Though Dakota Fanning has been acting professionally since she was six years old, the 30-year-old performer only just received the most significant awards recognition of her career: an Emmy nomination for the Netflix limited series Ripley. It’s a fitting project for that kind of breakout moment, given what the international, nine-month-shoot asked of her. “I gave absolutely everything that I had—personally, professionally, creatively, I gave everything,” Fanning says on this week’s Little Gold Men (listen or read on below). “I look back on it and I’m like, If I can do that, I can do anything.”
The reimagining of Patricia Highsmith’s iconic novel, written and directed entirely by Oscar winner Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List, The Night Of), stars Andrew Scott as the eponymous grifter who infiltrates the glamorous lives of wealthy scion Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and his suspicious girlfriend, Marge (Fanning). Before the show premiered, Zaillian told me of why he cast Fanning, “She just looks like…a ’40s movie star. She is so expressive in a subtle way. Her performance is truly remarkable.” Even as we’re stuck in Tom Ripley’s unreliable perspective, Fanning manages to command the screen, her decades of experience in front of the camera showcased in canny, revealing, carefully composed close-ups. Even if some took a few tries to get right.
“I’d be so curious to find out what take number was used in those,” she says with a laugh. “Like, are there any first takes in the show? Because I would bet that there aren’t.”
This is new territory for Fanning, who has worked steadily but has also struggled to be seen as a fully grown-up actor, even decades after I Am Sam and War of the Worlds. But she senses that this is finally changing. Beyond Ripley, she’s also got a juicy role in Netflix’s upcoming The Perfect Couple starring Nicole Kidman and is her working behind the scenes, co-running a production company called Lewellen Pictures with her sister, Elle Fanning. “I’m not the youngest person on sets anymore!” she says at one point during our interview. That dynamic promises a thrilling re-introduction to an actor who’s been a household name since she was in elementary school.
Vanity Fair: I believe this is the biggest industry recognition you’ve gotten since your first big movie, I Am Sam, for which you were nominated for a SAG Award when you were seven years old. Am I right about that?
Dakota Fanning: Yeah, seven.
How do you put this Emmy nod in the context of being in the industry for such a long time?
It’s just a cherry on top of something that I already really love. I love being an actor. I love having been able to do this for as long as I have. And it’s a part of who I am, being an actor. I don’t really know anything else. But of course, to be included and acknowledged is really special, and I was super excited about it—especially for this series, because it was something that took an incredible amount of devotion from everyone.
What really struck me about your performance, especially in the beginning as we’re getting to know Marge, is your eyes. They say a lot, the way that you challenge this very deliberate, misleading frame.
That was something that I immediately was struck by when I read the scripts: They’re written in Tom’s perspective. And Steve was like, “Yeah, of course they’re written in Tom’s perspective—but that’s not always what’s really going on.” I’m like, “Yeah, I got that,” and then I’m like, “I guess I have to make up the rest.” I was excited by that. I was like okay, that’s the challenge here, is figuring out Marge’s reality. I always approach characters and the work that I do from the inside. I think about the inner life and thoughts of the character more than the words.
It sounds like Steven gave you space to figure it out, to find your own interpretation.
He definitely did. He’s very particular, and that’s actually a great thing because you feel safe that he would tell you if you were not on the right track.