Dakota Fanning Plays an Alaskan Construction Worker, and Sister Elle Says This Is the Real Her

Dakota Fanning has been acting since she was six years old, and this year marks her 25th year in the industry. For more than two decades, she's fielded the same question over and over: how does a child star "grow up." Her answer in a recent interview was direct: "I hope I've expanded, in some small way, people's imagination of what a former child star can grow up to be."

This time, the answer might just be Wendy in "The Sun Never Sets." It's mumblecore veteran Joe Swanberg's first film in a decade, and Fanning plays a construction worker living in Alaska who loves her IPAs. As her friends start having babies one after another, Wendy wants one too—all while she's caught between her ex-boyfriend Chuck (Cory Michael Smith) and Jack (Jake Johnson), who already has two kids and doesn't want more. "I completely understand that position, because I really do want kids," Fanning says. "I wouldn't date someone who didn't want kids."

Swanberg has never worked from a fully written script—instead, he gives actors a loose story framework. "Lots of improvisation, lots of collaboration," Fanning describes. "You end up unconsciously bringing your own experiences into the character. We'd often get off track talking about our own real-life experiences, and the movie grew out of those conversations." She brought her own experiences of being single and dating into the role, too: "I can definitely feel a bit cynical about dating, but what moved me most about this film and about Wendy is that it isn't cynical at all. It shows what it really looks like when someone is trying hard to connect with another person, and everyone is doing their best."

Interestingly, her sister Elle's first reaction after watching the film echoed exactly the kind of stereotype Fanning has spent years trying to shake. "She told me after watching it that people are going to think they've never seen me play a character like this before," Fanning recounts. "But then she said, what they might not realize is that this is actually you." Fanning agrees: "Wendy is the me that my family and friends know."

Before "The Sun Never Sets," Fanning had appeared in a string of recent projects—Netflix's "Ripley," "The Perfect Couple," and Peacock's "All Her Fault"—with both "Ripley" and "All Her Fault" earning her Emmy nominations. Meanwhile, Lewellen Pictures, the production company she and Elle founded together in 2021, has started bearing concrete fruit: Elle stars in the Apple TV project "Margo's Got Money Troubles," and "The Nightingale," an adaptation of Kristin Hannah's novel set for release next spring, will mark the sisters' first time sharing the screen together—it's currently in post-production.

"It felt like we turned back into kids in the playroom, making up stories and acting them out together," Fanning says of working with Elle on "The Nightingale." "But honestly, we were nervous—we kept wondering, would it be weird? Would we crack up? Could we actually take each other seriously as actors? Then we shot the first scene, and it just felt completely natural."