Dakota Fanning covers the May issue of Nylon magazine to promote two new films. She stars in Franny, which premiered at Tribeca this weekend, and a period drama called Effie Gray. We don’t really see Dakota other than in candid paparazzi photos as she shuffles back and forth to university. She’s finishing up her third year without incident, although she’s lucky enough to attend school “for my own interest” rather than for a career. Dakota plans to stick with acting, and she’s majoring in Women in Film at NYU’s Tisch school.

Dakota turned 21 years old in late February (Pisces!), and she’s handling it well. She tells Nylon that she does party a little. She just never does it where people will report her behavior. Dakota’s also fine with people still treating her like a child star. I left out the stuff she says about relocating from Georgia to LA as a child. Dakota ruffled some feathers last year by comparing LA to Africa; she mostly tells Nylon that her family never considered LA to be a permanent move. Her family kept her out of trouble, and Dakota attended high school like a normal kid. She stills sounds mostly unaffected. Some excerpts:

People mistake her for an Olsen: “There’s a man on my corner who thinks I’m an Olsen. He’ll yell, ‘Hey Olsen!’ at me. It’s really funny.”

On the “child star” label: “I’ve made my peace with the fact that there will be some people who, for the rest of my life, will believe I’m, like, nine years old. I have this joke that I’m literally going to be 35, married, and pregnant and people are still going to say, ‘Oh my god, you grew up so fast! I can’t believe it!’ And yeah, sometimes when you’re 21 years old and people are still saying that, you just want to rip your hair out. But I’m OK with it. I know who I am.”

On handing the pressure: “Sure, I handled myself the best that I could and was professional, but I was also a kid. I think that people who knew me then knew I was also exactly how kids are supposed to be. I’ve found that anybody who takes what they’re doing seriously or seems to be a caring person gets called an old soul. And it’s not a negative thing to say, but it’s also not 100 percent accurate. I might not be running around being insane, but I’m also a 21-year-old who likes to be silly. Just because I don’t flaunt those parts of my life doesn’t mean I don’t do some of that privately, you know what I mean?”

She’s majoring in Women in Film: “I think there aren’t a lot of movies that are made for women–they always want to insert something so the guys will go. A director that I worked with, Naomi Foner, once said, ‘Somebody decided a couple years ago that only 15-year-old boys go see movies.’ There aren’t a lot of stories told strictly from a woman’s perspective.”

She won’t do social media: “I feel like if I did it, I’d start to measure my experiences by how good of an Instagram it’s going to turn into. And I don’t want to be living my life trying to see it all in a square, trying to get a photo. You have to set the photo up, you have to take the photo, you have to edit the photo, pick the right filter, format it, caption it–like, too much! There are so many more things I could be doing!”

[From Nylon]

Dakota is one of the few stars her age that you won’t find on social media, which is nice. A little bit of mystery goes a long way, and she insisted a few years ago that she’ll never join Twitter. I think her thoughts on Instagram are probably the best criticism I’ve seen from a celebrity. She’s not talking down to people who take selfies. Dakota is simply pointing out how so much effort goes into creating the perfect Instagram photo. That takes up a lot of time! Like I’ve said before … trying to create the perfect life to show off on the internet can make you miss out on reality.

Here are some photos of Dakota at Tribeca. The white dress is Zac Posen and oh-so-structural. The darker dress is a blue suede Theory pinafore dress, which is very pretty.

Photos courtesy of Nylon & WENN