(Photo: Getty Images/WireImage, Desiree Navarro)

As Dakota Fanning makes the transition from “former child star” to “regular actor,” it’s important that she embraces popular Hollywood trends. We don’t mean crazy religions or fight clubs, though, we’re talking about the hot, new-ish thing where someone primarily known for making movies decides to climb down from that mountain and give TV acting a try. According to Deadline, Fanning is set to play the female lead in TNT’s The Alienist, a drama series based on the best-selling book by Caleb Carr. She’ll be appearing alongside Daniel Brühl and Luke Evans, who both also happen to be movie actors who are trying out this TV thing.


The story is set in New York City in 1896, and it concerns Brühl’s criminal psychologist and Evans’ newspaper reporter trying to secretly solve a series of murders. Fanning will be a secretary working for police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt (yes, the famous one) who dreams of becoming the city’s first female police detective.

True Detective’s Cary Fukunaga was set to direct every episode of the show’s first season, but he dropped out last September.