'Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story' Cast Interviews
By Mike Szymanski, Hollywood.com Staff
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Sunday, October 16, 2005
Dakota Fanning stars in Dreamer |
It's easy to compare Dakota Fanning to Elizabeth Taylor. At only 11-years-old, the young actress commands her own projects and has co-starred with Robert De Niro (Hide and Seek), Sean Penn (I Am Sam), Denzel Washington (Man on Fire) and Tom Cruise (War of the Worlds). Elizabeth Taylor started off as a child actress who catapulted to fame when co-starring with a horse in National Velvet at about same age as Fanning is now. It's only a matter of time that she have her own horse movie and along came Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story.
Kurt Russell, who stars as Fanning's father, said during the Sky High interviews that he's "never seen an actress, younger or older, as together as this young actress, she's like a woman in a child's body." They portray a trainer and his daughter who nurse an injured horse to health and try to enter her in the Breeder's Cup. Directed and written by John Gatins in his directing debut, it's a true underdog story also co-starring Kris Kristofferson and Elisabeth Shue. Gatins, who wrote Coach Carter and Hardball was at the Toronto International Film Festival along with Kristofferson, Shue and his budding Elizabeth Taylor, precocious Fanning.
Dressed in a flowery dress and long blonde locks, Fanning seemed quite comfortable talking to the press once again at the high-profile film festival just a week before she begins seventh grade.
Some people describe you as a woman in a kid's body, do you feel like that?
Dakota Fanning: “That's nice that they'd say that about me, but I feel just my age. I enjoy what I'm doing and I'm glad that people enjoy the movies that I'm in.”
With Charlotte's Web coming up you've gone from one farm movie to another farm movie, haven't you?
Fanning: “Well, totally different farm movies. In Charlotte's Web it's not my farm. And there are tons of pigs and all different kinds of animals. Cows and sheep and geese and we filmed that in Australia actually. [The animals] were so good. I mean, all the pigs, there was like 47 to 60 pigs – it was crazy. There were tons of them in all different sizes and then they would get too big and then they would have to get some more to bring in. Pigs grow so fast. I mean, one minute it would be like this small and then the next minute it'd be that big. I got to hold them and feed them with the bottle. It was so cute.”
You've traveled a lot already too?
Fanning: “Well, I've been to Australia now and I went to Tokyo and Paris and London and I loved all of them. I loved Paris. I thought Paris was so beautiful and Tokyo was so fun and so was London.”
What was your favorite horse movie before this?
Fanning: “My sister loved Seabiscuit. She thought that was the best movie because she had worked with Jeff Bridges. I think that Seabiscuit is totally different than this movie. This is such a great movie too and I think that we did something totally different than that.”
This is not really a kid's movie, it's a family movie, right?
Fanning: “Right. Kurt said that it's an adult family movie. That's what he calls it. He said that he thinks adults will really enjoy it and kids will really enjoy it at the same time, and that all ages can see it. I think that all ages will get a different message from it… I think that this horse kind of brings the family together and their relationships change for good and so I think that this movie means that you should always keep your dreams alive and never give up.”
Kurt Russell was a child actor too, did he talk about that?
Fanning: “He did. We talked mostly about how school was different on the set when he was younger. I try and learn something different from every film and the actors that I work with. From this movie and from Kurt, I learned so much as a person and so much as an actor. I think that he's such an amazing actor and he's been doing it for so long and is still so great. I look at it as fun. I can't imagine myself not acting. I've had this whole summer off and I've been bored at times. I don't think of it as like pressure because I enjoy doing it. I enjoy challenging myself in different ways and that's what I look forward to.”
Did you get to keep any of the horses?
Fanning: “Kurt gave me a horse that wasn't on the movie, but he gave me another one. His name is Goldie. I learned [to ride] for the movie. It was really hard work, but I enjoyed it. The racehorses are so beautiful to look at.”
How many horses were there for the horse Dreamer?
Fanning: “There were five horses that played the one. There were three that I mostly worked with, and I loved them so much. It was sad to leave them.”
Did you do all your own riding in the film?
Fanning: “I don't really ride that much in the movie, but I did everything, but the fast part because they had to go really, really fast. I did six weeks of training and then like every other weekend I would go and ride the horses.”
Who did you most enjoy working with in this cast?
Fanning: “I loved everyone. We were like a family. Kurt was really like my dad and Elisabeth [Shue] was like my mom when we were filming. We had the best time everyday. And I'd worked with Elisabeth before [in Hide and Seek]. We were like, ‘I want you to be in all the movies that I do.’”
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