I have a very hard time accepting how grown up Dakota Fanning is looking these days.  She’ll be 16 in February and she’s a junior in a private high school in L.A.  Just, wow.

She appears in the December issue of Teen Vogue and talks about starring in the Twilight sequel, New Moon.  It seems that she’s a big fan of the books and co-star Kristen Stewart.  Let’s just hope Kristen keeps Dakota away from the bong.  She’s one of the few non-Lindsays left in Hollywood and it would be nice to see her progress more down a Jodie Foster-ish path than a Mackenzie Phillips-ish path.

Dakota Fanning took a break from filming movies about angsty vampires covered in sparkles to hang out with angsty teenagers covered in sparkles at her high school’s homecoming football game last night.

Fanning is a cheerleader for Campbell Hall Episcopal School in North Hollywood where she was crowned Homecoming Princess during halftime last night. She didn’t get the Queen’s crown, but she’s only a sophomore. Give it a few years.

You can see pics of the crowning here. I couldn’t post them because we don’t have a contract with the company that owns them and I don’t want to get sued. Instead, I posted the above video montage of Dakota Fanning cheerleading pics, because it’s Halloween and this video creeps me the fuck out. You can practically taste the essence of “creepy stalker of underage girls” emanating from it. Tastes like grape soda laced with sleeping pills.

Everyone’s all excited about these pics X17 snapped of Dakota Fanning on a “date” with “17-year-old” Freddie Highmore (from Finding Neverland and Willy Wonka). Let me tell you: Freddie Highmore looks like he needs to get high more.

While I’m excited to see Dakota dating, this is the last person I want her to be with. This looks like a child — and a well-behaved one, at that. This is not who I need you to be dating, Dakota. This does nothing for me. Either get with a Jonas brother (hey, I hear Joe’s single) or have your publicist get Jon Gosselin’s number. Because this shit? Is boring.

Kirsten Stewart looking like Joan Jett? Dakota Fanning looking like Taylor Momsen? Seventies jeans???

How can you not love it?

And Joan Jett actually is in some of these photos.

You know what? This is exactly what needed to happen to Dakota. She’s in LA filming Runaways with the coolest girl in school, Kristen Stewart, and the two seem to have gotten awfully chummy during this time. I’ve been waiting for years for this perfect little child to release that dark, dirty, tabloid-friendly side that I know she has deep inside her. I think K-Stew’s gonna be the one to release the dragon — Puff, the Magic Dragon, if ya catch my drift.

And yet, I’m torn. There’s a part of me that hopes — and kind of believes — that it’s just a matter of time before Dakota’s getting pulled out of clubs with her eyes half-open, and there’s a part of me that still feels really protective of the little girl she used to be, and hopes she can transition from child actor to adult actor without having to do more with lines than read them.

Anyhoo. These pics are super cute.

Yes. There is something greater than pics of the ridiculous Joan Jett haircut Kristen’s sporting for her new flick, Runaways. And it’s these photos of Dakota Fanning, her costar, arriving at rehearsals.

LOOK HOW BADASS DAKOTA IS NOW!

Seriously, though, no. I don’t think a look like this will ever work on Dakota. She’s forever eight years old in my mind, and no number of pretentious interviews or rape scenes is going to change that for me. Put on a nice ruffled dress and run off to your tea party, Dakota. Leave the badass-ing to Kristen. She’s really, really good at it.

I didn’t think it were possible for me to love Dakota Fanning any more than I already do, but it’s happened.

These pics of Dakota at prom have been circulating the Internet. And as if it weren’t already cool enough that Dakota Fanning went to prom, you might notice that the dress looks a little familiar. It should. It’s the same dress she wore to the premiere of Coraline.

Oh, Dakota. Is no one safe from this crumbling economy?

So, it’s been made official - Dakota Fanning will star as “Jane” in ‘New Moon’.

Dakota Fanning is set to star in the Twilight sequel New Moon, EW has confirmed. The actress will play Jane, a member of Italy’s evil Volturi, in the anticipated movie, which opens in November. She had been in talks to appear in the film ever since she was offered the role in January. “It would be really cool to do it,” the 15-year-old Fanning told EW at the January premiere of her most recent release, Push, which was also produced by Twilight’s studio, Summit Entertainment. “I am a very big fan of the books. I read them all and Jane is an interesting part.”

The film is set to start shooting in Vancouver later this month. Still no word on who’ll be cast as Alec though.

Well, well, well.

Look who’s all grown up, gorgeous, and legs-tastic!

It’s Dakota Fanning, before a David Letterman appearance in NYC.

Wow, when did this happen? Dakota looks amazing. Stick your stupid Oscar nomination in these tiny shorts, Abigail Breslin.

Dakota’s only fourteen years old — but she’ll be fifteen on the 23rd.

I mean, this is definitely tasteful sexy … but is a look like this ever appropriate on a fourteen-year-old? Especially on a national stage?

I’m in that kind of a mood and I’m feeling more than my usual disturbed.

Am I off base, or does Dakota Fanning look way too adult for fourteen?  When I look at these pictures of her at the Push premeire in LA, she looks like a woman.  She’s even doing that Annie Leibowitz/Miley Cyrus over the shoulder glance thingy.  Her face looks young and thankfully she hasn’t had her teeth capped or whitened; it just seems like so much skin for a ninth grader.  As the senior citizen here at The Beet, I’m willing to accept that I’m probably just a prude.

Also there was Kimora Lee Simmons.  She’s knocked up by Djimon Hounsou who has been in Spielberg movies and shit, but will always be the hot guy from the Janet Jackson “Love Will Never Do(Without You)” video. Fugged up Rumer Willis appeared with red hair and Camilla Belle has solidified her position as my new girl crush.  If I was Joe Jonas, I totally would have picked her over Taylor Swift, too.  Okay, I gotta duck out of here before I get the “beet down” for bashing Tay.

The latest word coming out of Camp Twilight is that Dakota Fanning is likely to play the role of Jane in the new movie.

There were no auditions,” a source reveals. “They just offered it to her outright, and now they’re in negotiations. They’ve been going back and forth.”

Jane is a member of Italy’s Volturi, the most deadly group of bloodsucking killers in author Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling series.

In the casting notice we got our hands on earlier this month, Jane is described as a petite blonde with a “Botticelli angel-like face…[and] crimson irises.” While fellow Volturi guards Demetri & Felix “are three times the size of her, they are terrified of her,” the casting notice reads.

Coincidentally (or maybe not), an online petition started by a Twilight fan already asks the studio, Summit Entertainment, to cast Fanning because she would be “perfect” for the role.

Frankly, it does sound like Dakota would be perfect for this role.

Hell, I’m three times her size, and I’m terrified of her.

Dakota Fanning is totes “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” at the Palm Springs Film Festival Awards on Tuesday night. At 14, she’s finally starting to shed her little kid face, but it’s still there. (Compare this to Ali Lohan, who’s the same age but looks to be about 28.)

And I know we’re supposed to say “they grow up so fast!” and all, but, really, I feel like Dakota Fanning has been a little girl forever. That girl has had the longest damn childhood ever. Every time I hear about her, I’m like, “Man, Dakota Fanning must be so old by now” and then it turns out she’s still pretty much pre-pubescent.

Hurry up and age, Dakota. You’re sooooo boring like this.