But at 30, Dakota Fanning is feeling better than ever about her creative voice and agency.

“At this point in my life, I feel very confident about who I am, what I want and what I don’t want, what I like and what I don’t like,” she said during a promotion for her latest film, “The Watchers,” which hits theaters Friday.

That doesn’t mean Fanning didn’t receive critical acclaim early in her career. After all, she is the youngest person to receive a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination — she was 7 years old at the time — for her performance in “I Am Sam” in the show’s nearly 30-year history.

But in the more than two decades since that breakout role in 2001, Fanning has learned a lot about the nature of the business and how to find success and satisfaction in it, leading her to launch a production company with her sister and fellow star Elle Fanning.

“Being an actor for so long, you’re so dependent on other people wanting to cast you in their movie, choosing you, believing in you,” he said of his decision to start Lewellen Pictures. “Eventually you think, ‘Well, I just want to do this for myself.'”

Fanning has achieved a lot for herself, including earning a degree from New York University despite working constantly since the age of 5. While in school, she studied the portrayal of women in movies — something she says she has always been interested in, especially when it comes to female characters who aren’t necessarily “likable.”

“People are people and make mistakes and don’t always do the right thing. And I think sometimes people are afraid to portray female characters in their entirety, even if their parts are messy,” she said. “I’m always interested in exploring that and not afraid to play a character who isn’t likable — I mean, I don’t even know what it means to be likable. Who is likable?”

The reality of Fanning’s character in “The Watchers” is what attracted her to the role, something that she and director Ishana Night Shyamalan connected over. Based on A.M. Shine’s novel of the same name, the film is a psychological horror fantasy of sorts that tells the story of Mina, a free-thinking young artist who gets stranded with a group of strangers in an Irish forest filled with mysterious creatures.

“The character I was playing had a similarity that we could both relate to,” Fanning said. “Being a woman in her 20s and figuring things out.”

Being the daughter of M. Night Shyamalan – who produced the film – it’s no surprise that both directing and horror are in Ishana Night Shyamalan’s blood. But although she grew up immersed in the world of filmmaking, visiting her father’s sets, it took her several years to think that directing could be part of her future.

Shyamalan recalled, “My experience is that the role of a filmmaker is very much a male mindset. It’s about being confident, assertive, and controlling a space. And so it was very difficult for me to understand how I could fit into that.”

But in recent years, she has seen the changing nature of filmmaking — which she is encouraged by — which made her realize she can do it.

“I think it’s a different wave, like a second phase of filmmaking, where I think it can be accessible to a lot more types of people. And that’s very important,” he said. “The stories we tell and the ethics of the process I think in some ways have to be redefined or reinvented for this era.”

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