Dakota Fanning

• 1. Introduction

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  Dakota Fanning was seven years old when she became the youngest person ever nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. The nomination came for her work in the 2001 film I Am Sam. It was the first sign of a career that would run from a small community stage in Georgia to Steven Spielberg's sets, to blockbuster thrillers and prestige television. This documentary asks how a child performer wins the trust of directors and veteran actors. It asks what early fame cost her, and what it looked like when she grew up in public. And it asks what Fanning herself says about that experience now.

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• 2. Georgia Beginnings

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  Her full name is Hannah Dakota Fanning, and she was born on the 23rd of February 1994 in Conyers, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. Her early schooling took place at a Montessori school in Covington.

  Sport ran through the family. Her mother, Heather Joy, who was born Arrington, played tennis professionally. Her father, Steven J. Fanning, played minor league baseball and later worked as an electronics salesman in Los Angeles. Her maternal grandfather, Rick Arrington, played American football, and her aunt, Jill Arrington, worked as an ESPN reporter. Her paternal grandmother was a German immigrant, and her ancestors include William Farrar.

  At the Towne Lake Arts Center in Woodstock, Georgia, Fanning first performed, taking parts in small plays when she was five. In 1999 she began working professionally, appearing in a television commercial for Tide. Her first significant job was a guest role on the NBC primetime drama ER.

  Guest appearances on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Practice and Spin City followed. Two of her early parts had her playing the adolescent versions of the title characters in Ally McBeal and The Ellen Show.

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• 3. The Breakout Years

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  Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer were the stars beside her when Fanning was chosen for I Am Sam in 2001. She played the daughter of a man with an intellectual disability who is fighting for custody of her. The Broadcast Film Critics Association gave her its Best Young Actor/Actress award for the performance. Her scenes were later worked into the music video for Rufus Wainwright's cover of the Beatles song "Across the Universe", which appears on the film's soundtrack.

  In 2002, Steven Spielberg cast Fanning as Allison "Allie" Clarke, also known as Keys, in the science-fiction miniseries Taken. Critics had already noticed her. Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote that she "has the perfect sort of otherworldly look about her, an enchanting young actress called upon... to carry a great weight."

  Three films arrived that same year. In Trapped she played a kidnapping victim who proves to be more than her abductors bargained for. In Sweet Home Alabama she played the young version of Reese Witherspoon's character. In Hansel and Gretel she played Katie.

  In 2003 she starred in two prominent films. Brittany Murphy played an immature nanny in Uptown Girls, and Fanning played the uptight child in her care. She also played Sally in The Cat in the Hat. During this period she did voice work for four animated projects.

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• 4. Praise From Veterans

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  Denzel Washington played a retired mercenary hired to guard a nine-year-old girl named Pita in the 2004 film Man on Fire, and Fanning played Pita. Roger Ebert wrote that she "is a pro at only 10 years old, and creates a heart-winning character." That year she also appeared in season 10 of Friends as Mackenzie, a girl moving out of the house that Monica and Chandler were buying.

  Robert De Niro was her co-star in Hide and Seek, her first release of 2005. The film was generally panned. Critic Chuck Wilson still called it "a fascinating meeting of equals - if the child star Fanning challenged the master De Niro to a game of stare-down, the legend might very well blink first."

  Glenn Close shared an unbroken, nine-minute scene with Fanning in Rodrigo García's film Nine Lives, released in October 2005. Close said of her: "She's definitely an old soul. She's one of those gifted people that come along every now and then."

  Fanning finished filming Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, opposite Kurt Russell, in late October 2004. Kris Kristofferson played her character's grandfather. He said she was like Bette Davis reincarnated. While promoting the film, she became a registered member of Girl Scouts of the USA at a special ceremony. A screening for members of the Girl Scouts of the San Fernando Valley Council followed.

  She took the voice of Lilo Pelekai, replacing Daveigh Chase, in the direct-to-video film Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch. She also recorded her lead role in Coraline during this time.

  Tom Cruise starred beside her in War of the Worlds. Spielberg, who directed it, praised how quickly she understood a situation within a sequence and how she would react as a real person would.

  She moved on to Charlotte's Web without a break, finishing filming in Australia in May 2005.

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• 5. Records and Controversy

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  At the age of 12, in 2006, Fanning was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She became the youngest member in its history. Later that year she ranked 4th on a Forbes list of top-earning stars aged under 21, having earned an estimated $4 million in 2006. In March 2009 she stood 3rd on the Forbes list of Most Valuable Young Stars, with an estimated $14 million in earnings.

