-or-treating.
"I was Scarlett O'Hara for Halloween, I had the green velvet curtain dress, the black curly wig and a big hat," she says. "If he was around, my best friend James would have been Rhett for me but instead he was James Bond."
While on the set, she's famous for knitting her co-stars scarves. She made one for De Niro, who gave her a gift in return.
"My birthday was on the set and he actually gave me a doll that looked like my character with the brown hair and the blue eyes," she says. "It was cute." "Hide and Seek" opened nationwide on Jan. 28.

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