Dakota Fanning looks stunning

Dakota Fanning, the 15-year-old newcomer to the Twilight crew had a amazing shoot for Teen Vogue. I love the pictures!

Certainly, Dakota's role in the Twilight sequel didn't seem to present too much of an acting challenge. As Jane, a pint-size Volturi vampire who possesses the power to cause pain without even touching her victims. Asked how she prepared, Dakota laughs. "I wasn't in my mirror like Zoolander, doing the Blue Steel! The red contacts were enough." The actress was drawn to the project for pretty much the same reason any teen would be: It sounded like fun. "I read all four Twilight books in one week. It's such a phenomenon, and I wanted to be able to say that I was a part of it."
Making New Moon also gave Dakota a chance to get to know Kristen Stewart before they started shooting the upcoming Runaways biopic. "We became really close, like we'd known each other for our whole lives. We talk all the time." Their off-set friendship added a layer of peculiarity to the proceedings on the New Moon set—"I've never been such an evil character, and because I do know Kristen so well, being mean to her was really weird. It's like, Sorry, dude!"

Kristen effusively praises her costar, writing, "Dakota is one of the most consistently moving actors I have ever worked with. I'm always better with her."


Dakota sang on several tracks for the seventies-set film, which is simply called The Runaways and is due out in 2010, and she admits that the role is "very different" from anything she's done before.

When she shows up for her Teen Vogue interview, she's wearing jean shorts, high Doc Martens, and a loose, bare black tank top, with a plastic turquoise rosary slung around her neck. Then again, maybe the onetime Marc Jacobs model has always had a bit of an edge; after her first Teen Vogue shoot, when she was just twelve, she took home a pair of custom-made kid-size MJ combat boots. "I still have them! I've had to have them stretched, but I will do anything it takes to squeeze into those shoes."

It would be understandable if the soon-to-be ex-child star had been gun-shy about doing a film with such a heavy dose of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, especially after the backlash she faced over the little-seen indie Hounddog (specifically, the rape of her character therein). But Dakota says she's "still baffled by that whole situation," and quite reasonably points out that the difficulties of transitioning from talented tot to adult actress aren't avoidable, unless she wants to retire at sixteen. "I'm going to get older, and I want to act for the rest of my life—it's what I love—so I have to move forward with my career. The choices that I make might not always please everyone, but I have to do what I feel is appropriate and right for the time."

Asked if she's going through any off-screen teen angst, Dakota says no. "I get my rebellion out through my movies. I'm boring in that way. I enjoy having a normal life."
According to Dakota, she and her friends spend a fair amount of time eating sushi "We're going to get mercury poisoning" and watching The Rachel Zoe Project.

xoxo,
Vicky