Kristen Stewart hadn’t become Bella in the “Twilight” series when she signed on to star in “The Runaways.” But between the time she agreed to play rocker Joan Jett in the bio-pic about the ’70s all-girl band and its box office debut, Stewart had become a movie star.

The film, released last spring, is available Tuesday on DVD.

Stewart’s sudden rise to fame had her thinking about the difference between what Jett, singer Cherie Currie and the other Runaways experienced in the ’70s and what she’s gone through in the past few years.

“I think they sought out their fame so aggressively that it was completely different thing,” she said in an interview when the film was released. “It’s not like it was thrust upon them at all. … Musicians really are themselves all the time, in a public way. We’re not. We’re actors. We choose movies for a million different reasons; some of them are because they ‘say’ things. But not the way music does, not so directly. I can say, ‘This is really cool, I’m really lucky.’ They’re like, ‘We own this.’”

Dakota Fanning, who has been famous since she broke into movies at age 7, said fame in the ’70s was far different from what she and Stewart experience today.

“Back then you had to do something really important to become famous. That’s what you really wanted,” Fanning said. “Now I feel like you can do anything and become famous.”

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Dakota Fanning has told press that her parents used to harbour hopes of her being a great tennis player, until she shot down their dream.

The actress said, “When I was younger the plan for me was to be a tennis player, and my mom had me working with her coach from, like, three-years-old.”

But it wasn’t meant to be – Dakota said that she hated tennis because she got too hot playing it!

She said, “I told her one day that I just get too hot playing tennis. I just don’t want to do that. She was like, ‘What do you mean you get too hot? That’s what you do when you play sports.’ So they quickly realized that maybe that wasn’t going to be my thing.”

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Gallery Link: 2010 August: Flare

Issue: August 2010
Who: Dakota Fanning
Photo: Max Abadian

Dakota Fanning is wearing a dress by 3.1 Phillip Lim and a ring by Jessica Robinson, Broken English.

To get a look like Dakota’s try: Brow Expert Le Crayon Poudre, Powder Pencil for the Brows in Natural Blonde, $27. Artliner, Gentle Felt Eyeliner Intense Line in Noir, $37. L’Absolu Rouge Advanced Replenishing & Reshaping Lipcolor Pro-Xylane in Absolute Rouge, $35. All makeup, Lancôme.

Gallery Link: 2010: Set 009 (Vanity Fair)

For the July issue of Vanity Fair, Norman Jean Roy photographed the spooky beauties of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse—five vampires (Dakota Fanning, Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser, Bryce Dallas Howard) and one lone lady werewolf (Julia Jones). Nancy Jo Sales was on set, where, between takes, the girls mused on the gothic romance that has everyone palpitating.

Nikki Reed plays the disapproving Rosalie Cullen. Here’s her take on the story’s appeal: “Bella and Edward’s love is very taboo and forbidden,” says Reed, “and I think that kind of represents all youthful relationships, because that’s what all first loves feel like. … It’s sort of borderline, like, insane.”

Elizabeth Reaser, who plays vampire mom Esme, exclaims on the attractive young men of Twilight: “Oh, it gets so old, you have no idea,” says Reaser. “It has no effect on me. They’re all gorgeous and lovely boys. … You just want someone interesting and weird at a certain point. I have a massive crush on Larry David.”

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Gallery Link: 2010: Set 008 (The Lazarus Effect Campaign)

(RED)™ LAUNCHES THE LAZARUS EFFECT CAMPAIGN

New York (April 29, 2010) /PRNewswire/ — (RED) today announced the launch of The Lazarus Effect Campaign, a multi-platform campaign across TV, online and print, including an HBO documentary airing on May 24, that will help raise awareness of the transformative effect of antiretroviral medicine for those living with HIV in Africa. Launching April 29 on HBO, the awareness campaign will roll out across various TV and online networks in the coming weeks. The campaign equates the relative value of 40 cents by comparing trivial items worth 40 cents e.g. a stick of gum, a smear of lipstick — to the value of one day’s worth of life transforming antiretroviral medication.

The campaign, directed by renowned photographer Brigitte Lacombe, features Bono, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Julianne Moore, Naomi Watts, Claire Danes, Alek Wek, Iman, John Turturro, Toni Collette, Hugh Jackman, Orlando Bloom, Lucy Liu, Gabourey Sidibe, Kerry Washington, Bryan Cranston, LeAnn Rimes, Jane Lynch, Michelle Rodriguez, Gwen Stefani, Hayden Christensen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Don Cheadle, Ludacris, Common, Benicio Del Toro, Dakota Fanning, Christy Turlington and the Jonas Brothers.

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However, when pressed further, she added that Taylor Swfit came naturally to her mind since she had an exotic look that was very appealing for the character. But Jessica said “May the best woman with the part”. We think Selena Gomez and Dakota Fanning are as good to play the role as Taylor Swift. This will be a tough choice for the makers to decide.

