Quotes

"Then I screamed a lot and I did the Snoopy dance." (on her reaction to getting the part of Lyra)

"I feel like I can relate to her. I like to think I'm quite brave. I stand up for myself. And I don't let other people tell me what to do. Well, unless it's my mum." (on Lyra)

"I figured if I did something wrong, they'd be, like, 'Oh my God, why are we working with her?' But they were really nice." (on co-stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig)

"My mother read the books to me when I was about nine, and I saw the plays at the National Theatre. I thought if I could play any role, it would be Lyra. I have treated the experience as if I am in two different worlds, the normal life of being who I was before, and all this. I try not to let the film affect going to school, and being me."

"She didn't want a place name that had been used before, so she thought Dakota was quite cool. Then she wanted a colour that went with it, so Blue went on." (on her name)

"Mum told me not to brush my hair that day, because Lyra is always so wild and looks like she's been scavenging around. So maybe that's why they chose me." (on auditioning for Lyra)

"I only had tutoring in half-hour bursts. I would be on set, and then when they'd set up a new scene or change the camera position, I would go to school. Sometimes it was quite hard to concentrate, but I think I actually improved academically from being privately tutored."

"I don't want to do it full time. I want to have a job as well, like being a teacher or a vet." (on acting)

"Mmmm, both. Everything is kind of exciting and it's all good. But, you know, you don't know what's going to happen." (on if she is excited or afraid of being famous)

"I don't know what my dad makes of all this because I haven't seen him since I was six. It's just Mum and me and Grandma and that's been great. She's the coolest mum ever."

"I still haven't got over the fact that I won't be the only person seeing the film. I'm used to watching home videos of when I was little, singing 'Barbie Girl' and stuff, and nobody sees them except the family. Now, there will be loads of people going to see The Golden Compass. At least, we hope they will."

"I auditioned for Mary in the nativity play once and they put me down as her mother." (on school plays)

"My mum's friend heard about it on Newsround. But Mum said, 'If it's raining, we're not going.'" (on how she heard about The Golden Compass auditions)

"I didn't think I had a chance, but I wanted to go to the audition and see what it was like. We got there early and there were lots of other girls queuing and it was freezing – but it wasn't raining."

"We had to stand in a big circle and the casting directors asked everyone their name and questions like, 'What would your daemon be?' and, 'Have you read the book?' And then some of the group had their pictures taken, including me, and then we had to read a couple of pages of script for the camera. Then another girl and I got to read another piece. I was quite nervous. I didn't even want to breathe because I didn't know if something was going to go wrong." (on The Golden Compass auditions)

"Chris rang and told my mum to put it on speaker phone, and she hung up on him by accident. And then he called back and he said, 'Dakota is going to be Lyra.' My aunt and my cousin came round and I was very excited. And then I think I played 'The Sims' on the computer."

"She's feisty and independent. It was because I wanted to be Lyra that I went along to the auditions, not that I wanted to act. Lyra was a gateway to acting. If you had asked me if I wanted to play any character in the world, it would have been Lyra."

"Sometimes I just asked him things that came into my mind, like, 'How are daemons born?' He said it has never come up so he hasn't thought about it." (on Philip Pullman)

"I walked past the cinema on the way here, and there's a 'coming soon' poster for the film. It's not a particularly big picture of me, which is good because if it was massive I'd be scared and feel like I could never go to my local cinema again."

"One of the things Nicole taught me was, no matter what happens in a scene, you carry on – even if you fall in a dustbin. If you get out of the bin and just carry on they might end up cutting it and using part of that scene anyway. But thankfully that's never happened to me." (on Nicole Kidman)

"Daniel is very funny and really nice but he does swear a lot. So we had a swear box and he had to put in £1 every time he said a naughty word. By the end he owed me £55." (on Daniel Craig)

"I think the hardest scene I did was when I was supposed to be sitting in a carriage with Nicole going through London, when really I was filming in a box in the studio and that was it – there wasn't a window or anything. That was really hard. And sometimes, when we were doing CGI scenes, you would have to act opposite a big stick or maybe a puppet and that was a bit odd at first. But you get used to it."

"They were about the same age as me when they first started making the Harry Potter films. And meeting them helped a lot. They gave me some good tips, especially Daniel. He said, 'Know who your friends are – and listen to your mum.' And he said, 'Whenever you feel that maybe you are feeling a bit weird and different, ask somebody who will tell you the truth – keep people around you who you know will be honest.' I think that's very good advice. Emma [Watson], who plays Hermione, was really nice as well – we had a bit of girl bonding." (on meeting the 'Harry Potter' cast)

"I'm going to stay at school until I'm 18 and then I'd like to go to college and then do a teacher training course. I'd like to do acting as well. And be a supply teacher."

"I said, 'Mum, can I have a horse?' 'No, you can have a dog – when you are seven.' I get to seven. 'Mum, can I have a dog now?' 'No, wait until you are 13.' 'Mum, can I have a dog now?' 'No, wait until the cat has died.' And I mean, I love the cats but one of them has just died and I still haven't got a dog. So please Mum, if you read this, can I have a dog now?"

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