Precocious 12-year-old Dakota Fanning, star of the children's film Charlotte's Web, is as mad as she can be and is not going to take any more criticism about her latest role - a rape victim.
Fanning saw her latest movie, Hounddog, premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this week after months of complaints from religious groups and others who questioned whether her family and the film-maker acted responsibly when asking her to act in a rape scene.
"When it gets to the point of attacking my mother, my agent .

.. my teacher, who were all on the set that day, that started to make me mad,'' she said in an interview.

"I can let other things go, but when people start to talk about my mother, like, that's really bad in my opinion ...

that's an attack, and that's not fair. They hadn't seen the movie," she added.
Since the age of six, when Fanning appeared in an episode of US television programme Ally McBeal, her fan base has grown into millions of people around the world.

She has starred in Hollywood movies ranging from The Cat in the Hat, based on the Dr Seuss children's book about a magical cat, to Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, in which she played a young girl on the run from space aliens.
But Fanning is now entering her teenage years - she'll be 13 next month - and like any girl or boy who is growing older and maturing, she finds herself attracted to new stories and roles she finds challenging and thought-provoking.

In Hounddog, Fanning plays 12-year-old Lewellen, who lives in a Deep South town in the 1950s.

Her dysfunctional family is poor and the household is run by her grandmother.
Lewellen loves Elvis Presley, and in order to get a ticket to his concert, she agrees to do her Elvis impersonation for an older teenage boy. Eventually that scene leads to the rape.

Hounddog is based on director Deborah Kampmeier's personal history, and she called the criticism of Fanning's decision to take the role an insult to the young actress.
"She should be applauded to the voice she has given to so many silenced women," Kampmeier said.
Kampmeier called the Georgia-born Fanning an "old soul" who understood Lewellen's thoughts and emotions from the moment the actress and director first discussed the part.

Fanning said she would tell her friends to see Hounddog, with their parents' approval, because it addresses many issues they will either soon face or, perhaps, already have.
Fanning said she loves acting and wanted to continue to into her teens and adulthood.