| By Fred Topel
In Theaters October 21
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There hasn’t been a child actor as recognized as Dakota Fanning since Haley Joel Osment. And he turned out to be kind of a one hit wonder. Dakota Fanning keeps piling on hit after hit after hit, to the point that Entertainment Weekly touted her box office clout compared to Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock.
Fanning herself doesn’t believe it. “I was like a little bit embarrassed because I don’t think of myself that way,” she said. “When people say that it’s really nice but I don’t even know if that’s true. I just feel so lucky to have the opportunities that I’ve had. And all the projects that I’ve done I’ve been really proud of and really proud to be a part of.”
Despite her multi-million dollar box office, Fanning doesn’t even have an allowance. “I’ve never gotten one. I don’t even think about that ever. It’s put aside for later but I don’t even think about it.”
She hasn’t even treated herself to one thing. “Never bought anything. I collect dolls but I get those for like Christmas and my birthday.”
One advantage of being such a hard worker is she gets to make her own schedule. She has no set bedtime. “On weekends I can stay up as late as I want. But like on weekdays if I have something to do the next day, I go to bed at 11. I can work until 10 on weekdays and until 12 on Fridays.”
At 11, Fanning’s resume includes War of the Worlds, Man on Fire and I Am Sam. She is also a veteran of the audition circuit. “When I was like 5 ½ my mom took me to this playhouse where you study for the play and you do the play at the end of the week. And then they thought that I should go to an agency. And I got a couple of commercials and then they said I should go to pilot season in California. And so I turned six and then I went to California. And then I got some more commercials and TV shows, and then I got I Am Sam.”
Having aged nearly half her life on film, each role presents a new challenge. “I try and learn something new on every movie that I do. I think I just try and better myself on everything, from everyone on the film, from my characters. I’ve been very fortunate to play all different kinds so you know I think I just try and portray the character and the scenes that I fell in love with in the script.”
When it came to Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, first time director John Gatins won Fanning over. “He’s so passionate about the film and he really believes in it so much. It’s contagious. So I think when you have someone, the director, who really believes in the project as much as we all do now, it makes it really special.”
In Dreamer, Fanning plays a farm girl who prompts her father to care nurse an injured horse back to health. Kurt Russell plays her father, but he did not share any stories about child acting.
“We talked a little bit about it. Mostly we just talked about stuff that would happen. It’s like when you’re with someone that you really like to talk to – and we really liked to talk to each other – just things come up and you just start talking about them.”
Though she’s hardly a jockey, Fanning does ride in real life. “I have a horse. Kurt gave me my horse. I love riding. I learned for like 6 weeks. I was training and I learned riding, about them, the horse equipment, racing. All different kinds of things. It was real exciting and really fun. I have a Palomino, so he’s blonde, and so I named it partly because of Goldie and partly because of the color. It was hard work but it was really fun for me because I was really interested in learned. I really wanted to know anyway, even if I wasn’t doing the movie. So I thought it was great. I knew it was really going to help me with the part.”
Dreamer is a sweet family film where the highest stakes are losing money, which is a big deal, but nobody’s life is in danger. It was a relaxing break from Fanning’s recent work, though she enjoys the perilous roles. “They’ve all been really fun in different ways. Man on Fire was really fun in kind of a challenging, sad way. And War of the Worlds was really fun in an action-packed way. This was really fun in a sweet way, and getting to work with Kurt and Elisabeth [Shue] again, and Freddy [Rodriguez] and Luis [Guzman] and John [Gatins] and Kris [Kristoferson] and everyone.”
Looking ahead, Fanning still has a lifetime of roles to tackle and she can’t wait to get started. “I think that’s one of the fun things about getting older is that more roles open up for you to do so I’m excited about that. There are so many stories.” And costars. “I’d love to work with Hilary Swank one day and Johnny Depp. And lots of people. There’s so many.”
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story opens October 21. |
