Even in these celebrity-fixated times, it's sometimes possible for major movie stars to evade our attention. How else do we explain how Dakota Fanning has every Hollywood studio clamouring to work with her, has filmed meaty roles in significant pictures opposite Sean Penn, Denzel Washington, Robert De Niro, Kurt Russell and Tom Cruise has already become the hottest young actor since Jodie Foster- and yet in the UK she's barely made a media ripple.
Maybe it's because Dakota Fanning is only ten-years-old
Dakota Fanning is queen of the "aw shucks" soundbite. Listen to her talk aibout acting and you'll hear, "I love what I'm doing. I have a great, fantastic time, and I've been very lucky and blesses." She's just regular kid, she'll tell you, who got the chance to do something she loves. Who loves dolls, knitting and ballet, and goes with her friends to Color Me Mine where they paint pottery pieces together. Who loves her sister Elle, salesman father Steve, mother Joy and maternal grandmother Mary Jane Arrington- who all live together in Los Angeles, where they moved from Conyers, Georgia after Dakota's career took off when she was five
`Regular thing is for sure: there's nothing regular bout her talent, as anyone who saw her Sean Penn drama (I Am Sam) or her Denzel Washington thriller (Man on Fire) can attest. "She's in a league of her own," is how John Polson- director of her new picture Hide and Seek- puts it. "She's incredibly talented," says Fox 2000 President Elizabeth Gabler, "and she has a wisdom in her expressions that belies her age." Mike Myers, who acted opposite her in the clunky (not her fault) Dr. Seuss adaption Cat in the Hat, dubbed her a combination of Judy Garland and Meryl Streep.
Washinton is secure enough in his own success to give credit to others, but even allowing for his gracious self-deprecation, the things he has said about his Man on Fire co-star are telling. Like this: "Twice in my career," he told one TV anchor, "I can remember doing a scene and finding myself just watching that other actor. Once was with Gene Hackman, and once with Dakota."
Back in Georgia, Dakota would play-act with her little sister Elle (also now a professional actress- her latest picture, The Door in the Floor, opens next month.) "I played the mom and I play my sister as the daughter," Dakota once said, adding that at the age of four or five her priorities shifted. "I wanted to be an actress on television and in the movies instead of just around the house."
She got her wish after attending a one-week drama camp in Atlanta which led to a deal with local agency Hot Shot Kids. Hot Shot had an affiliation with the Osbrink Agency in Los Angeles and dispatched a tape of Fanning reading lines about Pringles and singing bits of Britney Spears. "I called them and said, 'Get her on the next plane out of here," recalls agent Cindy Osbrink. Dakota immediately turned into 'a booking machine", landing adverts for Tide washing powder, the Georgia Lottery (with Ray Charles) and a cable TV company. Within five weeks she'd booked guest spots on five major TV shows, including ER, Ally McBeal and CSI. This was all before her sixth birthday- but then again, she learnt to read aged 2 1/2, so it's all relative. Next came I Am Sam, for which Fanning became the youngest nominee for a Screen Actors Guild Award. While shooting that, she secured the thriller Trapped with Charlize Theron and Kevin Bacon, going direct from one set to the other. Straight after, she took a two-week gig playing the child version of Reese Witherspoon's character in Sweet Home Alabama- after all, the picture was shooting in Georgia, and she wanted to go home.
Today, Dakota stretches her tiny frame on a sofa in the Four Seasons Hotel, Beverly Hills, and casts her mind back to her first professional gig. "You know, I was so excited, and from the day that I did the Tide commercial, I knew that I wanted to do this for ever." In person, Dakota is imntelligent, confident, articulate, polite. She deftly deflects attention to others whenever she can- when the subject of upcoming horse-training picture Dreamer comes up, specifically the rewriting of the central role from boy to girl when she became available, she quickly segues from, 'I think they did, although it's incredible to believe,' into "Kurt Russell could not have been nicer. And that's also with Elisabeth Shue, Luis Guzman, Freddie Rodriguez from Six Feet Under and David Morse."
Despite her efforts to project a sense of childhood normality, the argot of the adult world she inhabits stubbornly slips in. She once revealed she went with Sean Penn to the Ivy for "bonding purposes." Today, discussing the attention of her fans, she says that everyone has worked hard on "the finished product", it's rewarding if people like it. Revealing a mature appreciation of film genre, she explains she was attracted to Hide and Seek because I'd never done a psychological thriller before." Says Adam Goodman, president of production at Studio Dreamworks, "She comes into your office, and after a minute you forget her age. It's like being in a meeting with a really savvy, experienced film vet." Dakota takes meetings on her own (Mum sits inside), and she always sends a thank you note afterwards.
Dakota's not lonely, she insists, even when working. Her mum is with her, and her teacher, and "There's a lot of other kids. Well, not a lot, but there's stand-ins, photo doubls, and Robert De Niro brought his kids to the set sometimes, and Tom brings his kids to the set sometimes." "Tom", of course, is Tom Cruise, who is responsible for Fanning's current musical preferences- Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash. Distressed at her underdeveloped taste, he gave her an iPod on to which he had downloaded some of his own favourites. Right now, Dakota is shooting War of the Worlds, playing Cruise's daughter in Steven Spielberg's big-budget version of the H.G. Wells science-fiction novel. After that wraps, she goes to Australia to star in Charlotte's Web, from the E.B. White children's classic which will be filmed with real animals and talking animatronics, Babe-style. Then if it's ready, maybe the first of two Alice in Wonderland pictures that Spielberg's studio DreamWorks is developing for her.
And all of this is coming on top of this month's Hide and Seek- in which Dakota's ambiguously troubled character Emily may or may not be responsible for the murder and mayhem that erupts in the life of her widower father De Niro- plus the in-the-can Dreamer, about a misfit who blossoms when she nutures a broken horse to Breeder's Cup victory. To perform the role, she learnt to ride racehorses: "I'd never done it before, but I was just like, 'Sure!'" Dreamer's producer Mike Tollin calls Fanning "an incredibly feet-first kind of actress." Call it the reckless confidence of youth, but nothing seems to faze her. She does, however, admit that she experienced trepidation filming Nine Lives, a portmanteau of nine ten-minute films, each focusing on a different character. Her segment was with Glenn Close, ten pages of dialogue, back and forth, the whole scene shot it a single ten-minute take.
Where does this come from? Those who've worked with her talk about her "old soul". They also talk about her "grounded" parents, who by nev does not follow a script, he improvs a lot"- I Am Sam was 70 per improvised dialogue- "and that gave Dakota such a gift for trusting her instincts at an early age." Osbrink adds that Dakota alwasy rewrites the words she's given to say when presenting at awards ceremonies, as the show writers always want to push the cutesy brat thing and "that embarrasses her".

