Dakota Fanning was unfazed by being on her own for six months in Budapest or the dark nature of the TV series that brought her there, TNT's adaptation of "The Alienist," Caleb Carr's 1994 novel.
The young actress said creating a life in Europe proved an exciting and "transformative" time, one that allowed her to disconnect from routine demands and "lean into the experience" and her role.
She clearly doesn't shy away from work. On-screen for most of her 23 years, Fanning has compiled a deep list of TV and movie credits that veteran performers would boast about, including "War of the Worlds" and the "Twilight" franchise.
At age 7, Fanning became the youngest-ever individual Screen Actors Guild Award nominee for her supporting role in "I Am Sam." She's a presenter at this Sunday's SAG ceremony.
In "The Alienist," set among the grandeur and poverty of the Gilded Age in 1890s New York, Fanning plays Sara, an ambitious woman who joins with a psychologist — or alienist, in the parlance of the day — played by Daniel Bruhl; a newspaper illustrator (Luke Evans); and police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt (Brian Geraghty) to find a serial killer targeting boy prostitutes.
She discussed the series (debuting Monday at 9 p.m. Eastern) and how she approaches acting in a recent interview.
The Associated Press: Your character is a secretary who aspires to be a police detective, an unusual goal for that period. Is she a young woman out of sync with her time?
Fanning: She's almost not supposed to be born in the period she was. That's what I loved about the character and why I wanted to do it. We get to see her balance her desire to advance herself in society, and not just by getting married to a rich man. But at the same time, she is a young woman and we get to see her blossoming sexuality and femininity, and how she has to balance that with being taken seriously and being heard. ... She inhabits a very hostile workplace in the police department, and we see how it affects her when she's alone and with other people.
AP: Workplace struggles for women aren't just part of a bygone era, with the current sexual misconduct crisis a reminder. Were you struck by the parallel?
Fanning: It has struck me for sure, and it has for a long time. Unfortunately this has been going on for a while, and it is confusing why we can't keep these conversations going. We feel like things change for a while and they go back to the way they were. This story has really proved that to me. I want people to be talking about it always and forever until it does change. It is pretty crazy to watch this part of the show and read a modern-day story that's pretty similar.
AP: Starting out as a child actress, how did you develop the ability to analyze the characters you play?
Fanning: I've always felt intuitive about acting and the process of what I do. ... When I was little, it was always that I wanted to be natural: How would a person react, not an actor? You want people to get lost in your performance and believe that you've really experienced what you're experiencing on-screen. It's still intuitive but I'm sure that muscle has been trained as I continue to do this.
AP: What are the advantages and challenges of a period drama?
Fanning: The costumes. They are very restrictive. It's a very tight corset all day, every day. And because it takes multiple people to get them on you, you realize what it must have been like for women in that time. You couldn't do anything for yourself, you couldn't get dressed or take your clothes off. ... But the thing I love about it is the costumes, because they completely transform you, and they give you this immediate pathway into a different posture and a different way to sit, and immediately transport you to that time.
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Lynn Elber can be reached at lelber@ap.org and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lynnelber.
They're already both Hollywood A-listers.
And both Dakota and sister Elle Fanning certainly did look right at home on the red carpet for The Alienist screening at the Sundance Festival on Friday.
Dakota, 23, definitely drew a few looks thanks to her distinctive plaid dress, which featured white 'drawn on' style graphics depicting the garment as a wrap-style frock.
Putting her best foot forward: Both Dakota and sister Elle Fanning certainly did look right at home on the red carpet for The Alienist screening at the Sundance Festival on Friday
Family business! Like her sister, Elle, 19, has been acting since she was young
To ward off the chilly Utah temperatures, the I Am Sam starlet opted for a classic black turtleneck, which she layered under the dress.
Fishnet stockings and knee high leather boots completed her chic, wintry ensemble.
She parted her iconic blonde hair in the middle, and some subtle rouge and pale rose lipstick ensured she was ready for the cameras.
While Dakota actually starred in the new television drama, it seems sister Elle was simply on hand for fun.
Unexpected! Dakota, 23, definitely drew a few looks thanks to her distinctive plaid dress, which featured white 'drawn on' style graphics depicting the garment as a wrap-style frock
Prepared! To ward off the chilly Utah temperatures, the I Am Sam starlet opted for a classic black turtleneck, which she layered under the dress
The younger Fanning, aged 19, definitely went for a different sort of style.
