Though Dakota Fanning has been acting professionally since she was six years old, the 30-year-old performer only just received the most significant awards recognition of her career: an Emmy nomination for the Netflix limited series Ripley. It’s a fitting project for that kind of breakout moment, given what the international, nine-month shoot asked of her. “I gave absolutely everything that I had—personally, professionally, creatively—I gave everything,” Fanning says on this week’s Little Gold Men (listen or read on below). “I look back on it and I’m like, If I can do that, I can do anything.”

The reimagining of Patricia Highsmith’s iconic novel, written and directed entirely by Oscar winner Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List, The Night Of), stars Andrew Scott as the eponymous grifter who infiltrates the glamorous lives of wealthy scion Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and his suspicious girlfriend, Marge (Fanning). Before the show premiered, Zaillian told me why he cast Fanning: “She just looks like…a ’40s movie star. She is so expressive in a subtle way. Her performance is truly remarkable.” Even as we’re stuck in Tom Ripley’s unreliable perspective, Fanning manages to command the screen, her decades of experience in front of the camera showcased in canny, revealing, carefully composed close-ups. Even if some took a few tries to get right.

“I’d be so curious to find out what take number was used in those,” she says with a laugh. “Like, are there any first-takes in the show? Because I would bet that there aren’t.”

This is new territory for Fanning, who has worked steadily but has also struggled to be seen as a fully grown-up actor, even decades after I Am Sam and War of the Worlds. But she senses that this is finally changing. Beyond Ripley, she’s also got a juicy role in Netflix’s upcoming The Perfect Couple, starring Nicole Kidman, and is her working behind the scenes, co-running a production company called Lewellen Pictures with her sister, Elle Fanning. “I’m not the youngest person on sets anymore!” she says at one point during our interview. That dynamic promises a thrilling reintroduction to an actor who’s been a household name since she was in elementary school.

Vanity Fair: I believe this is the biggest industry recognition you’ve gotten since your first big movie, I Am Sam, for which you were nominated for a SAG Award when you were seven years old. Am I right about that?

Dakota Fanning: Yeah, seven.

How do you put this Emmy nod in the context of being in the industry for such a long time?

It’s just a cherry on top of something that I already really love. I love being an actor. I love having been able to do this for as long as I have. And it’s a part of who I am, being an actor. I don’t really know anything else. But of course, to be included and acknowledged is really special, and I was super excited about it—especially for this series, because it was something that took an incredible amount of devotion from everyone.

What really struck me about your performance, especially in the beginning as we’re getting to know Marge, is your eyes. They say a lot, the way that you challenge this very deliberate, misleading frame.

That was something that I immediately was struck by when I read the scripts: They’re written in Tom’s perspective. And Steve was like, “Yeah, of course they’re written in Tom’s perspective—but that’s not always what’s really going on.” I’m like, “Yeah, I got that,” and then I’m like, “I guess I have to make up the rest.” I was excited by that. I was like okay, that’s the challenge here, is figuring out Marge’s reality. I always approach characters and the work that I do from the inside. I think about the inner life and thoughts of the character more than the words.

It sounds like Steven gave you space to figure it out, to find your own interpretation.

He definitely did. He’s very particular, and that’s actually a great thing because you feel safe that he would tell you if you were not on the right track.

Have you always felt that level of comfort with really particular directors?

It’s kind of the best part. I’ve definitely had the experience of it being like, this person sees your soul. There’s nothing like feeling the comfort of that relationship. I really genuinely have had that more times than not in my career. I feel very lucky for that. Every director I’ve ever worked with is different, and has different styles and vibes. And it’s always kind of exciting to figure out what it’s going to be like that first day. For me, a director really sets the tone for an experience.

I’ve noticed you’ve been doing more television as an adult. The Alienist was the first television role you’d done in quite some time. Was that a conscious move?

If I go back to thinking about doing The Alienist, I was in a time in my life where I was mostly watching these great series and limited series. On The Alienist, it wasn’t like you had all the scripts before. We would still go in for a table read and be surprised by something. That was such a new experience for me. Usually you start something, and you know exactly what’s expected of you and what’s going to be required of you. There was something a little scary about, “What if I go in and read this and I don’t want to do that or I’m scared to do that?” It was exciting in that way.

How have you gauged the kinds of roles coming your way over the years? I know you’ve talked about getting typecast as younger than you were for quite some time. With stuff like Ripley, does it feel like that is changing?