In Hollywood, actors get cast for one of two reasons. Either their performance will make the film better, or their presence in the credits helps sell tickets. Paul Giamatti is in the former category, Jennifer Lopez in the latter, and Tom Hanks is in both. It's been a while since there's been a child actor whose name alone can put bums on seats. Macaulay Culkin at the height of his Home Alone fame was such a figure. With Fanning, it's different. Her presence didn't make Man on Fire or her Brittany Murphy comedy Uptown Girls any easier to market, she won those roles on the basis on her acting ability.
Hide and Seek is arguably the first picture where that's not entirely the case- after all, it's she- not De Niro, whose image appears on the poster, and their billing is equal. Still, director Polson insists she won the role on performance alone, having screen-tested 40 or 50 other young actresses before settling on Dakota. Dakota showed up to rehearsals, says Polson, "with not just the current draft, but also the three or four previous drafts she'd read. She had pages of notes, but not in any precocious 'I'm a child star' way, more like any adult actor might come with genuine inquiries about why certain scenes had changed. If she had a favourite line from a previous draft, we would negotiate as I'd do with any actor to see if we could change it back.
Osbrink says that her pet peeve when her client faces the press is that she alwasys get asked if she feels she's missing out in childhood. "How many kids, or even adults, get to do what they were truly meant to do? She's a happy, happy kid." And Osbrink would appear to be right, at least about the happy part. The only question is whether Dakota Fanning, in any meaningful sense, is really a child at all- surely it's no coincidence that in two of her pictures I Am Sam and Uptown Girls, she plays the "parent" to her adult co-star "child", respectively her mentally challenged father (Penn) and her irresponsible party-girl nanny (Murphy).
One of Hollywood's less edifying impulses is its "cute" presentation of children as miniature adults, and perhaps for this reason Dakota is keen to insist on her essential regular-kidness. Maybe once the world starts believing her when she says, "I have fun whatever I'm doing. I enjoy life and have a good time." she'll relax enough to invite us further inside the cogs of her mind that are so evidently whirring. Because the truly astonishing thing about Dakota Fanning must surely be that, as remarkable as she clearly is, we don't know the half of it.

Hide and Seek is released on Feb. 11, War of the Worlds opens in July. See The Eye to find out how to claim free tickets to see Hide and Seek.

The article is accompanied by a color cover photo of Dakota in a pink sweater and blue jeans, swinging from an overhead pole, apparently in the hallway of a house. Other photos are a page and a half color photo of Dakota grinning broadly with her face pressed up against a clear glass window pane, holding a ruby slipper in each hand, and photos from the films I Am Sam with Sean Penn holding her; Tom Cruise looking at her from War of the Worlds; Robert De Niro touching her shoulder in Hide and Seek.- Captions- DAKOTA'S HEAVYWEIGHT LEADING MEN
ROBERT DE NIRO
Hide and Seek sees Fanning play disturbed child Emily, who conspires with her imaginary friend "Charlie" as extreme violence erupts in the home of her widower father (De Niro). Says producer Barry Josephson, "When I talked to Bob and John after rehearsal, they would always be blown away by everything she brought to it."
TOM CRUISE
Fanning plays Cruise's daughter in Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, Paramount's big summer blockbuster hope for 2005. "It's exciting, that's all I can tell," enthuses Fanning. Comments Peter Kang from rival studio Fox, "Is there a beter eye for child talent than Spielberg? He just plucked her."
SEAN PENN
In teary drama I Am Sam, Penn plays a mentally challenged father whose child Lucy (Fanning) is taken into care when her intellectual development begins to surpass his own. The young actress's first big-screen performance surpirsed director Jessie Nelson. "She often came to me after a take, saying "I think I could go farther, I thing I could give you more."
DENZEL WASHINGTON
In Tony Scott's Mexico-set revenge thriller,Man on Fire, Washington plays a burnt-out ex-CIA operative hired to protect a businessman's daughter (Fanning) from kidnap. "The first scene we did", says the Oscar-winner, "she looked me dead in the face and just performed. I was like, 'Oh shoot, I'm in trouble- this kid can act.'"
KURT RUSSELL
Writer-director John Gatins changed his horse-racing drama Dreamer from a father-son story to a father-daughter one when Fanning became available to co-star with Russell. Says producer Mike Tollin, "Kurt said she's one of the best actresses he's ever worked with. He didn't qualify it by saying 'child' actress.'"