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TRANSCRIPT OF DAKOTA FANNING GUEST APPEARING ON THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO
July 12, 2005

Jay: My first guest, very talented, an 11-year-old actress – quite hard to believe. She’s co-starring of course with Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg’s summer blockbuster War of the Worlds. Please welcome the lovely Dakota Fanning!

*audience applause*

Dakota walks out, smiling and waving, and greets Jay with a hug.

Jay: Now do you want the footstool? I can put it out, see here we go. a footstool flips out from under Dakota’s chair
Dakota: Oh sure. There we go.
Jay: Oh cool.
Dakota: Perfect!
Jay: God, look how big you’ve gotten! You look terrific!
Dakota: Thank you!
Jay: You know, for some reason whenever you and I talk we always talk about the dentist…
Dakota: …I know!...
Jay: …So what do we have here? *points to Dakota’s teeth*
Dakota: Well, I just got my braces. *points*
Jay: Okay, that’s cute.
*Dakota grins widely to show her braces, and tries to talk at the same time, the audience laughs and so does she*
Dakota: I got my brace’s here and you can change the rubber band color.
Jay: Oh!
Dakota: And so I got pink.
Jay: Oh, so let’s see, let me see…Oh that’s right and it matches…
Dakota: …It matches my dress, and I had clear for everything, but pink for you.
Jay: Oh, oh well thank you.
Dakota: And I knew I would be wearing my pink dress so I have pink.
Jay: Well you look very pretty.
Dakota: Thank you!
Jay: You know, when I was a kid we could, we didn’t have braces so my Mom would teach me, she would say “Do this…” *pushes top teeth outwards* “…and just push your teeth straight.”
Dakota: *laughs*
Jay: She thought that was the same as going “Just push your teeth…”
Dakota: I also had gotten an expander.
Jay: An expander, now what is that?
Dakota: Well it’s something that it’s, it’s, cemented to the top of my mouth, and then it expands all my teeth…and you have to crank it every night. *demonstrates with her hands*
Jay: You crank…who cranks it?
Dakota: My mom! *laughs* My mom has to…it’s called a ‘crank’. And you stick it in the thing, and you crank it back…And it goes like that *widens hands*, you can feel it going like that.
Jay: Like if you’ve been bad, does she give it an extra crank, like - *pretends to crank* Arrrggghh!
Dakota: *laughs* You have to stick it in the tiny little hole in there, and you stick the metal part in and then crank it back.
Jay: Does that hurt?
Dakota: Well you can feel it, expanding! *laughs*
Jay: Wow…that’s almost frightening. Wow. And how’s your younger sister Elle, how’s she doing?
Dakota: She’s good, she’s so good.
Jay: And she’s what, seven, now?
Dakota: She’s seven.
Jay: God, you guys are so grown up.
Dakota: I know, she’s seven, she just turned seven in April, and um, she loves Marilyn Monroe.
Jay: Marilyn Monroe?
Dakota: She is obsessed with Marilyn Monroe.
Jay: How does she even know who Marilyn Monroe is?
Dakota: She loves her, she thinks, she thinks she’s the prettiest woman in the whole world, and she likes her clothes, and she thinks she looks like her.
Jay: Really?
Dakota: Yes. And so, she wanted a Marilyn Monroe room, she wants everything Marilyn Monroe.
Jay: Well, I did too, but I’m not seven!
Dakota: *laughs*
Jay: Now, does she have any Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, you know, like that kind of stuff?