In the meantime, Taylor Swift is in the news with Cyber-shot Camera commercial. Dakota Fanning is awaiting her Twilght Eclispe movie release. And Selena Gomez is busy wih her shooting schedule for her upcoming movie “Monte Carlo”

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Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart have made three films together — from “New Moon” to their rocking girl-power flick “The Runaways” and then back to “The Twilight Saga” for “Eclipse” — and shooting the string of movies took some adjusting on their part. The three flicks have very different tones. Plus, Stewart and Fanning are mortal enemies in “Twilight” but best friends in “The Runaways.”

“It’s really funny, ’cause we did ‘New Moon’ before ['The Runaways'], and … we got so used to seeing each other like Joan [Jett played by Stewart] and Cherie [Currie played by Fanning] in those costumes,” Fanning said. “Her hair was short, and I had the wig on. And [then we] did ‘Eclipse.’ ”

While having to remember if they hated or loved each other on set was one of the difficulties, Stewart said Fanning had another big problem: “She hated when I cut my hair.”

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But just as I was about to lose all hope, Dakota Fanning stepped out in this stylish sequined Valentino mini (left) at The Runaways premiere this past Thursday in L.A., and it worked on so many levels: her age, frame, the event, and so on.

The 16-year-old star is no one-trick pony, though. Fanning brought it just as fiercely to New Moon’s L.A. premiere last November in a playful lace Valentino mini and I-want-them-now heels. She even knows how to make nude tones work on her porcelain skin, as we saw at last year’s NAACP Awards. Seriously, can this girl do no wrong? I’m anticipating some lovely summery frocks for this summer’s Eclipse premiere.

Dakota, I dub thee my new red carpet style crush. What do you guys think? As a disclaimer, I’m totally on board the Lea Michele-style icon-to-be train, but what movie actress should inherit the fashion throne? Sound off below!

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I got all excited when they mentioned Dakota’s upcoming appearances at the for example highly anticipated Eclipse premiere and what she possibly could wear for them. What would you like to see Dakota wear? Also, don’t forget that Dakota has been reported to attend the Toronto premiere of The Runaways later today and we’ll be bringing you all kinds of Dakota-coverage from the premiere!

Also added to the gallery are a few pretty photos of Dakota out and about in Park City on the 24th.

Gallery Links
- 23.01.10: Joan Jett Concert/Interluxe Lounge
- 24.01.10: Out In Park City

Rock pioneer Joan Jett played a special Saturday night set at the Sundance Film Festival in celebration of “The Runaways,” the upcoming film about her ’70s L.A. all-girl rock band of the same name that had its festival premiere Sunday night. Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, the film’s stars, joined Jett on stage.

A private reception sponsored by SPIN, Blackheart Records, Apparition, and FLO TV was held at the Interluxe Lounge just before the show.

It was fitting that Jett ignited her set at Park City’s Harry O’s with “Bad Reputation,” one of the biggest hits of her solo career. She followed with her No. 1 charting anthem “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” and her ode to self-loathing, “I Hate Myself for Loving You.”

The standing-room-only audience joined Jett with boisterous screams and shouts of “Oh! Yeah!” during the sassy “Do You Wanna Touch” and gave the stuttering “ch-ch-ch’s” during Jett’s kiss-off version of “Cherry Bomb.”

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Also, a brand new still from The Runaways was posted with an article posted at LA Times Blog about the movie. Check out the very pretty still of Dakota in the gallery and read the article below. Enjoy!

Dakota Fanning’s porcelain-doll features were swathed in exotic makeup and her blond hair coiffed into a feathery shag; she raised her umpteenth shot of sake and cast a knowing glance at Kristen Stewart. The “Twilight” star held Fanning’s gaze briefly and toasted back, looking every inch the tough rocker chick, with her matching black shag hairdo, spiked bracelet and razor-blade charm necklace.

The actresses clinked glasses and giggled.

With downtown Los Angeles’ Kyoto Grand Hotel standing in for a bustling Tokyo sushi joint last summer, the teen stars were on the set of the coming-of-age drama “The Runaways” — in character, with Fanning as Cherie Currie, the wild-child lead singer of the titular all-girl rock group, and Stewart portraying Joan Jett, its electric-guitar-wielding, ‘tude-copping founder. Between the years 1975 and ’79, the Runaways packed shows from coast to coast, toured the world and racked up hits before self-immolating in a blaze of drugs, jealousies and in-fighting.

“The Runaways” will premiere next Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, arriving as one of the fest’s most outrightly commercial offerings, thanks largely to Stewart’s demonstrated “opening” power as a marquee draw. (Put out by independent distributor Apparition, the movie reaches theaters in March.) But “The Runaways” is also one of the most piquantly feminist films to touch down this year at America’s preeminent independent film forum — albeit a punk- infused genre pic with a pronounced generational viewpoint and no shortage of blood, drug abuse and bodily effluvia.

Written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, the acclaimed photographer and video director behind such foreboding, atmospheric clips as Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People” and Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter,” the movie was less intended as a by-the-book musical biopic à la “The Doors” or “La Bamba” than an impressionistic character study illuminating a unique female predicament: What happens when teenage girls get handed too much, too soon via worldwide rock stardom?

