Dakota Fanning Moving Beyond Child Actress Years
Dakota Fanning burst onto her the movie scene at the age of 7 with her portrayal of the daughter of a mentally challenged man in I Am Sam, and by the time she turned 18 already had more movies under her belt than even many Hollywood veterans.
But the 19-year-old actress is now ready to move beyond her label as a “child actress,” carefully selecting roles that allow her to display her acting range and putting out a new image.
That image was on display this week, as Dakota Fanning and her sister Elle appeared in a series of photographs supporting J. Estina’s fall 2013 ad campaign. The shots were elegant and not too revealing, a clear attempt to show that Dakota is more than the cute-faced girl from a string of hit movies.
“While the teens are absolutely stunning in the photos with flawless hair and makeup, it’s like they skipped their 20s,” writes omg! style correspondent Suzy Byrne. “Instead of young Hollywood stars, we see mature businesswomen — or ladies who lunch.”
It is a bit of a departure from a past ad campaign for Dakota. At age 17, she posed in a Marc Jacobs perfume ad that showed an oversized perfume bottle between her legs. It was banned in the UK for being “sexually provocative.”
“If you want to read something into a perfume bottle, then I guess you can. But it’s also like, ‘Why are you making it about that, you creep?'” she told Glamour. “I love Marc and trust him, and we just laughed about it.”
The latest ad campaign is a clear sign that Dakota Fanning is entering a new, more adult phase of her career. After appearing in the teen hit Twilight series, Dakota stepped out with a nude scene in the film Very Good Girls just after she turned 18 in February 2012.
“Yeah, well, I’ve never done that before and I’m very newly allowed to do that,” Fanning told MTV News. “I was newly 18, so yeah, it was, it’s kind of a sensitive thing, but it’s a part of life.”
Dakota Fanning will get a chance to launch into the new part of her career this year. She has four movies in various stages of production, including The Last of Robin Hood, a biopic about legendary Hollywood actor Errol Flynn