Dakota: Well you know there was this auction of all Marilyn Monroe’s personal things that nobody had ever seen before. And so we went to that, but you know you can go to preview the items, there was a preview on the internet, so my sister looked at all the stuff on the internet…
Jay: This is unbelievable *laughs*
Dakota: I, I know, she looked at everything, and she found the item number of what she wanted, and it was like ten pages of what she wanted. And you know, my Mom sat down and was looking at it, and my mom realized she had marked everything except the picture of Joe DiMaggio by himself.
*audience laughs*
Jay: Wow. I mean what kind of things, like clothes, or…?
Dakota: Clothes, and beauty items, and pictures, and um, all sorts of things. And so we went to the previews…
Jay: *laughs*
Dakota: *laughs* I know! We went to the preview of, you know all the things, and they were so nice they let her look at all the lipsticks and stuff and pretend like she was putting them on and everything, and um, that’s what my sister really wanted…was the beauty thing, you know, all of it. Like she wanted the lipsticks and the eyeshadow and the compact and the eyelashes and the mascara. She wanted, she wanted that and so my grandmother was goin’ to go to the auction and try and get something. The beauty supplies were in the last hour of the auction, so my grandmother was there for…eight hours *laughs*
Jay: …oh my!...*laughs*
Dakota: …at the auction! She was eight hours at the auction. And then she started realizing that the pantyhose were going for $2000…
Jay: $2000 for the pantyhose?
Dakota: And the vases were going for $3000, and everything was…*laughs* And so everything was…
Jay: They were just selling everything in her hamper, is that what they were selling?
Dakota: *laughs* She was starting to think “I don’t know if I’m gonna get anything, that she wants,”
Jay: Right…
Dakota: And so, she realized there was a couple of sets of face cream and face powder, and that was before, you know, all of the other beauty supplies. And so she bid on that and there was a couple that sold before she got one, but she did get that she got the face cream and the face powder.
Jay: Is that what this is…? *reaches behind desk*
Dakota: Yes this is it! Right here.
Jay: So this is Marilyn Monroe’s actual face cream…
Dakota: …face cream, and face powder.
Jay: Let’s see, and what brand’s on there?
Dakota: It’s Er Laslo (sp?) And then, it’s actually um, there’s actually some powder in the face cream…*starts opening the container*
Jay: The actual powder?
Dakota: Yes!
Jay: *slaps desk in disbelief*
Dakota: *laughs, as does the audience*
Jay: Really?
Dakota: And there’s actually some, some left!
Jay: *fake sneezes on the powder* No, I’m not really going to.
Dakota: *laughs, and pretends to scream*
*Audience laughs*
Jay: We can see the actual powder…
Dakota: That’s the powder inside. But the cream doesn’t open because it’s all, like, crusted shut *laughs* My sister tried to open it but it wouldn’t.
Jay: And how much did that cost?
Dakota: It was $600.
Jay: $600?
Dakota: *nods* For her face creams and face powder. But you know, the beauty supply
set that we wanted went for $7000.
Jay: $7000?
Dakota: Yeah, and her address book went for $75 000!
Jay: Wow, but a lot of those people probably don’t live there anymore, you know.
Dakota: *laughs* I know. There was Frank Sinatra in there, and Bessie Arnez (sp?)…
Jay: Ooh…
Dakota: Lots of people.
Jay: Wow. Well this is very cool, thanks for bringing this in.
Dakota: Yeah, no problem!
Jay: We’ll take a break…
Dakota: …okay…
Jay: …more of Dakota, right after this!

