Fanning The Flames

She's about four feet high, ten years old and the best actress in the world with the same name as an American state. No, we're not talking about Denzel Washington (he's male, and somewhat taller) but rather the prodigiously talented Dakota Fanning, who has just nabbed a part in Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Despite being just the wrong side of annoying in most of her films and having an almost rude surname, Fanning is the seventh wonder of Hollywood these days. Not even out of her first decade, she's already acting the socks off anyone who appears on screen with her and is a shoo-in to have 'most likely to win an Oscar before puberty' under the picture in her junior high yearbook. Steven Spielberg is clearly well aware of young Dakota's talents too and has opted to give her a role opposite Tom Cruise in his upcoming HG Wells adaptation. No, she's not an alien (at least, not in the film) and no, the martians haven't decided to cloy us all to death with cutesy blue-eyed children; rather she'll play Cruise's daughter and doubtless hinder his efforts to save humanity by becoming imperilled in some way. Due to begin shooting in November, The War of the Worlds will hit our eager screens around Summer 2005.