Dakota Fanning now all grown up

Anyone who thinks of Dakota Fanning as a child actress needs to look again. The teen actress turns 15 in February, but she might as well be 21, she’s so grown up. Hitting the red carpet for her new science-fiction thriller “Push” at the Mann Village Theater in Westwood on Thursday night, the still-tiny actress looked positively sultry in a skimpy strapless minidress.

Speaking to reporters earlier, Fanning commented on a key scene in the film, where her character is very drunk. She doesn’t advocate drinking for teenagers, but the long-time thespian, who started her career at age six, was thrilled to get to act like a drunk on camera.

“I don’t think there’s anything that, as I get older, that I wouldn’t do for a movie,” she revealed. “I think that you have to put your whole self into it, and be willing to do anything and everything for the character. That’s what I love about acting, is that you can just go there and do those things.”

She also insisted that, despite that scene, “Push” does not mark her move into more adult fare.

“For me, I try not to think of it as a transition,” Fanning said, “that this is my ‘transition movie.’ I think it’ll all just happen naturally, and as you get older, it’ll happen. If you really want to continue this, I think that it will all just work itself out. And I think it has.”