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Dakota's Little Sister Steps Out on Her Own
January 23, 2008

The 9-year-old younger sister of Dakota Fanning is finding herself following in her big sis’s footsteps and pursuing her own career as a movie star. Elle Fanning stars in “Phoebe in Wonderland”, a drama that just had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. In it the younger Fanning plays an imaginative girl who finds a kindred spirit in her school’s drama teacher (played by Patricia Clarkson) and in starring in a school production of “Alice in Wonderland”. Proving just how long it can take before an idea becomes a movie, writer-director Daniel Barnz wrote the first draft of his movie before his lead actress had been born! “I met Elle Fanning and realized that at the center of the film there was going to be this brave, intelligent, luminous presence,” said Barnz in a interview with IndieWire.

While the spotlight has been mostly centered on her big sister, Elle has quietly built up an impressive resume of her own. In 2002 she landed her big break at the age of four playing one of the precocious children in “Daddy Day Care”. The following year she played opposite Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger in “The Door in the Floor” before moving on to the family adventure “Because of Winn-Dixie”. Two years ago she was seen in “Babel” as the daughter of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. She’s working again with her “Babel” parents in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” but this time in a curious manner as well; instead of playing their offspring she will star as the younger version of Blanchett’s character in the fantasy film due out in theaters come November.

"Phoebe in Wonderland" is generating good buzz at Sundance and its creators hope that it will translate into a deal with a major Hollywood studio and wide distribution of the film. The success story from Sundance last year was “Juno” which was picked up by Fox Atomic and has made the studio over $80 million at the box office so far. That picture’s prestige has also gone up several notches with its recent Oscar nominations for star Ellen Page, screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman. Studios are crawling Sundance this year in the hopes of finding the next “Juno” and “Phoebe in Wonderland” could be the one that gets picked.

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