When your new blockbuster franchise's leading lady happens to be a youngster, how do you prepare her for the onslaught of media and fan attention? In 13-year-old Dakota Blue Richards' case, "The Golden Compass" star sought advice from one of the most famous teenage actors of all: Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter himself.

"Daniel told me once that you should always keep the people around you that you know are going to tell you the truth," Richards recalls.

Richards and her family will soon find that hard to accomplish in the political world of Hollywood, but the actress was glad she visited the set of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" because it opened her eyes to what working on "Compass" would be like.

Selected after a nationwide casting search throughout the United Kingdom, Richards was thrilled to be cast as Lyra, an orphaned girl who becomes the center of a universal power-play in Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. Her mother read her the books when she was 9 years old, but she soon discovered she shared many qualities with Lyra that would help her through the long production.

"Her bravery and her courage," Richards says of their common attributes. "And how she would go so far for her friends and what she thinks is right. And I think what I see in myself is probably more the way that she kind of talks a bit more than she should."

Although she'd never starred in a professional production before, her well-established co-stars were impressed by the budding thespian. After one scene where the seemingly evil Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) forcibly confronts Lyra, Kidman recalls, "There were points where I had to grab her wrists and say, 'Are you all right? Are you all right?' Even though this is the first film she has done, [Dakota] has so much poise. It was almost like working with an adult."

With two more installments of the franchise to go, like the "Potter" crew, much of Richards' teenage years will be chronicled on the big screen.The second installment introduces a love interest that most likely means her first on-screen kiss. Richards didn't want to contemplate what that would be like, especially because she's focused on just surviving the worldwide debut of "Compass."

"Well, I mean, of course I'm nervous," Richards says. "But I'm trying not to think about it so much, because then that way, it won't be as scary. And I know my friends are going to take the Mickey out of me. My friends will try to embarrass me as much as they possibly can."

"The Golden Compass" opens nationwide Dec. 7.

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