Dakota Fanning in Netfix’s, The Perfect Couple

Dakota Fanning on Outgrowing the ‘Child Actor’ Label and Finding Freedom on Set

Fanning also reflects on her two-decade career, and the surprising insights she gained from directing her first short 

By Chris McKittrick / Actors On Acting / November 18, 2024 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).

EB White / Charlotte´s Web / Review

Charlotte's Web

BIOGRAPHY

Andrew Pulver
Friday 9 February 2007

It's hard to go wrong with a cute liddle piggy, and so it proves in this adaptation of EB White's barnyard classic, squarely aimed at alleviating half-term boredom. It maintains a good deal of charm as it exploits that by-now-familiar Babe technique of lip-synching live-action animals - though that weirdest of movie moppets, Dakota Fanning, injects a note of unutterable strangeness, playing all her scenes with a rictus grin that presumably is intended to make us think she's a sweetie-pie. It doesn't work. The usual array of topline talent fill out the voices of the assorted cows, sheep and poultry; but it's the unlikely presence of Steve Buscemi, as the garbage-wallowing rat Templeton, that proves the most inspired choice. It's not quite in Babe's league, but then very little is.

THE GUARDIAN