A long baby blue coat fell all the way to the floor, which obscured an equally long cream dress underneath.
Chunky boots completed her cold-weather outfit.
Like her sister, the Maleficent actress parted her blonde tresses in the middle and opted for natural make-up.
Contrasting: Elle's long baby blue coat fell all the way to the floor, which obscured an equally long cream dress underneath
Keeping it simple: Like her sister, the Maleficent actress parted her blonde tresses in the middle and opted for natural make-up
Others also showed up for the premiere, including co-star Luke Evans.
The 38-year-old UK native looked as though he might burst out of his coppery shirt, which he paired with dark jeans and classic oxfords.
Another star of the show, Daniel Bruhl, 39, was also present.
He chose a demure black suit and slate grey turtleneck combination.
Muscle man: Others also showed up for the premiere, including co-star Luke Evans
Lower-key: Another star of the show, Daniel Bruhl, 39, was also present
Lining them up! The castmates took a group photo together
If the success of the lucrative CSI franchise has proven anything, it’s the popularity of the fields of forensics and criminal profiling. By the time CSI premiered in 2000, some of these techniques were already over 100 years old. TNT’s new drama The Alienist, based on the 1994 best-selling novel by Caleb Carr, will tell you one tale of how crime scene investigation got its start.
In 1896, people with mental illness were considered “alienated” from their true selves. Those who studied them, therefore, were called alienists. Today, they might be called profilers.
Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl) is such an expert. Along with reporter John Moore (Luke Evans) and police secretary Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning), Kreizler applies the first ever forensic techniques to crime scenes while tracking a serial killer in New York.
Brühl and Fanning spoke with Rotten Tomatoes before the premiere of The Alienist. Here are seven things they told us about the new world of crime solving.
1. KREIZLER NEEDS HIS OWN THERAPIST — LUCKILY, BRÜHL HAS ONE AT HOME
(Photo by Kata Vermes/TNT)
Profiling serial killers has to weigh on anyone. Kreizler is the first, so there isn’t even anyone around with experience to help him.
“Every shrink needs his own shrink to cope with all the issues, the demons, and the pressure of their work,” Brühl said. “That didn’t exist, so he is pretty brilliant in analyzing everyone around him, but when he has to face his own demons, the dark chapters in his own life, he gets very nervous.”
In real life, Brühl is married Felicitas Rombold Brühl, a renowned psychotherapist. When he landed The Alienist, Brühl asked her for help.
“She gave me a lot of very important information and supported me all the way through, put me in touch with a criminal psychologist, gave me stuff to read,” Brühl said. “It was a learning process. I found out about the beginning of that science, but I also learned so much about New York at that time.”
2. SARA HOWARD TAKES NO GUFF FROM MEN
(Photo by Kata Vermes/TNT)
As the first female employee of the NYPD, Sara Howard already broke the glass ceiling her first day on the job. Today she might not accept the term “secretary,” and she’s certainly more than that when she teams up with Kreizler and Moore.
“She has a very strong voice and isn’t afraid to use it,” Fanning said. “When we first meet her in the first episode, she kind of shoots up out of her chair and lunges at Luke’s character. You immediately get that she’s not a wallflower and is not afraid to speak her mind. That only grows throughout the season of the show.”
Women are still fighting for parity in the workplace today. Just look at the pay disparity in Hollywood, most recently demonstrated by Mark Wahlberg’s pay for All the Money in the World reshoots. Fanning hopes her character can inspire the women who watch The Alienist.
“I think this character is really surprisingly very relatable to somebody now even though it’s set so long ago,” Fanning said. “I think that’s one of the things that’s interesting about the show is the sort of parallels to today. She’s the first female to work at the New York Police Department. She is very much a pioneer. It’s set in 1896 so she’s not the norm, and she’s challenging society and what their expectations of a woman are.”
3. TEDDY ROOSEVELT IS THEIR BOSS
(Photo by Kata Vermes/TNT)
These days, Theodore Roosevelt is best known as the 26th U.S. president — or Robin Williams’ character in Night At The Museum. Set four years before Roosevelt’s inauguration, The Alienist shows Roosevelt (Brian Geraghty) as NYC Police Commissioner.
“I learned so much about Teddy Roosevelt because in Europe, we know him as the president of the United States,” Brühl said. “I didn’t know he was running the police department before and was so eager in fighting corruption.”
