DAKOTA FANNING'S MOTHERS LIFE CHANGING SACRIFICE

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THE TOWN & COUNTRY INTERVIEW
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Dakota Fanning



At just 20 years old, Town & Country’s August cover girl Dakota Fanning has aced stardom with an inspiring maturity and poise. The Hollywood veteran, set to star in this Fall’s The Last of Robin Hood, opens up to the magazine about her life in the spotlight, how she maintains her privacy, and the types of projects she’d like to work on one day.




Dakota, explaining how getting into show business was her idea:



“It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t know me as a child. But even before I started working – when I was two, three, four, five – I was an exceptionally mature child. I just was. And my mom and I were able to have conversations like, ‘Do you want to go to California and go to auditions for commercials and TV shows? Is that something you want to do?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s give it a try.’”



On privacy:



“I’m just never going to parade my personal life. If you choose to not do it, it’s not hard to not do it… Any part of an artistic business is made better by there being a little mystery. That’s what movies are about.”




On growing up in the public eye:



“Because people saw me grow up, there’s this weird sort of ownership that they feel for me and that is…difficult. Because it’s not real; it’s in their minds. People don’t know me as much as they think they do. I’ll be walking down the street and someone will say hello, and I’ll go, ‘Oh, hi!’ I’ll think I must know this person if they said hello, but then you realize, you don’t know them.”



On her mother’s sacrifice for Dakota’s career:



“[My mother] realized I had the potential to do things that were bigger than the life she knew. And she recognized that in Elle, too. When she made that initial move with me to L.A., she completely gave up her own dreams and started over in a place she never imagined living. I mean, Los Angeles, to a person from 20 minutes southeast of Atlanta, might as well be Africa.”



On the types of movies she’d like to direct and produce one day:



“It’s very hard to find a movie about a strong woman – one that doesn’t have anything to do with a guy or the love of a guy or the heartbreak of a guy. Is that the only crisis that women deal with: love and loss of love and sadness? There’s more to life than that.”



For more of Dakota’s exclusive interview with Town & Country, pick up a copy on newsstands July 8th!


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