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- Dakota Fanning says that entering her 30s brought her clarity on her goals.
- "Every year that goes by, you're more in tune with who you are and with what you want and don't want," she said.
- The actor said she always wanted to have kids and hopes "this next decade" will bring that into her life.
Dakota Fanning grew up in front of the cameras. Now in her 30s, she's rethinking what success and fulfillment really mean.
"Every year that goes by, you're more in tune with who you are and with what you want and don't want," Fanning told Byrdie in an interview published on Monday.
"I'm associating this decade with the next part of my life. I've always wanted to have kids — that's something I've never questioned and has always been really important to me. So, hopefully, dating will end soon, and this next decade will bring that into my life," the actor said.
Fanning became the youngest person to be nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for her breakthrough role in 2001's "I Am Sam," in which she starred alongside Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer.
She went on to act in a string of films in the early 2000s, including 2005's "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruise. More recently, she is starring alongside Sarah Snook in the Peacock thriller "All Her Fault."
Fanning said entering her 30s brought about a mental "shift."
"Instead of focusing on the things that I don't have yet, I switched it to, 'Oh my god, how exciting. There's so much that's yet to come.' I want to continue to tell myself to be excited instead of worrying. I want to focus on possibility. It's all yet to come," she said.
She added that being close to the women in her family has helped her navigate the pressures of fame, including the labels the media placed on her.
"I feel very deeply known by the people in my life, by my family, friends, and the people I work with," Fanning said. "And because I feel very known by them, I don't feel this pressure for everyone [else] to know me exactly."
Even now, she says she's still in the process of growing and getting to know herself.
"I'm still learning about myself, and I'm not going to be perfect all the time. I'm not going to make the 'wise beyond your years' choice at every step. I've definitely had times where I've had to work through that," Fanning said. "But very fortunately, I've always had a strong sense of myself and a healthy ability to block out what feels untrue or too heavy."
Fanning joins a list of celebrities reflecting on how their 30s brought a sense of clarity that they didn't have before.
Speaking at a TIME100 summit in April, Ryan Reynolds said his "greatest superpower" was knowing who he was — something that didn't click until he was in his 30s.
"When you're young and in your 20s, at least I was, you're trying on personalities like they're shirts," Reynolds said.
In June, country star Kelsea Ballerini said that her fitness goals shifted after she entered her 30s.
"Especially in my early twenties and mid-twenties, the idea of fitness was very much only aesthetically driven, and that was my goal," Ballerini told People, adding that now, she wants to be healthy and have the energy to keep up with her career and the people she loves.