4. THE INVENTION OF FINGERPRINT ANALYSIS
(Photo by Kata Vermes/TNT)
On any cop show, you take it for granted they’re going to dust for fingerprints at a crime scene. That was revolutionary forensic technology in 1896. The Alienist gives a fictionalized take on the first time it was employed.
“I realized forensics was so behind, they were’t even totally aware that everyone had different fingerprints,” Fanning said. “That blew my mind. It’s just so crazy to see how new things and things that challenge the norm, people are immediately afraid of and people immediately dismiss because it scares them that they could’ve been so wrong about something for so long. That just is always the way.”
The Alienist will discover more new tools “for the first time,” Brühl said.
“Handwriting analysis, the analysis of bones and soft tissues, it was the beginning of psychology, which had born 20 years before that,” Brühl said. “It was the beginning of so many things in various fields. It was a technological revolution.”
Lucius (Matthew Shear) and Marcus Isaacson (Douglas Smith) introduce the trio to these new forensics.
“They’re detectives at the police department, and they’re also [investigators] who are kind of making these discoveries,” Fanning said. “They have a lot of the scenes of the discoveries or the explanations of forensics or autopsy or those kinds of things. My character is a very curious character, so she is always asking questions about it.”
5. EPISODE 3 HAS A NASTY CRIME SCENE
(Photo by Kata Vermes/TNT)
It takes a strong stomach to watch the crime scene moments on shows like the now-retired CSI or Bones week to week. The Alienist will deliver the goods with realistic cadavers.
“I love that sh–,” Brühl said. “It reminded me of Sherlock Holmes, of Jekyll and Hyde, of Jack the Ripper, of Edgar Allen Poe. That gloomy, dark atmosphere is something that I was always attracted to. I really enjoyed the gruesome moments.”
Episode 3 will feature the Castle Garden crime scene that fans remember vividly from the book.
“There was something about that location and we shot it at night,” Brühl said. “It really gave us shivers because the bodies were so well done, it was a shock to look at them. That’s I guess the first scene where the team comes together and looks at one of these mutilated corpses and is in a rush because we don’t have that much time. We know the police are approaching.”
Fanning wasn’t as much of a gorehound.
“It wasn’t like I was vomiting over the side, but there were definitely some that were like, Oh, God, I don’t want to look at that too much,” Fanning said. “They were very realistic, which is awesome, but on the day [it’s disturbing.] Then you become desensitized to it when you’re sort of ‘Let’s move the body.’ They’re pouring the fake blood down, and you become desensitized to it because it is so obviously make-believe when you’re there. Some stuff did look pretty real.”
6. EVEN IN THE 19TH CENTURY, FANNING IS A FASHIONISTA
(Photo by Kata Vermes/TNT)
A historical period piece comes with lots of elaborate costumes. What women wore in 1896 was especially restrictive, but Fanning had one piece she loved.
“There’s one that’s a deep red with this velvet trim and I always felt like the chicest in that one,” Fanning said. “It was the 1896 version of when I’m having my best day, when I was wearing that costume. It’s in a few episodes, but I think it first comes in episode 5. It has red velvet buttons all down the front.”
7. IF YOU CAN’T MAKE IT THERE, YOU CAN MAKE NEW YORK ANYWHERE (LIKE IN BUDAPEST)
(Photo by Kata Vermes/TNT)
New York City no longer looks like it did in 1896. So The Alienist he had to film in Budapest, Romania instead. Once he got there, Brühl was just as excited as if he’d taken a time machine back to 1896 New York.
“It would’ve been impossible to recreate [in New York], and I’d never been in Budapest, so I was curious to see why they chose Budapest,” Brühl said. “When I arrived there, I could clearly tell why. Not only the backlot that they recreated was overwhelming, but all the locations that we could find in that very well-preserved city were perfect for our purposes, especially for telling upper-class New York.”
The restaurant where Kreizler holds meetings is actually not a restaurant at all.
“We found an incredible library where we could recreate Delmonico’s and so on,” Brühl said. “There are so many grand, incredible buildings. The opera house is the nicest one in the world.”
The Alienist premieres Monday, January 22 at 9/8C on TNT.
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“Roles are always changing,” says Dakota Fanning.
That’s certainly true for the actress, who turns 24 next month. She began acting in TV and films at the age of six and came to prominence in 2001’s “I Am Sam,” earning a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination when she was eight, making her the youngest nominee in history.
