Dakota Fanning was a child star who grew up before our eyes on camera. Her wide-eyed look made her perfect for many roles and now that she is an adult, she is still acting.

Fanning recently opened up about what it was like to grow up in front of millions of people and insists that it was her decision to try acting and that she was a very mature child at a young age and capable of making such decisions.

“It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t know me as a child,” Fanning said. “But even before I started working — when I was two, three, four, five — I was an exceptionally mature child. I just was. And my mom and I were able to have conversations like, ‘Do you want to go to California and go to auditions for commercials and TV shows? Is that something you want to do?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s give it a try.’ ”

Fanning went on to talk about the stereotypes associated with child stars and said that for some reason, many of her fans and people who watched her in the films feel like they are entitled to know more about her life now or like they know her more than they do.

“Because people saw me grow up, there’s this weird sort of ownership that they feel for me and that is… difficult. Because it’s not real; it’s in their minds. People don’t know me as much as they think they do,” she said. “I’ll be walking down the street and someone will say hello, and I’ll go, ‘Oh, hi!’ I’ll think I must know this person if they said hello, but then you realize, you don’t know them.”

“I’m just never going to parade my personal life. If you choose to not do it, it’s not hard to not do it,” she added. “Any part of an artistic business is made better by there being a little mystery. That’s what movies are about.”

What do you think of Dakota Fanning’s outlook on fans?

Image via Wikimedia Commons