Go to ad break

Jay: Welcome back, talking with Dakota Fanning! One of the stars of War of the Worlds, well I like this movie, it’s really good.
Dakota: Thank you!
Jay: Now I kept hearing about you and food on the set, that the food was really good… Dakota: Well, you know we had this, the craft service guy would have all the snacks and stuff, and he would bring in dinner, um you know, later, and he would dress up like the food.
*audience laughs*
Jay: How do you mean?
Dakota: Well he, we had chicken and he dressed up like a chicken.
*audience laughs*
Jay: Oh I see…
Dakota: And then, we had sushi and he dressed up as a sumo wrestler *audience and Dakota laugh*
Jay: How did that look, did he have that big diaper thing?
Dakota: *laughs* It was so funny, he had this like air-filled stomach.
Jay: Yeah, I have one of those.
*audience laughs*
Dakota: And then we had like stir fry and he dressed up like a geisha…
Jay: Okay…
Dakota: And we had Cuban and he dressed up as Fidel Castro *laughs*
*audience laughs*
Jay: Now did you celebrate your birthday on the set?
Dakota: I did celebrate my birthday on the set!
Jay: So you were eleven?
Dakota: I was eleven *nods*
Jay: Did you get a lot of presents?
Dakota: Well, I, Tom gave me a cell phone.
Jay: Tom Cruise gave you a cell phone?
Dakota: Tom Cruise gave me a cell phone. And so, that was really cool.
Jay: Was that your first cell phone?
Dakota: Yes, my mom and dad wouldn’t let me have a cell phone.
*audience laughs*
Dakota: But Tom gave me a cell phone for my birthday!
Jay: Well that’s, so that’s pretty good, so tell me does he call you all the time on this cell phone?
Dakota: Well it’s really funny cause on my cell phone I pretend that I’m on the phone when I’m not, and I’ll pretend that I have messages, and you know when I’m out, sitting I’ll just be like “Oh!” *mimes answering the phone, and audience and Dakota laugh* And I’ll pretend that people are calling me, I’ll be like “Oh yeah, oh, bye!” *mimes in pretend mobile* I really do, I really do that.
*audience and Jay laughs*
Jay: But why, why don’t you talk to real people?
Dakota: Well not so much *laughs* I don’t talk to real people so much.
Jay: Now when did you find out about his engagement, did you meet Katie before the engagement?
Dakota: I had, yes…
Jay: Did you give your blessing?
Dakota: *laughs* Well, they, I was at the Eiffel Tower, he proposed at the Eiffel Tower and I was there like three hours before him.
Jay: Okay. Wow.
Dakota: So that was neat, I was almost there, when they got engaged.
Jay: Oh okay. Were you surprised?
Dakota: I was very surprised, he told me the next morning, you know at our picture press conference.
Jay: Oh, he didn’t call you on the cell phone?
Dakota: *laughs* I didn’t have it with me in Europe.
Jay: Did you send an engagement gift?
Dakota: Well, I haven’t but if I do, I know Tom really likes chocolate a lot, and Katie loves shoes. And Katie gave me these shoes. So, I was good for shoes.
Jay: You know what you should send them? A chocolate shoe.
*audience laughs*
Dakota: A chocolate shoe made of chocolate!
Jay: That was you can kill two birds with one stone.
Dakota: Exactly, there you go.
Jay: See, I’m thinking all the time. Now how about Steven Spielberg, what is he like, is he like real serious, is he like real serious director like “This is what I want!”
Dakota: *laughs* Well Steven, he just really taught me a lot about every aspect of making movies, he um, would always have his ipod on the set, we would play movie soundtracks, and he would teach me how, you know, music is very important to a film, and you know John Williams composed this music, so.
Jay: Now did you see the monsters, I mean I know you’re a terrific actress but did he say to you, “Okay, here’s what the monster looks like” and a guy goes “Arrgh!” and they add it later? Are you, were the actual sort of monsters there, in the movie?
Dakota: No, you know he would show us pictures and kind of tell us what they were going to look like but that was really it and when I saw the movie that was kind of, it was surprising.
Jay: Okay, yeah. Now you scream a lot in this movie!
Dakota: Right *laughs*
Jay: Was that hard to do?
Dakota: Um, you know what it was fun, cause sometimes something would happen so that it would just be natural to scream, so I would scream because I was actually scared.
Jay: Okay.
Dakota: If you know what I mean.
Jay: Can you give me a good scream? Go ahead.
Dakota: Sure. *SCREAMS*
Jay: Wow! *audience applauds and laughs* Ow! No wonder you don’t have a cell phone, ow!
Dakota: *laughs*
Jay: Wow that was really ear-piercing, that was like one of those first-alert smoke detector things.
Dakota: *laughs*
Jay: Now we have a clip, what is this scene we’re going to see?
Dakota: Well this is where, um, Tom is kind of protecting me from looking at what might be outside cause he knows that my character is a worrier, and he knows that if I see what’s outside that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Jay: Oh, so this is when you’re in the house in Connecticut…
Dakota: Yes…exactly…
Jay: …and you come out in the morning and something has…
Dakota: Something has happened and we don’t exactly know what but he’s protecting me from what it is.
Jay: Let’s take a look, War of the Worlds.

A clip from War of the Worlds shows

Jay: Well to Dakota thank you very much…
Dakota: Thank you so much!
Jay: It’s so good to see ya!
Dakota: Nice to see you again!
Jay: Dakota Fanning! Be right back with Terence Howard right after this…

Dakota and Jay hug and she gets up to leave

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