Now she plays a key role in “The Alienist,” TNT’s highly anticipated, 10-part series based on Caleb Carr’s 1994 best-selling novel of the same name. Set in 1896 during New York City’s Gilded Age, this series follows Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl), a brilliant but controversial “alienist,” who is using new methods to treat mental illness.
The ritualistic murder of a young boy leads him to believe a serial killer is on the loose in the city, but the police are unmoved because homosexuality is involved, forcing Kreizler to reach out to the police commissioner, future President Teddy Roosevelt (Brian Geraghty), so he can pursue the case.
Fanning, who is part of the upcoming all-female “Ocean’s 8,” plays Roosevelt’s secretary, Sara Howard, who is from a wealthy family but is dying to do something more with her life. When the chance arises, she secretly helps Kreizler, and he, recognizing a keen mind, enlists her in his investigation.
As the only woman in the police department, Sara is constantly harassed, and in the first episode she faces an incident that sounds right out of today’s headlines when one of her colleagues purposely exposes himself to her. (It’s TNT, so thankfully it’s only implied.)
“It makes you wonder what’s been going wrong for the last hundred-some years when it comes to workplace harassment,” says Fanning.
For more on what to watch on video and TV follow us on Flipboard.
“The Alienist,” debuting Monday, is the first limited series that Fanning has been in, and she enjoyed developing the character over 10 episodes, figuring out what Sara’s femininity and sexuality look like.
“As the only female in the New York Police Department, so much of her story is about finding her place in society as a woman and compromising her hopes and dreams,” says Fanning, noting that Sara and Kreizler are kindred spirits in a way.
“Sara is constantly challenging the norm. So she sees someone challenging the norm in Kreizler with his new treatments.”
The actress says the first thing she noticed about the character is that she needed help to get in and out of her clothes. In fact, Fanning had to be laced into a corset every day during shooting, and there is a scene in “The Alienist” that shows the indentations into the skin that the undergarment makes.
“It’s so restrictive. It’s almost a metaphor for the time period,” Fanning says. “To have to have someone help you get dressed and undressed was like a young woman being told that she couldn’t take care of herself.”
Fanning says that wearing a corset helped her understand her character better. “It was helpful for me because it changes the way you even talk when you’re sucked-in that much.”
It’s been a long road getting “The Alienist,” the most expensive series in TNT’s history at a reported $5 million per episode, to the screen. Previous attempts have tried to reduce the psychological thriller to more conventional formats, including adding a love story.
The series, adapted by Hossein Amini and Cary Joji Fukunaga, isn’t a straight retelling of the novel but gives it its due as the investigators try to get inside the killer’s mind. It shows the beginning of the modern age of criminal science, with Kreizler employing psychological profiling, fingerprinting and forensic science.
(Amini, by the way, is also behind another highly anticipated series, AMC’s international thriller “McMafia.”)
As for the differences from Carr’s novel, Fanning – who gave a notable performance in 2016’s “American Pastoral” based on a Philip Roth book – says actors should focus on the scripts, but adds, “the book was good to have.”
While so many child actors never moved beyond their initial successes, Fanning says she has always wanted an acting career and was determined to make the transition.
For more on what to watch on video and TV follow us on Flipboard.
Like her younger sister Elle Fanning, Dakota displays a remarkable down-to-earth quality for someone in the spotlight for so long. “When I was growing up, I mostly tried to pretend it wasn’t happening and just continued doing what I love to do,” she says with a laugh.
“There is such an emphasis on going from a child to a teen and a teen to an adult,” she adds. “As an adult, there will be a transition into your 30s and then into your 40s. The roles are always shifting, changing, and I just feel you’re in a constant transition.”
Speaking of changes, one significant difference from the novel is that Fanning’s character has been expanded, befitting of the times beginning to focus on stronger women.
“We get to see Sara find her voice and stand up for herself as her ambition grow,” explains Fanning, “and how she handles the many challenges she faces at the hands of men in power.”
The actress says she is heartened by the conversations going on in Hollywood regarding sexual harassment and more power for women, symbolized by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements
“I think people finding their voices and standing up to injustice is exciting. It’s totally time for the conversation to take place,” she says.
The Alienist
What: 10-episode adaptation of Caleb Carr’s mystery, starring Daniel Bruhl, Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans, and Brian Geraghty.
When: Premieres 9 p.m. Monday.
Where: TNT.
