There’s a gripping mystery and a flame-haired Australian actress, but Dakota Fanning sees some big differences between her latest whodunit All Her Fault and last year’s watercooler hit The Perfect Couple.
“There’s no dance,” she laughs of the much-copied flash mob sequence from the 2024 Netflix series featuring Nicole Kidman.
“There were also more laughs to The Perfect Couple. “I think that this [All Her Fault] leans in more to the thriller aspect of it all. But certainly, what we’ve all learned is viewers really love mystery and trying to figure out who is a part of it … That really unites an audience.”
In All Her Fault, Fanning stars alongside Sarah Snook, an actress she has admired since watching her award-winning run in Succession.
“Sarah, in real life, is just amazing,” she gushes of the South Australian native.
“She’s such a talented actor and really a down to earth, grounded, fun person to be around.
“She was working so much that we didn’t hang out too much off the set.
“I think it’s been really important for her to recharge and refuel and be with her family.”
Based on the novel by Andrea Mara, the eight-part series sees Snook playing Marissa Irvine, a distraught mother whose child goes missing from a playdate.
And Fanning stars as Jenny, a fellow school mum caught up in the crime’s fallout.
“I really liked that it wasn’t going to go the stereotypical way of the two women being at odds with each other and being enemies,” she says of the cliched trope of female characters always being at each other’s throats.
“And that they [the characters] weren’t going to play the blame game with each other.
“I thought that that was really interesting, and important for people to see that women can be friends and find comfort in one another during a stressful time, which, weirdly, is the more unexpected choice [on screen].”
In more recent years, Fanning has increasingly been making her mark on TV rather than in cinema. And in addition to All Her Fault and The Perfect Couple she scored an Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her role in Ripley, a critically acclaimed reboot of The Talented Mr Ripley.
While she still loves moviemaking, Fanning says TV offers an opportunity to explore characters and stories in far more depth.
“So often, now when I watch a movie I’m like: ‘That’s it?’ You want to see more,” she laughs.
“You want to see the rest of the story. Obviously, there’s a time and a place for both. But I really enjoy it. I really enjoy it as a viewer and as an actor.”
All Her Fault is set in Chicago, but the series was largely filmed in Melbourne. And Fanning believes viewers won’t know the difference noting the physical similarities between the city’s two riverfronts and architecture.
“I haven’t spent a tonne of time in Chicago (apart from appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show),” she laughs of being a guest on the talk show when she was younger.
“But weirdly there are similarities between it and Melbourne.”
Staying in a little house in Windsor during the shoot, Fanning came to feel very comfortable and at home down under.
“There’s a lot of energy in the in the city, and lots of good food, bars and coffee,” she enthuses.
“So, it’s been a lovely place to stay even though it’s so far from home.”
It’s not the first time that Fanning has spent an extended period in Melbourne for work. She also filmed Charlotte’s Web here in 2005.
The heartwarming film, in which Fanning played Fern alongside a menagerie of barnyard creatures voiced by A Listers such as Julia Roberts, Robert Redford and Winfrey, was shot on location in Ballan and Heidelberg.
“I was 11 then and now I am 30, so a lot has changed,” she laughs.
“When I was doing Charlotte’s Web, we were really filming on that farm 100 per cent of the time and that was a bit outside of Melbourne.
“So, most of my memories are just of the filming experience.
“There were a few things that I did in Melbourne then that I didn’t really need to do again. Like going to see the little penguins on Philip island. I checked that off the list when I was 11.”
After scene-stealing turns in shows such as ER and Ally McBeal, Fanning hit the big time at age seven when she appeared opposite Sean Penn and Michelle Pfieffer in I Am Sam. Roles in Sweet Home Alabama, Uptown Girls and Man on Fire followed, cementing her place as one of Hollywood’s brightest young stars.
While a lot of child actors struggle to transition into adult roles or left scarred from being thrust into the spotlight at a vulnerable age, Fanning has only positive things to say about her early years in Hollywood.
Likewise, her younger sister Elle (who made her debut at three playing the younger version of Fanning’s character in I am Sam) has also managed to avoid the same pitfalls and is also enjoying a flourishing career. The sisters are set to join forces in the upcoming war epic The Nightingale and a TV series based on Paris Hilton’s memoir.
Looking back, growing up on film sets has given Fanning a natural patience and empathy for working with the next generation of young performers.
Although not a mother herself, she felt very at ease working with the young actor who played her son in All Her Fault.
“I just try and be a nice person to them,” she says of acting alongside children.
“If you want to be an actor it’s a wonderful thing to get started young. So, I just try to have fun with them.”
The only downside to being a former child star is that people – still remembering her as the doe-eyed youngster who traded quips with Joey (Matt LeBlanc) in Friends or who won Denzel Washington’s heart in Man on Fire – can struggle to believe she’s now old enough to play a mum.
And Fanning is also incredulous about that fact.
“Even for me it’s like, what? I still feel like I am 15,” she jokes.
“But it’s a totally normal trajectory. And it’s an exciting to be able to play a mum and see a little bit of that side of myself as an actor.”
All Her Fault streams on Binge from November 6. For more celebrity news, click here.
Originally published as Dakota Fanning on growing up in Hollywood and her new thriller, co-starring Sarah Snook