One of my things in my career—in my life—is that everyone always thinks that I’m younger than I am, because they’ve known my face for a long time. I do feel like now that has gone away. I don’t feel that way anymore. And it’s kind of crazy because it took a really long time, but it is here now. I don’t hear it as much anymore. And by the way, it never really bothered me. It was just like I was dealing with a second uncle twice removed that you hadn’t seen in a long time who was like, “I remember you when you were this big.” [Laughs]

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There is a freedom to not having to think about that anymore, but I’ve also tried to not think about that when I am choosing things to do. I don’t want to do something to prove that I’m older. That will happen naturally, that will come, and I just have to be true to myself. But I’m in this series called The Perfect Couple that’s coming out in September, and I’m married and pregnant—which still to me I’m like, “I’m 16! What are you talking about?”

I’ll tell you, when I saw that trailer I was like, Oh! I hadn’t seen you pregnant onscreen before.

[Laughs] There’s like a mental shift that I’ve had to have, of like, “No, this is totally normal for this to be true.” I’m now having these moments. It’s like, you can play a part of a person who’s married and pregnant because you’re at an age where that’s totally plausible. And it’s exciting. It’s a new phase. I’ve always felt very respected by the people that I work with, and I wasn’t treated like “bring the kid in.” I was working with filmmakers and actors who really valued what I was doing, and I’m very appreciative of that. But even more so now, I do have a lot of experience—and my thoughts and my opinion on something do matter. You feel a confidence to contribute because, I don’t know, I’ve been acting for 24 years!

I was also thinking about this in the context of you working with Michelle Pfeiffer as an adult in The First Lady, after playing opposite her when you were much younger. Or working with Denzel Washington in Equalizer 3 when you guys worked together in Men on Fire. How have you found those collaborations decades apart, as you’ve grown into an adult actor yourself?

It is incredible. Michelle has always been super important in my life, because I Am Sam started my career. She was so wonderful to me when I made that movie, and I hadn’t seen her a lot over the years. So when it came around, it was exactly 20 years later to work with her again, getting to know her as an adult and spending a lot of time with her. Going from her giving me a Barbie Jeep and Barbies for my seventh birthday to me at 27, spending the weekend with her and drinking red wine and chatting, was so full circle and so fun.

With Denzel, same thing. I’ve seen Denzel more over the years because his daughter, Olivia, is one of my closest friends. We went to high school together, so I know his family and his wife and his other children. I’ve seen him more over the years. But working with him again, it was crazy because I felt like 9-year-old me in that car with Denzel in Mexico, when I was doing Equalizer with him. I got the same feeling. Man On Fire is a movie that people talk to me about all the time. It’s a movie that people really love, it’s a movie that I love. There’s no one like Denzel. There’s nothing like working with Denzel. He was just as protective of me at 29 as he was of me at 9.

You’re also running a production company with your sister, Elle Fanning. The material that I’ve seen you working on is really unique, from optioning a Paris Hilton memoir to a recent Hulu docuseries. How are you sifting through material and how do you talk about the kinds of stuff you want to do together?

We want people to have that reaction of, “This is really unique, this is not what you would expect.” Elle and I share that quality of wanting to subvert people’s perceptions of us. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do. It’s like an instinct thing, a gut thing. With the company, we’ve tried to be very, “We’ve got to do this. We’ve got to figure this out.” That’s how it feels.

The desire to start it is a very natural desire for actors to want to take some ownership over your career. A lot of being an actor is waiting on people to believe in you or to think you’re right for something or to think you can do something. Starting this company has been us wanting to be a little bit more in control of that. It’s been amazing, and my sister and I are unbelievably close, so obviously it was natural to do it together.

A project that the two of you were going to star in together, The Nightingale, did not come to fruition due to COVID and various factors. That got me thinking—as you have taken on more of a kind of autonomous role in the industry, what have you learned about the business and navigating those kinds of disappointments?

I got really good at navigating that a long time ago. Even just starting out before I Am Sam, when you’re going on auditions for commercials, I remember I said to my mom at one point, when I didn’t get whatever commercial it was, “Huh, well, they must’ve just wanted somebody with brown hair.” From a young age, I was able to put it into perspective. I didn’t take it on as like, “I’m not good enough.” I think that’s because of the way that I was raised, or because of a quality that I was born with. And I think it’s because the people that are around me in my life don’t love me because I’m an actor. They love me because of who I am. Even the people that I work with, me as a person comes before anything to do with this business. I feel that deeply.

Ripley surprised a lot of people. Going forward, how do you hope to subvert expectations of yourself as an actor?

I don’t know if I knew going into Ripley that people might feel that way. I was so unbelievably excited to be included in this group of people. Sometimes things just surprise you and you don’t know what’s going to exactly subvert people’s expectations. Because I’ve been acting for so long, people have all different kinds of ideas about me—and that’s also kind of fun.

It’s like a blank canvas in its own, backwards way.

Yeah. People feel like they know me, but then they also don’t, you know what I mean? There’s a mystery, and then “I’ve watched you grow up,” too. Somehow those things exist on the same plane when it comes to me.

This interview has been edited and condensed.