Dakota Fanning has been an actress for more than half her life, but that doesn't seen unusual to the 18-year-old New York University student.
"I've never really felt like a child star. That name always felt really odd to me," Fanning tells the April/May 2012 issue of Wonderland magazine. "I've just felt like I was an actor at 6 and 7 and, you know, a child who happened to act. But when you turn 18 you're seen as able to do more things and more roles."
Fanning first gained notoriety with her scene-stealing role in 2001's I Am Sam, playing Sean Penn's bright, but sad, little girl.
"For someone who's that young to feel completely at home being filmed playing someone else, that really means that that's where you belong," the actress reflects. "So that's how I view that film as a whole — as a moment when I just realized, 'I could do this. I could do this forever.'"
Like her Runaways costar Kristen Stewart, 21, Fanning hopes to keep her private life private — and that begins with staying away from social media.
"I really don't need to let people know where I am and what I'm doing. I feel like a lot of people want their privacy but yet they tell people where they are," she tells Wonderland. "It's just not for me. I don't have a Facebook or Twitter and I won't ever. There's plenty of impostors out there! There's enough Dakota Fannings on Twitter for all of us!"