  The summer of 2006 brought a far more difficult project. Hounddog was described in press reports as a dark story of abuse, violence and Elvis Presley adulation in the rural South. Her parents were criticized for allowing her to film a scene depicting the sexual assault of her character. Fanning defended the film to Reuters: "It's not really happening. It's a movie, and it's called acting."

  Hounddog failed at the box office and with critics. Roger Ebert nevertheless praised her performance and compared her to Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.

  In 2011, Fanning became the face of the Marc Jacobs perfume campaign Oh, Lola! The advertisement was banned in the United Kingdom. The Advertising Standards Authority judged that "the ad could be seen to sexualize a child."

  She spent that same summer playing Tessa in the film Now Is Good.

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• 6. Leaving Childhood Roles

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  In the spring of 2007, Fanning filmed Fragments, also known as Winged Creatures, alongside Kate Beckinsale and Guy Pearce. Josh Hutcherson, and Academy Award winners Forest Whitaker and Jennifer Hudson, were also in the cast. She played Anne Hagen, a girl who witnesses her father's murder and turns to religion afterward.

  In July of that year she appeared in a short film called Cutlass, directed by Kate Hudson. It was one of Glamour's "Reel Moments", based on readers' personal essays. From September to the end of the year she filmed Push, playing Cassie Holmes, a 13-year-old psychic. The story follows young American expatriates with telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities who hide from a government agency called the Division in Hong Kong.

  In January 2008, Fanning began filming The Secret Life of Bees, from Sue Monk Kidd's novel. The story is set in South Carolina in 1964. Lily Owens, played by Fanning, runs away from a lonely life and a troubled relationship with her father. She travels with her caregiver, played by Jennifer Hudson, to a town where three beekeeping sisters take them in. Queen Latifah, Sophie Okonedo and Alicia Keys played the sisters.

  On the 6th of February 2009, her films Coraline and Push were released on the same day. Coraline was a horror animation and Push a science-fiction thriller. Fanning then played Jane, a member of the Volturi Guard, in the Twilight films New Moon and Eclipse. New Moon was released on the 20th of November 2009 and Eclipse the following June. She reprised the role of Jane when she filmed Breaking Dawn.

  In 2010, she starred in The Runaways, playing Cherie Currie, the lead singer of the band. Kristen Stewart, Stella Maeve and Scout Taylor-Compton were her co-stars. In August 2012 she took the lead role of Dena Brauer, a wealthy financial ecoterrorist, in Night Moves. Kelly Reichardt directed the thriller, with Jesse Eisenberg and Peter Sarsgaard as co-stars. It follows three eco-terrorists who work at an organic farm and plot to blow up a hydroelectric dam.

  In June 2011, Fanning graduated from Campbell Hall School in Studio City, California. She was on the varsity spirit cheerleading squad and was twice voted homecoming queen. From 2011 to 2014 she attended the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. She majored in women's studies, with a focus on the portrayal of women in film and culture.

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• 7. Prestige Television and Producing

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  In 2018, Fanning had a cameo in the heist comedy Ocean's 8. The same year she starred as Sara Howard in The Alienist, a TNT historical series based on a novel of the same name. In August 2018, TNT ordered a sequel series based on the follow-up novel, The Angel of Darkness. Fanning was set to return as Sara Howard.

  In 2019, Fanning played Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. She and the rest of the cast were nominated for a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

  In December 2019, it was announced that Dakota and her sister Elle Fanning would star together in an adaptation of Kristin Hannah's 2015 novel The Nightingale. Mélanie Laurent was set to direct. In March 2021, the sisters announced a production company, Lewellen Pictures, which has a first-look deal with MRC Television and Civic Center Media.

  In March 2023, Fanning was cast in the Netflix miniseries The Perfect Couple. She also starred in The Watchers, a supernatural film set in Ireland, and in The Equalizer 3, where she reunited with Denzel Washington. An adaptation of The Bell Jar, to which she was attached, was considered as a television series. Development has remained on hold.

  The Netflix series Ripley brought her renewed critical recognition. She played Marge Sherwood and was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy for Best Supporting Actress.

  She is now attached to The Sun Never Sets as both lead actress and producer.

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• 8. On Child Stardom

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  In 2024, Fanning told The Cut that adults had asked her "super inappropriate questions" when she was a child, such as how she was able to have friends. She has been interviewed extensively about the move from child stardom to adult roles, a transition notorious for its difficulties.

  In an article that compared her work to Paris Hilton's, Fanning said she had "a lot of compassion for people who have been made into examples." On sets today, she emphasizes treating younger actors as ordinary peers.

  When Brittany Murphy, herself a child actress, died prematurely, Fanning paid tribute to her in the media and online.

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