The career-defining role Dakota Fanning “gave everything” to: “If I can do that, I can do anything”
Despite the fact that Dakota Fanning has been acting professionally for the past 25 years, she’s only just received one of the biggest accolades of her career: an Emmy nomination for her work on Steven Zallian’s Ripley. It comes over two decades after she became the youngest person to ever receive a nomination for a Screen Actors’ Guild Award at seven years old.
While her astute performance in I Am Sam might be considered career-defining for this reason, it’s really her turn as Marge Sherwood that has established her as a brilliant actor. And, it’s a fitting role for that kind of acknowledgement, considering the painstaking effort put into the new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley by the entire production.
After all, the stakes were high given the popularity of Anthony Minghella’s 1999 adaptation of the same novel. Starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwenyth Paltrow, this pastel-hued, glittering version of the film is beloved by both fans of Highsmith’s novels and film buffs of all calibres. At the time, it was nominated for five Academy Awards and has become a career-defining film for the many involved.
For Fanning, it didn’t seem to matter that she had big shoes to fill; she seemed simply ready to take on a role that had bite. Despite working steadily for her entire career, she struggled to be taken seriously as a grown-up actor, given her immortalisation as one of the most famous child stars of her generation.
While the shoot took a lot out of her, she seems ready to face more challenging roles, “I gave absolutely everything that I had—personally, professionally, creatively—I gave everything. I look back on it and I’m like, If I can do that, I can do anything,” she relayed with conviction. Appearing in everything from I Am Sam and Charlotte’s Web to Twilight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, she’s already proven she can do quite a lot.
But her portrayal of Marge is definitely one that will be remembered for long. Although audiences have found it difficult to stop comparing her to Paltrow’s iteration, she brings an assured, mature and complex nature to the character that is arguably far beyond Paltrow’s. In general, the 1990 version seems much lighter and more filled with naiveté than Zaillian’s darker and more mature imagining—literally, much of the cast is older than the characters are meant to be, in Andrew Scott’s case by two decades.
Scott plays a much colder, more reptilian and intelligent Tom Ripley than Matt Damon’s fumbling, lovable and pining characterisation. While this no doubt divides fans, he’s received plentiful praise, as he does with pretty much any role he touches. However, as is often the case with female stars, Fanning seems to be under much greater scrutiny. Perhaps it’s due to the character’s much more sensible wardrobe this time around, or her clear ambition and intelligence, but some have said she was outright wrong for the role.
It’s difficult not to read a touch of sexism into this impulse, given the world’s desire to pit women against each other. There might also be a hint of Ripley’s own contempt for her mixed in there. As the audience, we’re often rooting for the murderous con, especially when he’s played by someone as charismatic as Scott, so to have a Marge that is much more knowing and much more similar to him, it can be easy to hate her. But isn’t that proof of her ability as an actor?
For Fanning, the depth and complexity she achieves as Marge was even more difficult given the script’s point of view. Written entirely from Ripley’s perspective, Zaillian left the other characters to be fleshed out by their actors, in all their deception. And they are all deceiving in this take. So the sense we get that Marge isn’t always telling the truth either, or that she’s also scheming slightly, all comes from Fanning.
Regardless of your opinion of the adaptation or Fanning’s interpretation, I think we can all agree that this marks a new era for the actor. One that will hopefully bring many more complex roles that will allow her to step beyond her childhood and into herself.
