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 talked to The Daily Telegraph about her grown-up role as Cherie Currie in The Runaways, how it really did fit her age. She also talked about how her career has developed from getting roles such as the one in Charlotte’s Web and now villain in The Twilight Saga and rock ‘n roll chick in The Runaways.

IN HER new film The Runaways, where she stars as Cherie Currie, singer of the 1970s all-girl teenage rock band who rises to fame quickly, before crashing just as rapidly, Dakota Fanning snorts cocaine, has sex with Kristen Stewart (who plays rocker Joan Jett), deals with an alcoholic father and an MIA mother, and suffers at the hands of an emotionally abusive manager.

Let’s just say it’s a long way from Charlottes Web.

“I really wanted to do it and I was pretty comfortable with it,” Fanning says of the film’s more adult content.

“I don’t think it’s so crazy, it’s someone’s life.”

As Currie, Fanning walks a tightrope between being completely luminous and utterly vulnerable. She manages to convey the drug addicted singer’s wounded soul with such an emotional depth, you forget that Fanning herself is only 16 years old.

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The gallery has been updated with some stunning high quality scans of Dakota’s cover girl feature of the August issue of Flare Magazine. Also, now available is some quotes from her interview for the magazine. Enjoy!

Gallery Link: 2010 August: Flare

On her down-to-earth daily life: “I have such a normal life when I’m not working . . . It’s just nice to be around people you care about and who know you best.”
On acting alongside Kristen in Eclipse: “Kristen is one of my best friends, so it was really funny playing her enemy in Eclipse . . . But that’s what acting is and when they yell ‘cut,’ you can go back to your normal self.”
On her favorite wardrobe staple: “In Push, I wear these Doc Martens. They’re worn-in and they’re so soft, and they’re one of the only ones that were made with a zipper. That has affected my style in a completely new way. Now I wear them every day.”
On the career legacy she hopes she’ll leave: “I hope people will have been moved by something that I’ve done or [that I've] helped somebody through a hard time . . . and that I’ve stayed true to who I am and have been a nice person.”
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Check out Dakota’s covershoot and interview for Marie Claire magazine. Stunning outtakes and of course a great into-depth interview. Enjoy!

Gallery Link: 2010: Set 010 (Marie Claire)

The dress code at Campbell Hall, the private Episcopal school in North Hollywood, California, once attended by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and now by Dakota Fanning and her little sister, Elle, is strict: khaki skirt, shorts, or trousers, white collared shirt, navy sweater, closed-toed shoes. “You could actually wear this,” says the elder Fanning — wide-set, frank blue eyes; fair hair; milk-white skin; and the wispy limbs of a John Currin painting — flouncing her skirt, a cream-colored silk pouf, and in the process gaily jangles a wristful of bangles. We are sitting opposite each other in a quiet booth at the Sunset Tower Hotel, in Los Angeles. Her skirt might be passable, I think, but that little distressed white cotton tank with the bra peeking out could be grounds for detention. Ditto the 5-inch, brown Marni wedge sandals that were a present for her 16th birthday, in February, and that add significantly to her petite, not-quite-5-foot-4 frame.

And her costumes for last spring’s The Runaways would have probably gotten her expelled. The movie tells the story of the rise and fall of Joan Jett’s first band, an all-girl hard-rock ensemble (dubbed “glam-punk” by some) that emerged in the mid-’70s. As the 15-year-old lead singer and Jett sidekick Cherie Currie, Fanning played part naïf, part sexed-up jailbait, in a frost-white wig, fishnet stockings, and an S&M corset. All in a moment, Fanning went from being an adorable if talented “child star” to the full-fledged genuine article, and critics took notice. Reviewing The Runaways in The New York Times, A.O. Scott gushed: “Ms. Fanning, who has shown herself a remarkably disciplined and self-aware actress almost since toddlerhood, displays heartbreaking vulnerability as well as frightening poise.” The Denver Post called her performance “uncorked.” The message was unmistakable: She had popped.

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The gallery has been updated with four new gorgeous stills of Dakota in The Runaways. Also added is a picture of Dakota posing behind the scenes with Cherie Currie. Enjoy!

Miami Herald has also posted the interview they did with Dakota.

At 16, she’s poised, collected and headed for a grown-up career as we see in her new movie, The Runaways. The Georgia native plays Cherie Currie, the lead singer of the 1970s band that launched Joan Jett’s Blackhearts career.

Though she’s gone head to head with screen legends like Robert De Niro (Hide and Seek), Denzel Washington (Man on Fire) and Tom Cruise (War of the Worlds), playing the rocker was her most challenging role.

“It was different, because you are living someone else’s life,” Fanning says by phone from L.A. “I definitely did more preparation than usual. The person you are playing is right there. I had to sing like her too . . . a great responsibility.”

Fanning started out in showbiz earlier than Currie — at the age of 7 in I Am Sam, playing Sean Penn’s daughter.

Can she relate?

“I can relate to having a job when you’re younger, but not being on my own or the drug use,” she says. “Cherie was just a 15-year-old girl from the Valley thrown into this crazy world of rock ‘n’ roll away from her family and very vulnerable, having to figure everything out for herself.”

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