On the New York set of the thriller Hide and Seek, ten-year-old Dakota Fanning spends her time playing a deeply disturbed girl who deals with her mother's suicide by creating an imaginary friend, who may or may not be terrorizing her family.
Today, though, she has the day off. "This week I only worked two days." says Fanning, propped up against an overstuffed sofa in her hotel's library, "but I get bored when I'm not working. Especially because it's cold here and I can't do anything, you know? So, I've been knitting- all day, every day." The actress, who's held her own opposite Oscar winners such as Sean Penn and Denzel Washington, recently mastered the fine art of scarves, complete with fringe. Though she's about ready to move on to hats, she first plans to make a souvenir scarf for Robert De Niro, who plays her father in the film. "He's the nicest guy you'd ever meet in your entire life," she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I would make him a tannish-brown one."
Like any other fifth-grader, Fanning spends several ours a day going to school. In addition to her personal trailer- which is kept well-stocked with hot chocolate packets, lemon-lime Gatorade and a TV that doesn't always work- she has a separate on-set trailer where her teacher, Jan, conducts classes in history, spelling, reading math, science and health. "We have this big board where we have a calendar," Fanning says, "When we were here in January, I wrote the calendar in all blue. February was red and March was green."
On this particular morning, she had a spelling test. "There was a topic for each of the [word] lists," she says, sitting on her knees. "This one was flowers- they were all names like oxygen, carbon-dioxide, peony, chrysanthemum..."Chrysanthemum? "Well, they didn't make me spell that one- they just had me fill in the 'e'. But I can spell it- c-h-r-y-s-a-n-t-h-e-m-u-m."
[Editor's note: That's correct.] - Kerrie Mitchell
The article is accompanied by a small color photo of a dark-haired Dakota standing by a door in a small room- Caption- CAN'T FIND THE PHONE BOOKS? Fanning on set