Dakota Fanning

“Okay, so the first one I’m going to grab is Grey Gardens. I first watched this, I think, when I was at NYU. My advisor, Rahul Hamid, introduced me to so many of these movies, actually, and we would do these independent studies together, and we did a documentary one, because I love documentaries maybe the most, honestly. I’m so fascinated by anything that is real and specific, and I don’t think there’s anything more specific than Big Edie and Little Edie in Grey Gardens.”

“On the Waterfront, I’m… I don’t know that I have anything groundbreaking to say that hasn’t been said before, but the moment with the glove, when she drops her glove and Marlon Brando picks it up, it obviously wasn’t scripted, and it was just a moment that happened that to me says everything about the kind of actor I aspire to be, which is present and in the moment and not getting so locked in to what’s supposed to happen and being free enough to go with something unexpected.”

“Okay, next: Hedwig. I will never forget, I had heard about this movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the person that was telling me was like, 'I can’t describe it to you. You just have to watch it. It’s something that you just have to see.' And I’ve never seen anything like it. And I don’t even know what kind of genius you have to be to come up with this character and this story, but John is insane. When these songs come on, they’re on a playlist in my car.”

“Okay, I’ll go with this one next: Anatomy of a Fall. I have never been more star-struck from meeting an actress than I was when I met Sandra Hüller. And I was watching an interview and they’re like, 'How do you prepare for a movie like that?' And she was like, 'Well, I just learned my lines.' I was like, 'I love that,' you know? Because you can… It’s sort of what I was saying about On the Waterfront, she’s in the moment. She’s present.”

“Maybe my favorite one of all: Sentimental Value. Obviously, my sister is in Sentimental Value, and my sister and I are super close. I knew she was doing a movie in Norway with Joachim Trier. I watched the movie at a screening in LA and was so blown away by the movie, so blown away by my sister, obviously. Whatever magic is captured in Sentimental Value, that’s what I want to see. Seeing Elle make her a real person that you’re completely with, it was just amazing.”