It’s easy to compare Dakota Fanning to Elizabeth Taylor. At only 11-years-old, the young actress commands her own projects and has co-starred with Robert De Niro (Hide and Seek), Sean Penn (I Am Sam), Denzel Washington (Man on Fire) and Tom Cruise (War of the Worlds). Elizabeth Taylor started off as a child actress who catapulted to fame when co-starring with a horse in National Velvet at about same age as Fanning is now. It’s only a matter of time that she have her own horse movie and along came Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story.
Kurt Russell, who stars as Fanning‘s father, said during the Sky High interviews that he’s “never seen an actress, younger or older, as together as this young actress, she’s like a woman in a child’s body.” They portray a trainer and his daughter who nurse an injured horse to health and try to enter her in the Breeder’s Cup. Directed and written by John Gatins in his directing debut, it’s a true underdog story also co-starring Kris Kristofferson and Elisabeth Shue. Gatins, who wrote Coach Carter and Hardball was at the Toronto International Film Festival along with Kristofferson, Shue and his budding Elizabeth Taylor, precocious Fanning.
Dressed in a flowery dress and long blonde locks, Fanning seemed quite comfortable talking to the press once again at the high-profile film festival just a week before she begins seventh grade.
Some people describe you as a woman in a kid’s body, do you feel like that?
Dakota Fanning: “That’s nice that they’d say that about me, but I feel just my age. I enjoy what I’m doing and I’m glad that people enjoy the movies that I’m in.”
With Charlotte’s Web coming up you’ve gone from one farm movie to another farm movie, haven’t you?
Fanning: “Well, totally different farm movies. In Charlotte’s Web it’s not my farm. And there are tons of pigs and all different kinds of animals. Cows and sheep and geese and we filmed that in Australia actually. [The animals] were so good. I mean, all the pigs, there was like 47 to 60 pigs – it was crazy. There were tons of them in all different sizes and then they would get too big and then they would have to get some more to bring in. Pigs grow so fast. I mean, one minute it would be like this small and then the next minute it’d be that big. I got to hold them and feed them with the bottle. It was so cute.”
You’ve traveled a lot already too?
Fanning: “Well, I’ve been to Australia now and I went to Tokyo and Paris and London and I loved all of them. I loved Paris. I thought Paris was so beautiful and Tokyo was so fun and so was London.”
What was your favorite horse movie before this?
Fanning: “My sister loved Seabiscuit. She thought that was the best movie because she had worked with Jeff Bridges. I think that Seabiscuit is totally different than this movie. This is such a great movie too and I think that we did something totally different than that.”
This is not really a kid’s movie, it’s a family movie, right?
Fanning: “Right. Kurt said that it’s an adult family movie. That’s what he calls it. He said that he thinks adults will really enjoy it and kids will really enjoy it at the same time, and that all ages can see it. I think that all ages will get a different message from it… I think that this horse kind of brings the family together and their relationships change for good and so I think that this movie means that you should always keep your dreams alive and never give up.”
Kurt Russell was a child actor too, did he talk about that?
Fanning: “He did. We talked mostly about how school was different on the set when he was younger. I try and learn something different from every film and the actors that I work with. From this movie and from Kurt, I learned so much as a person and so much as an actor. I think that he’s such an amazing actor and he’s been doing it for so long and is still so great. I look at it as fun. I can’t imagine myself not acting. I’ve had this whole summer off and I’ve been bored at times. I don’t think of it as like pressure because I enjoy doing it. I enjoy challenging myself in different ways and that’s what I look forward to.”
Did you get to keep any of the horses?
Fanning: “Kurt gave me a horse that wasn’t on the movie, but he gave me another one. His name is Goldie. I learned [to ride] for the movie. It was really hard work, but I enjoyed it. The racehorses are so beautiful to look at.”
How many horses were there for the horse Dreamer?
Fanning: “There were five horses that played the one. There were three that I mostly worked with, and I loved them so much. It was sad to leave them.”
Did you do all your own riding in the film?
Fanning: “I don’t really ride that much in the movie, but I did everything, but the fast part because they had to go really, really fast. I did six weeks of training and then like every other weekend I would go and ride the horses.”
Who did you most enjoy working with in this cast?
Fanning: “I loved everyone. We were like a family. Kurt was really like my dad and Elisabeth [Shue] was like my mom when we were filming. We had the best time everyday. And I’d worked with Elisabeth before [in Hide and Seek]. We were like, ‘I want you to be in all the movies that I do.’”
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Elisabeth Shue
You had just worked with Dakota, what was it like to do it again?
Elisabeth Shue: “She’s extraordinary which you already know, but I just got blessed in that I got to learn from her more than the other way around. She’s a beautiful spirit and an extraordinary actress and she is so appreciative of the work that she does. She comes to the set each day with such bubbling enthusiasm and happiness and she makes you, she reminds you of the joyfulness that you felt when you first started and that reminds you to never let that go.”
Did you ride horses before the film?
Shue: “I rode horses a lot when I was a kid. I still ride horses, definitely, but more farm horses. We have a little teeny, tiny house in Maine and there are a lot of horses in the area and so we’d get to ride in the summers here or there, but I definitely had that dream of wanting a horse one day.”
What do you like about the message of this movie?
Shue: “I love the idea of this little girl as a role model for little girls, that she was determined to have her father see her and to love her and she was brave enough to stand up to him and face him and say, “I’m worthy of your love.” I thought that powerful theme really carried me. Even though I know it’s about horseracing it’s about a lot of other things obviously. It’s about healing of the family. But for me I always think about my little daughter who is 4 and I think about wanting her to be fierce and strong and confident because I know that it’s so hard especially when you are a little girl to feel those feelings. So I just loved that theme more than anything and wanted to be a part of a film like that. She hasn’t [ yet seen the film], but I’m so excited that I get to bring her to see this film. And [my daughter] has a really special relationship with Dakota, my daughter just fell madly in love with her and they played in between takes and had a very affectionate relationship.”
What did you think of working with Kris Kristofferson?
Shue: “Yeah, I definitely remember being aware of him over the years. I think that I was 13 when A Star Is Born came out and thinking that he was so hot. I’m just so respectful of him as a musician as well. I’ve definitely listened to his music over the years. One thing that strikes me about him is how incredibly humble he is. It’s mind blowing what he’s accomplished and yet he’s really one of the most humble people I’ve ever known. He’s so cool.”
Do people say that you and Kurt Russell look alike all the time?
Kristofferson: “Yeah. I had met him before and heard that we looked alike and thought so myself. I guess that people told him that too.”
What do you think of Dakota?
Kristofferson: “Well, listen, she’s a real human being with an amazing combination of little girl and wonderful actress. She’s got an extraordinary imagination and intelligence for someone of any age. She’s probably one of the best actors that I’ve ever met. Just the other day I was telling someone in front of John [Gatins] the director that I thought Bette Davis would’ve probably been like that as a girl, and that she’ll grow into that, and John had nicknamed her Bette. But I think that she’s going to amaze us for a long time.”
Did you have any concern working with a first-time director?
Kristofferson: “When I first met him, he’s so young looking that I kind of wondered what it would be like, but it has been my experience that if I’m working with a writer director and if I like the script, if I like the way he writes and I like the way that he thinks then it’s not ever been a problem. That turned out to be true and it’s not as if this was the first film he’s been around. He’s been an actor and a writer and he really had put together a terrific crew and cast of people that worked so well together. So it was one of the smoothest films that I’ve been on.”
