Dakota Fanning is a Girl Scout and a member of the Red Cross and a very talented knitter. She is an avid reader. She plays piano and violin and is learning to speak French and Spanish. She is an excellent big sister and in her spare time she is, at age 11, one of the most powerful actresses in the Hollywood pantheon.

The star of I Am Sam, War Of The Worlds, Uptown Girls, Man On Fire, The Cat In The Hat, the TV series Taken and a dozen other projects, Fanning was in Toronto last month during the international film festival to promote her movie, Dreamer: Inspired By A True Story.

Opening here Friday, the engaging family film tells the story of a wounded race horse and the little girl who wins that horse a second chance at glory. Kurt Russell stars as Fanning's father, Elizabeth Shue as her mother and Kris Kristofferson as her grandfather. (Shue, who also worked with Fanning in the movie Hide And Seek, says she took the role in Dreamer just to work again with her young co-star.)

Fanning is currently being called one of the most powerful actresses in the world. "I don't think of myself that way," she says. "I have fun doing what I do and if other people enjoy it or like the films I'm in, that's great, you know, but I don't think of myself that way."

She is similarly diplomatic when asked to pick among her various leading men. This is, lest we forget, a child who has co-starred with Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Sean Penn and Robert De Niro, among others. She says, "I don't think I could ever pick a favourite. I love them all for different reasons. Kurt (Russell) was so nice to me during filming.

"He gave me a horse, a palomino named Goldie."

Fanning, who is bright and endearing, handles herself beautifully with the press. Unfailingly polite and uptempo, she fields various condescending questions about money, work and childhood, with aplomb.

She says her childhood is totally normal. "I do everything everyone else does, except I do acting as well. I go to my teacher's house for school. I just went on vacation with my friends." Fanning is home schooled, which she says she appreciates because it helps her continue with acting.

She was six when she started. Her mom saw how much she enjoyed play-acting as a tot and got her involved with a local playhouse where the kids put on a show every week.

Fanning's talent was obvious from the get-go. Someone suggested an agent and a trip to Los Angeles from the family home in Georgia. Once in L.A., where she now lives, Fanning quickly won a major soap commercial. There were other ads and small acting roles and then she won a part in the Sean Penn vehicle I Am Sam.

Anyone you care to ask will explain that this kid has some kind of gift. She is self-motivated, too.

"My mom and dad don't really think about the acting," she says. "They just take me to the set. That's pretty much it."

Money? She doesn't think about money, she says. Pressed to say how much she has in her piggy bank, she laughs and says, "It's like a thousand, million pennies. Two million zillion pennies. I don't get an allowance. And I don't like to get things during the year. I like to wait until my birthday or Christmas, for special occasions, because I like to look forward to things."

Fanning loves what she does and says she gets bored when she isn't working. She imagines herself acting in the future, too. "I never want to stop," she says, soberly. "I enjoy playing piano and other things, but my passion is acting."

And the hardest thing about her job?

Cast and crew are like family while you're making a movie, she says. "And when it's over you don't see them again."