Actress Dakota Fanning has opened up about her child star days. She has revealed what she learned from her late actress Brittany Murphy while working on the 2003 film "Uptown Girls".

"She just taught me to always have fun. She was such a ray of light and had such a playful spirit," Fanning said of Murphy, who died in 2009 at the age of 32, during an interview, reports etonline.com.

"She made every day special for me. She was so wonderful."

Fanning also praised Hollywood star Tom Cruise, who helped her celebrate her birthday on the set of 2005's "War Of The Worlds".

"It was when Cold Stone Creamery was just sort of a thing and Tom and (director) Steven Spielberg, they brought in the marble slab on set and had the people making the ice cream for my 11th birthday," she recalled.

"It was very fun."

Fanning also got the chance to have a guest role on the hit sitcom "Friends", starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer.

"I was really starstruck. I'd met a lot of people. I'd worked with Robert De Niro and Denzel Washington, but these people were in my living room all the time on the show," she explained.

"So I felt like I knew them more, so I was kind of even more starstruck by meeting them all," she added.