Dakota Fanning, who had a featured role in War of the Worlds and who will voice the title character in the stop motion-animated version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and her sister Elle have provided the voices for the two sisters in the new English dub of Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro.  One of Miyazaki's best films, Totoro is the story of two sisters who accompany their father to a rural retreat while their mother is hospitalized with a serious illness.  Miyazaki's film is infinitely sensitive to the vivid imaginations of inchoate fears of its two young protagonists -- and their roles are absolutely central to the film. 

 

Buena Vista's deluxe two-disk DVD of My Neighbor Totoro, which is due out next spring, will include a behind-the-scenes featurette showing the Fanning sisters working on the voiceovers and highlighting the way Elle was able to learn from her older, more experienced sibling, who at the age of eleven has already amassed an impressive list of animated, as well as live action, credits.