Now turning 18, Dakota Fanning has a career that’s on fire, she’s settling into her first apartment, and she’s looking for love. On a bright, unseasonably warm morning in New York, Dakota Fanning strides into a SoHo café for breakfast. At 5 feet 4, she’s taller than you’d expect. Her blonde hair is drawn into a tight ponytail, and as she approaches the table, she goes for a firm handshake-a total pro. Dakota will turn 18 at the end of February but has always seemed older than she actually is. Perhaps that’s because she was a working actress from such […]

The fabulous Fannings—Dakota and Elle—on fame at 6, couture shows at 13, and their shared obsession with reality TV. Elle Fanning Lynn Hirschberg: Elle, since Somewhere, in which you played the only child of a male movie star, you have been very busy. You’re 13—how has your life changed since Somewhere?Elle Fanning: After Somewhere came out, people started to recognize me more. Whenever I was walking down the street, they’d be like, “Oh, wow—are you Elle Fanning?” Before Somewhere, they asked me if I was Dakota Fanning, because we looked alike, and I’d say, “No, I’m her younger sister.” And […]

She talks to Tom Cruise regularly. And her first grown-up on-screen kiss is now behind her. Dakota Fanning is definitely not a little kid anymore. The dress code at Campbell Hall, the private Episcopal school in North Hollywood, California, once attended by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and now by Dakota Fanning and her little sister, Elle, is strict: khaki skirt, shorts, or trousers, white collared shirt, navy sweater, closed-toed shoes. “You could actually wear this,” says the elder Fanning flouncing her skirt, a cream-colored silk pouf, and in the process gaily jangles a wristful of bangles. We are sitting opposite […]

At fifteen, Dakota Fanning is finally outgrowing the adjective that’s been applied to her so frequently during her decade-long career: precocious. It’s not a bad word, of course, and doubtless there are actresses three times her age who would kill to have worked with Robert De Niro, Tom Cruise, and Denzel Washington—to say nothing of the prodigious natural talent that got Dakota there. But if her brief turn in this month’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon signals anything, it’s a willingness to shed the self-serious image. Asked if she’s going through any off-screen teen angst, Dakota says no. “I get […]