Dakota seems to be casually promoting her latest short film, Zygote, while filming The Alienist in Budapest, Hungary. Following her interview with Collider, a new one was released by Refinery29, in which she talks about the short and what it feels like to play an action hero. Read it below.

Dakota Fanning first won our hearts in 2001, when, as a 7-year-old actress, she starred alongside Sean Penn in I Am Sam. Sixteen years have passed since then, and the 23-year-old has blossomed into one of Hollywood’s most sought after talents, appearing in over 20 films. She’s played Cherry Currie (The Runaways), a vampire queen (The Twilight Saga), and a 1960s radical (American Pastoral), and you can soon catch her acting alongside Rihanna, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, and Sarah Paulson in the upcoming Ocean’s Eight. She’ll also be solving crimes as Sarah Howard, a Gilded Age secretary who is determined to become New York’s first female police detective in TNT’s The Alienist.

But you have never seen her quite like this before.

Fanning stars in Neill Blomkamp’s latest short film, Zygote, about the two lone survivors of an attack by an unknown and terrifying creature in an Arctic mine. Fanning’s character, Barklay, is charged with shepherding her superior to safety — but there’s way more to her than meets the eye. Don’t let its short run-time fool you — 20 minutes is more than enough for you to start fearing for your life.

The film is part of an anthology series launched by Blomkamp’s studio, Oats Studios, which bills itself as a experimental filmmaking “lab.” Each short is released on YouTube, but viewers also have the opportunity to pay $4.99 to download any of the assets involved in the production — from the dailies to the mock-up of the monster — to make projects of their own.

We spoke to Fanning about how working on the short film, learning to fire a gun, and what it was like playing an action hero for the first time.

Refinery29: What drew you to this particular project? How did you come to be involved?

Dakota Fanning: “I did a BMW commercial a few years ago — Neill Blomkamp made one and I was in it with Clive Owen, so I worked with him on that project and gotten to know him a bit, so he asked me if I wanted a part of an experimental short film for his studios, and I did! I loved the idea and the concept, and loved working with Neill, I think he’s so talented. And so getting to be a part of one of his projects was really exciting to me.”

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