The child star gone bad is one of Hollywood's oldest stories, from the days of Judy Garland all the way up to Shia LaBeouf and Lindsay Lohan. But somehow, Dakota Fanning has managed to reach her milestone 21st birthday on Feb. 23 without an arrest, a scandal, or even so much as a stint in rehab.
Here are six ways she did it:
1. She was freakishly mature. Audiences saw the precocious quality in Fanning when, at 7, she earned raves for her first major role, starring alongside Sean Penn in 2001's I Am Sam. Fanning herself noticed it even earlier. "Even before I started working — when I was 2, 3, 4, 5 — I was an exceptionally mature child. I just was," she told Town and Country magazine in July.
The real proof came when the actress was 14, when Queen Latifah asked her about her on-screen kiss in The Secret Life of Bees, and Fanning answered without giggling or even sounding uncomfortable. At 14! "It was great. [Actor] Tristan [Wilds] and I knew each other pretty well by the time we did that scene, so we were pretty comfortable with it," Fanning explained for the November 2008 feature for Interview.
2. She kept normal things in her life. The Georgia-born star was home schooled early on but attended high school at the private Campbell Hall in Sherman Oaks, California. Wherever she was, she always made sure to mingle with non-famous kids, even joining Girl Scouts and cheering with the varsity cheerleading squad in high school. She got along with her classmates so well that they elected her homecoming queen two years in a row. And she enjoyed school so much that she's continued her studies at New York University, where she's focused her self-directed studies on women in the entertainment industry, writing her dissertation on the late Bette Davis.
3. She never got too comfortable with the glitz and glam of Hollywood. Though Fanning could have used her fame to party on the town at a young age, she didn't. "I've never really felt like a child star, that name always felt really odd to me," she explained to Wonderlandmagazine in April 2012. "I've just felt like I was an actor at 6 and 7 and, you know, a child who happened to act." And as Fanning grew up, she never bought into her own hype and became a diva.
Kelly Reichart, the director of Fanning's recent critically acclaimed drama Night Moves, has attested to this. "She stayed in the same motel as the crew, ate the same food," Reichart told Town and Country. "She would put the laundry on. It seems clear that at some point she made a very conscious decision that she wasn't going to separate herself from the small chores and hassles of life, which she could do very easily if she wanted to. And that shows, I think, in her acting."
4. She had someone steering her right. Fanning credits her mom, Joy, first and foremost. "I am the person I am because my mom put that energy into me to make sure that I was not going crazy and that people weren't taking advantage of me," she told Town and Country.
5. She kept things private. Not only does Fanning keep it professional during interviews, but you won't find her on social media. While she's been photographed holding hands with her male model beau of more than a year, the 12-years-older Jamie Strachan, she'll say only general things, such as she's "super happy."
6. She had a long-term plan. The petite star was always in the entertainment industry for the long haul. She wants to continue acting but also has plans to step behind the camera.
So, yeah, don't even worry about Dakota partying too hard on her birthday night.
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