Dakota Fanning was nervous about developing stutter for American Pastoral

Dakota Fanning was nervous playing a character with a stutter because she was so concerned about getting it right.

The War of the Worlds actress plays Merry Levov, who commits an act of political terrorism as a teenager, in Ewan McGregor's directorial debut American Pastoral, a film adaptation of Philip Roth's novel.

Dakota portrays Merry in different stages of her life and she is first seen on screen as a stuttering teenager, and Dakota put the time in to research the speech impediment because she was worried about getting it wrong.

"I was a bit nervous at first as I wanted to make sure it sounded authentic, so I watched a lot of videos of people who had stutters," she told Britain’s Hello! magazine. "The strange thing was that, after doing it so much on film, I'd notice when I started to stutter myself and also when other did it, which I never did before."

The film, which also stars Ewan and Jennifer Connolly, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September (16) and her other film, Brimstone, also doing the film festival rounds, with competition places at Venice and London. Dakota has been filming these while studying at New York University (NYU), where she's in her final year.

Her sister Elle is also forging an acting career with roles in The Neon Demon, Super 8 and Maleficent, and Dakota is glad for her sister's success.

"I'm happy to have a close relationship with her and so proud of her accomplishment. If there's any person in the world I would want wonderful things to happen to, it's my sister," she said.

She admits they weren't close for a while because their four-year age gap felt too big at one stage but "the gap is starting to close again and we feel more like equals".