Dakota Fanning compares 'easy-breezy' relationship with sister Elle to “The Watchers”' sibling drama

"We're not afraid to be the person who says what's actually going on, and we don't mince words," the actress tells EW.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Watchers. 

Dakota Fanning’s character in the new horror film The Watchers, Mina, has a very troubled relationship with her twin sister. Years after a horrible family tragedy that the two witnessed together, Mina now lives on her own in Ireland and doesn’t return her sister’s calls. So when she gets lost in an Irish forest and ends up beset by strange monsters, Mina is fine with waiting them out. It’s not like she’s missing anyone back in the real world.

Given how recognizable Fanning is not just as a cinematic presence but also as one half of a celebrity sibling duo with younger sister Elle Fanning, Entertainment Weekly had to ask Fanning if she drew on her own real-life sibling relationship in playing this tormented fictional one. Happily, the answer is no.

Related: How Servant prepared Ishana Night Shyamalan to make The Watchers

“My sister and I have such an easy-breezy relationship,” Fanning tells EW. “I mean, we're definitely truth-tellers to one another. We're not afraid to be the person who says what's actually going on, and we don't mince words when we speak to each other about serious subjects. But you need that! And I think we both appreciate that about each other. Maybe it upsets us in the moment; no one likes to be told what they don't want to hear, but you have to have some people who will do that, and my sister and my mom are those people for me. And then vice versa for Elle.”

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The Watchers was directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night Shyamalan. Familial relationships were definitely on her mind while making The Watchers, but Shyamalan tells EW that she wanted Fanning as her star because of her significance to millennial moviegoers.

“When I was writing the script, she was the first person that came to mind to play the main role,” Shyamalan tells EW. “I think for our generation of young people, she exists in the ether as this energy and face that we all have been attached to at some point. I was really interested in picking someone who represented what I think youth is today. And then she also is just such a genre queen! She has this ethereal, otherworldly energy about her, and she's just vibrant on camera and has this depth of life in her eyes when you put a camera up on her. So I feel very, very lucky that she said yes to doing it and took the risk on me.”

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Mina’s sister is unseen for most of the film (except in flashback), so viewers would be forgiven for wondering if Elle might pop up at the last minute. Instead, when Mina’s sister finally appears at the end of The Watchers, she’s also played by Fanning.

“It was weird,” Fanning says of the dual role. “I was like, ‘I'm just going to go for it.’ Sometimes for me, at this point in my life, I just want to take risks and do things that are weird! Obviously you have to be thoughtful, and I am a deep thinker about things for sure. But then at a certain point, you just have to be like, ‘well, let's do it! It’ll be new and fun!’ And it actually was really fun. We had a great time that day figuring out how to do it and how to have little slight changes between the characters.”

The Watchers is in theaters now. 

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.