Dakota Fanning Is ‘Always Thinking’ of Her Younger Self

Dakota Fanning is throwing it back to her younger years.

“I Am Sam premiere 2001,” Fanning, 30, wrote via Instagram on Saturday, September 21. In the sweet snap, a then 7-year-old Fanning was all smiles as she rocked a yellow dress while walking the red carpet.

“Always thinking of this tiny girl, and keeping her close,” she wrote.

Fanning began acting when she was 5 years old and skyrocketed to stardom when she appeared in the 2001 film alongside Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer. She earned a SAG Award nomination for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role and received a Critic’s Choice Award for best young actor/actress in 2002.

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Fanning has been candid through the years about her rise to fame at a young age.

“When I look back and I think of the experiences being an actor has brought me, I just don’t know a lot of other people our age who have been to the places we’ve been and met all different kinds of people and the friendships,” she said in 2018 for Variety’s Actors on Actors series. “It’s added so much to my life and it does kind of hurt me a little bit when people try and somehow turn it into a negative and I don’t like it.”

In an April interview, Fanning admitted that being an actor “is a huge part” of her identity. “I don’t really know who I would be without it,” she told PORTER at the time. “But I also have a desire to set up my life and career so that I always have a choice.”

To Fanning, having children “is probably more important” than anything, including acting.

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“If somebody said I had to choose, I would choose having kids. I’m one of those people who has always felt that pull,” she explained. “I don’t know how I’ll feel when that time in my life comes — and how much I’ll want to work. But, because I don’t have that at the moment, I’m trying to take advantage of the adventures now.”

Fanning continued, “I’m trying to push myself to keep saying yes to things that make me uncomfortable, to keep going to places for long periods of time that maybe I’m scared to do because — God willing — one day, it won’t be as easy.”

While reflecting on growing up in the spotlight, Fanning noted that she’s glad she didn’t have to live with social media. Fanning added that being a child star now is “such a different experience.”

“I hate to reduce it to social media, but that’s the biggest societal difference — and I think we’re still figuring out how to use it in the right way,” she said. “I’m grateful I didn’t have to contend with that; there was already enough going on.”