Dakota Fanning may have been just nine when she starred alongside Brittany Murphy in Uptown Girls, but the late actress left a lasting impression.
While speaking with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live earlier this week, Fanning, 26, answered a series of quick questions about the co-stars from her childhood acting days in a segment Cohen dubbed, ‘Da-Gloat-a-Fanning.’
Cohen asked Fanning about the best advice she received on the set of 2003’s Uptown Girls from Murphy, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 32. “She just taught me to always have fun,” Fanning recalled.
“She was such a ray of light and had such a playful spirit. She made every day special for me - she was so wonderful,” she said.
Fanning shared similar sentiments about Murphy, who was known for her roles in films like Clueless and Girl, Interrupted when she posted a photo with the actress to her Instagram in 2018.
Cohen also had Fanning weigh in on some of her most famous co-stars - Tom Cruise, Robert DeNiro and Denzel Washington, with whom Fanning worked with separately in the 2005 films War Of The Worlds, Hide And Seek and the 2004 film Man On Fire.
“Who gave off the more warm and fuzzy, paternal vibes onset?” Cohen asked. While Fanning noted each actor did “in their own way,” she brought up a specific memory of celebrating her birthday on set while working with Cruise.
“It was when Coldstone Creamery was just sort of a thing, and Tom and Steven Spielberg brought in the marble slab on set and had the people making the ice cream for my 11th birthday,” she said.
Fanning, who has been starring in films since 1994, even appeared in an episode of Friends. “I had my scene with Matt LeBlanc, and he was awesome,” Fanning said of her episode from 2004.
“I was really starstruck. I had met a lot of people - I had worked with Robert DeNiro and Denzel Washington - but these people were in my living room all the time on the show. I felt like I knew them more, so I was even more starstruck by meeting them all.”
Fanning's next co-star might just be her favorite yet, as she and her younger sister, Elle Fanning, are set to appear in the film adaptation of the 2015 novel, The Nightingale. The real-life sisters will play on-screen sisters, though the World War II drama's release has been pushed back to 2021 due to the pandemic.
