Dakota Fanning tells "Hounddog" critics she is mad

Reuters ^ | 1/24/07 | Bob Tourtellotte

[Roberts]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Precocious 12-year-old Dakota Fanning, star of the kids movie "Charlotte's Web," is as mad as she can be and is not going to take any more criticism about her latest role -- a rape victim.

Fanning saw her newest movie "Hounddog" premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this week after months of complaints from religious groups and others who questioned whether her family and the film's maker acted responsibly when asking her to act in a rape scene.

"When it gets to the point of attacking my mother, my agent ... my teacher, who were all on the set that day, that started to make me mad," she said in an interview.

"I can let other things go, but when people start to talk about my mother, like, that's really bad in my opinion ... that's an attack, and that's not fair. They hadn't seen the movie," she added.

Since the age of six, when Fanning appeared in an episode of U.S. television program "Ally McBeal," her fan base has grown into millions of people around the world.

She has starred in Hollywood movies ranging from "The Cat in the Hat," based on the Dr. Seuss children's book about a magical cat, to Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds," in which she played a young girl on the run from space aliens.

But Fanning is now entering her teen-age years -- she'll be 13 in February -- and like any girl or boy who is growing older and maturing, she finds herself attracted to new stories and roles she finds challenging and thought-provoking.

[Chanticleer]

I don't know. It seems to me that a girl angry that strangers were attacking her mother is quite right and old-fashioned. Family honor, respect, all that.

As far as punishing someone for being mad, I suppose it depends on why they were mad and how they acted on it. There is such a thing as righteous anger.

[Letaka]

This kid needs to be shown what mad really is.