Kid rock

No stranger to the rock ‘n’ roll life in her own right, the Italian-born first-time feature director — a striking woman with a mane of raven-black hair who was clad in a vampire-chic, all-black ensemble on set last summer — said she drew on personal experience to connect with the characters. “It’s young girls getting swept up into a world they couldn’t handle,” Sigismondi said. “Feeding on those confusing feelings that develop from moving from girl to woman, I could reach deep into myself to find those things.”

Sigismondi, who is married to Lillian Berlin, lead singer of the hard-rocking alt-quartet Living Things, continued: “I wanted to focus on Joan and Cherie. How different they are, how they were drawn together for this crazy experience. Joan is so focused, she really wanted to have this band. And Cherie wanted the rage of rock ‘n’ roll, the rebellion.”

The film follows Currie at age 15 as she chafes against the San Fernando Valley’s suburban torpor and her family’s psychological abandonment en route to becoming the most forward female face in rock. On a parallel track, Jett is shown raging against the proverbial machine, defying all cultural expectation to stake out her place as a young woman in the boys’ club of hard rock while still in her midteens.

One night in Hollywood, Jett approaches record impresario Kim Fowley (a scene-chewing Michael Shannon in campy glam drag) who introduces her to drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve) and becomes the band’s Svengali. Fowley “discovers” Currie at a nightclub, installs her as frontwoman and even concocts the lyrics to one of the group’s biggest hits, “Cherry Bomb,” on the spot during Currie’s audition. Scant character development is devoted to West and bandmate-guitarist Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton).

“Runaways” producer John Linson pointed out that even though the film is partially based on Currie’s 1989 memoir “Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story,” “The Runaways” is not a “band film” per se, because the filmmakers did not secure life story rights for Ford and bassist Jackie Fox (drummer Sandy West died from a brain tumor in 2006; original bassist Micki Steele was fictionalized by Alia Shawkat’s character “Robin”).

Instead, the grander ambition was to faithfully capture “the youth ethic in film.”

“It’s about 15-year-old rock stars, the rise and fall of kids,” Linson said. “We’re trying hard not to let that get taken away.”

Profligate prop sake consumption aside, Fanning, who turns 16 next month, and Stewart, 19, appear side by side in an overwhelming majority of the movie’s scenes. The two are shown snorting cocaine in an airplane bathroom as well as getting very up close and personal in what is sure to become one of “The Runaways’ ” primary talking points: a make-out scene in a roller rink that takes place about two-thirds of the way through the movie.

The scene was inspired by a remark Currie made in the rockumentary “Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways,” made by former band member Victory Tischler-Blue.

“In ‘Edgeplay,’ Cherie mentions that Joan is really good in bed,” Sigismondi said. “I thought, ‘I have to pry into this a bit. It will cause an explosion in the film. Why not go there?’ ”

Stewart and Fanning first shared screen time in “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” and became fast friends. “You can probably tell we get along really well,” Fanning said in between takes. “For the characters, it’s really important that bond is portrayed. And we have that in real life.”

Rather than talk up the more sensational aspects of filming — like, say, the scenes in which Fanning writhes and vamps onstage dressed in fishnet stockings and a revealing bodice — the actress chose to explain how she and Stewart (with castmates Taylor-Compton, Maeve and Shawkat) rehearsed the Runaways’ music together for a month before filming began. Stewart and Fanning then re-recorded the vocals for several of the songs heard in the film.

“When you’re up there and you hear yourself singing the songs and feel yourself performing the dance moves that are so iconic — when you’re up there having the time of your life — you feel like you are those girls for a few minutes,” Fanning said. “It’s really fun!”

Asked if the role was an attempt to shatter the conception of her as the child star of such kid flicks as “The Cat in the Hat” and “Charlotte’s Web,” the actress demurred, explaining it was simply part of her natural career evolution.

“I’m just portraying what was going on with [Cherie] when she was my age,” Fanning said. “I want to continue to act for my whole life. Eventually, everyone will have to let me grow up, somehow, some way. I’m just trying to let that happen as naturally as I can.”

Look-alike

During production, the real Joan Jett was a semi-constant presence on-set. At the Kyoto Grand location, the rock icon huddled with Stewart conspiratorially in between takes, their closeness highlighting a remarkable physical similarity. In the film, Stewart convincingly channels something of Jett’s androgynous, take-no-guff demeanor and rock star swagger. (Stewart declined comment for this story.)

“She has completely embodied the character of Joan,” Sigismondi said. “Her body language, her face, her walk. It’s amazing how she has just become her.”

Production designer Eugenio Caballero was even more blunt. “Kristen is Joan,” he said in between scenes. “You talk with her and you think it’s Joan Jett.”

The notoriously private rocker, whose post-Runaways project Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” famously hit No. 1 and has sold more than 10 million copies, did not want to be interviewed. But she admitted feeling a strange satisfaction while watching the actresses perform the Runaways’ music.

“It’s surreal, that’s all I can say,” Jett said. “But I have a smile on my face.”

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