- Flora Cross, Bee Season, 2005. No, the child star Fanning was not yet too old for a role at eleven, simply Flora more resembled her screen mother, Juliette Binoche.
- Sofia Vassilieva, My Sister’s Keeper, 2008. And at 13, it was nothing to do with age, but… hair. And how to keep it!Dakota was not about to shave off her blonde tresses, 13 years in the making, for director Nick Cassavetes’ drama about a young girl discovering she was only conceived to help prolong her sick sister’s life. Sofia willingly shaved head and eyebrows – “the least I could do to understand Kate’s pain.” Her own hair was made into a wig for her day-job of Patricia Arquette’s daughter in Medium, TV, 2005-2011.
- Kristen Stewart, Snow White and the Huntsman, 2011. For the first of two revisionist Ms Whites that year, Dakota succumbed to Stewart’s Twilight clout. As did Sarah Gadon, Selena Gomez, Bella Heathcote, Felicity Jones, Saoirse Ronan, Alicia Vikander… and Elvis Presley’s grand-daughter Riley Keough.
- Jennifer Lawrene, The Hunger Games, 2011
- Chloe Grace Moretz, Carrie, 2012. Passed, quite correctly on the second unnecessary re-hash in a decade. Author Stephen King voted for Lindsay Lohan. “She looks a .lot like Sissy.” Maybe, but she was 26 and director Kimberly Peirce wanted CGM – at 15, the first real teenager to play Ms Telekinetic, winning over Hailee Steinfeld, 15,and Dakota Fanning, 19. Therefore, no chance for Shailene Woodley, 20., Lily Collins, 22, Emily Browning, 23, Haley Bennett, 24, Bella Heathcote, 25;, and Megan Fox, 26. In the 1976 original and 2002 follow-up, Sissy Spacek and Angela Bettis were 26 and 28. The first Carrie, in 1976 marked Stephen King’s first screen credit – this was the 168th of his staggering 312 credits.
- Emma Watson, Noah, 2012. Schedules interfered but Dakota was the first choice of auteur Darren Aronofsky for the daughter of his life-long fascination with “a dark, complicated character who experiences real survivor’s guilt.” And a lot of water. Bella Heathcote and Saoirse Ronan also tested, then enter Emma- from one bestseller to another.
- Chloe Grace Moretz, If I Stay... 2013. Emily Browning and Dakota Fanning were in talks to play a car crash victim who has to decide, in her coma, whether to.wake up and live or not. The first two directors, Catherine Hardwick and Brazilan Heitor Dhalia passed the drama to RJ Cutler. The lumineuse CHM made the movie work. No one else.
- Allison Sudol, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. 2015. Established acrresses Fanninng, Saoirse Ronan, Lili Simmons and Kristen Stewart were short-listed for the bombshell Queenie, eventual sister-in-law of JK Rowling’s new hero, wizard-magizoologistNewton Artemis Fido ‘Newt’ Scamanderin the first of a trilogy (in five parts.. and 54 years before Harry Potter was born). An alternative singer-songwriter (with the band, A Fine Frenzy),author and actres, Sudol was won over by casting agent Fiona Weir’s description of Queenie: incredibly empathetic, kind; seen as a beauty, but that ‘s not how she sees herself ; very feminine, incredibly perceptive and lovely. “Then she said that she was a witch and I didn’t know what was happening!”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 8