Because Screen Actors Guild Award-nominated actress Dakota Fanning has appeared in films for over 20 years, it’s easy to forget that she is only 30 years old. Her career has had incredible breadth in those years, from Steven Spielberg-directed blockbusters (War of the Worlds) to animation (Coraline) to the Twilight film series, Tarantino movies (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and ythe Netflix hit, The Perfect Couple. Having developed all that experience at such a young age puts Fanning in a rare class. Speaking about her career with IndieWire, Fanning reflected on being labeled a “child actor,” being present on a film set without distractions, and what she learned from directing a short film (something that she doubts that she will do again).
Though she first made waves with her role in I Am Sam at age seven (and becoming the youngest nominee in SAG history), Fanning says that she disliked the term “child actor.” She says, “I sort of always resented ‘child actor.’ I was like, ‘I can’t work as many hours, just because I’m small, but I’m doing the same thing as all the other actors.’ I was also really fortunate to work with people who saw me as more than, ‘Bring the kid in.’ […] I was treated with kindness and respect and care. I was a young person doing a job that not all young people do.”
Fanning notes that though she has felt challenged by acting at times, she feels a strong level comfort in it. She explains, “It can be difficult, and it can be discouraging, [but] I achieve a state of calm and flow and that whole thing when I’m working that I have never been able to necessarily achieve anywhere else. It’s a place where — even just the simple thing of being on our phones all the time, and people are calling, people are texting, and people are, ‘Where are you? What are you doing? Can you do this? Can you do that?’ When I’m working, all that goes away. I don’t bring my phone on set. I don’t care if people know where I am. If they really need to get in touch with me, they know who to call and I don’t have to worry about it. It’s a freedom that I feel that I have never felt really anywhere else in my life.”
In 2018, Fanning directed a short film titled “Hello Apartment,” which was a project she found insightful as an actor although she first doubted that she would find the behind-the-camera work engaging. She shares, “I was nervous that I wouldn’t enjoy the post process as much. It’s something as an actor that you’re really not involved in [and] I loved that process so much. That was one of the biggest surprises for me about that whole experience. It also gave me insight, I think, that I’ve brought with me as an actor since, is what you can create in the editing room. Which I knew before, but seeing it happen in real time … there are days on set where you’re like, ‘Oh my God, that wasn’t right. That was wrong. Oh no, how are they going to fix that?’ And then you see the world of possibilities that happens in post. It gave me a little bit of a peace as an actor: Everything doesn’t always have to be perfect.”
