W Magazine has released a new interview with Dakota! She talks about her work in the film American Pastoral, directing and producing The Bell Jar, working on Kirsten Dunst‘s feature film directorial debut, her first kisses (real and on screen) and more. It’s a very interesting interview, as it sheds some light on her most recent work. Read it below.

Actress Dakota Fanning is only 23 years old, but has already been a household name for years thanks to her roles in such varied films as I Am Sam, The Secret Life of Bees, and The Twilight Saga. Most recently, she starred in Brimstone and American Pastoral, a film based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name, as Merry Levov, a teenager who becomes involved in political terrorism; and next, she is collaborating with Kirsten Dunst on an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Here, Fanning opens up about these challenging roles, how she handles what people think about her, and more.

Lynn Hirschberg: In 2016 you starred in American Pastoral. How did the project evolve?

Dakota Fanning: So American Pastoral came to me a few years ago, with a different director and with Ewan McGregor and Jennifer Connelly attached as actors to play my parents. So we were all three attached as actors for a while and this director ended up not being able to do it. It was one of those movies that like you kept thinking, “Oh, maybe I’m going to be working on it in the fall,” and then the fall would be there and then you wouldn’t be working on it and, “Oh, maybe it’s going to be in the spring.” It just kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed and then when that director fell out that’s when Ewan asked if he could direct it. And they said yes and he still wanted me to be in it–I definitely had a moment of like, “Oh no, what if he doesn’t want me to do it, like okay, that would be hard,” but he did so that’s that.

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