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DAKOTA FANNING
"I think of acting like a sport, kind of. Other kids play on a tennis team or a basketball team - I play on an acting team."
"I don't have a brother at all, so [Spencer Breslin was] like my brother."
"Sean [Penn] taught me how to ad-lib. Mike [Myers] taught me how to be funny. Brittany [Murphy] taught me life lessons."
JESSIE NELSON, DIRECTOR OF I AM SAM
"Some young actors had the innocence but not the wisdom for that role, and Dakota was the only child who had both. You have a sense of her being an old soul, but she's such a kid. She'd be so present and so subtle, rather than obviously be acting."
BO WELCH, DIRECTOR OF CAT IN THE HAT
"Isn't she adorable?"
"She was a very game stunt double for herself."
"The great thing she has as an actress - in all the things I've said about her - her greatest gift is that she trusts the people she's acting with. A child might react to another child in a very defensive way. Like Spencer [Breslin], she [might] be afraid he'd really hit her; she wouldn't know what his limits were. You almost watch them work together...she let him do anything and never really was fearful."
"She's unbelievable."
"These two girls that were Thing 1 and Thing 2 were like Dakota in the sense that their enthusiasm for working never flagged."
BRITTANY MURPHY
"[Dakota and I] were kindred souls; it was like looking at myself in the mirror."
"You don’t have to tell her the right thing to do. She’s had an exquisite upbringing. She wrote thank you notes to everyone in the cast, and even though she was in another film, she called when we were finished to say good-bye. Let’s just say she’s one of the rarest human beings I have met or will meet."
ALEC BALDWIN
"She's such a doll."
"She listens, too, she doesn't just recite lines."
KELLY PRESTON
"Dakota is so sweet and alive and she's a great actress. She's really, really terrific."
MIKE MYERS
"Dakota is a great acress and she's wonderful and stuff. But she's like the cutest kid ever. I found myself really just wanting to knaw on her head a little bit, not break the skin but just sort of knaw on it, because she's so incredibly sweet."
SPENCER BRESLIN
"Dakota's really great, you know, we had a lot of fun together. There were these days when she just had a really BAD attitude. [joking] But no, she was really great. I think sometimes it felt like we were brother and sister."