Dakota Fanning

Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994) is an American actress.

In 1999, at the age of five, she began her professional acting career, appearing in a Tide television commercial.

Her first significant acting job was a guest role in the NBC prime-time drama ER, which remains one of her favorite roles:

"I played a car accident victim who has leukemia. I got to wear a neck brace and nose tubes for the two days I worked."

Fanning subsequently had several guest roles on television series, including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Practice, and Spin City.

She also portrayed the title characters of Ally McBeal and The Ellen Show as young girls.

She rose to prominence at the age of seven for her performance as Lucy Dawson in the drama film I Am Sam (2001), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination at the age of eight, making her the youngest nominee in SAG history.

In 2001, Fanning was chosen to star opposite Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer and her younger sister Elle Fanning in the film I Am Sam, as the daughter of a mentally challenged man who fights for custody of her.

Her role in the film made Fanning the youngest person ever to be nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award, being seven years of age at the time.

She also won the Best Young Actor/Actress award from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for her performance.

Fanning's performance would later be incorporated into the music video for Rufus Wainwright's cover of the Beatles' "Across the Universe"; the song itself was included in I Am Sam.

In 2002, director Steven Spielberg cast Fanning in the lead child role of Allison "Allie" Clarke/Keys in the science fiction miniseries Taken.

By this time, she had received positive notices from several film critics, including Tom Shales of The Washington Post, who wrote that Fanning "has the perfect sort of otherworldly look about her, an enchanting young actress called upon ... to carry a great weight."

In the same year, Fanning appeared in three films: as a kidnapping victim who proves to be more than her abductors bargained for in Trapped, as the young version of Reese Witherspoon's character in Sweet Home Alabama, and as Katie in the film Hansel and Gretel.

A year later, she starred in two prominent films: playing the uptight child to an immature nanny played by Brittany Murphy in Uptown Girls, and as Sally in The Cat in the Hat.

In addition, Fanning did voice-over work for four animated projects during this period, including voicing Satsuki in Disney's English language release of My Neighbor Totoro, starring alongside her younger sister Elle Fanning, who voiced Mei; a little girl in the Fox series Family Guy; and a young Wonder Woman in the episode "Kids Stuff" from Cartoon Network's Justice League Unlimited.

Fanning played major roles as a child actress in the films Uptown Girls (2003), The Cat in the Hat (2003), Man on Fire (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Dreamer (2005), Hide and Seek (2005), Charlotte's Web (2006), Push (2009), and the title character in Coraline (2009).

In 2004, Fanning appeared in Man on Fire as Pita, a nine-year-old who wins over the heart of a retired mercenary (Denzel Washington) hired to protect her from kidnappers.

Roger Ebert wrote that Fanning "is a pro at only ten years old, and creates a heart-winning character."

In 2004, she made an appearance on season ten of the television series Friends, playing the role of Mackenzie, a young girl who is moving out of the house Monica and Chandler are buying.

Fanning completed filming on Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (opposite Kurt Russell) in late October 2004.

Kris Kristofferson, who plays her character's grandfather in the film, said that she is like Bette Davis reincarnated.

While promoting her role in Dreamer, Fanning became a registered member of Girl Scouts of the USA at a special ceremony, which was followed by a screening of the film for members of the Girl Scouts of the San Fernando Valley Council.

Fanning then went on to star in War of the Worlds, starring alongside Tom Cruise.

Hide and Seek was her first release in 2005, opposite Robert De Niro.

The film was generally panned, but critic Chuck Wilson called it "a fascinating meeting of equals – if the child star [Fanning] challenged the master [De Niro] to a game of stare-down, the legend might very well blink first."

Fanning voiced Lilo Pelekai (taking over for Daveigh Chase) in the direct-to-video film Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch.

She also had a small part in the Rodrigo García film Nine Lives (released in October 2005), in which she shared an unbroken nine-minute scene with actress Glenn Close, who had her own praise for Fanning: "She's definitely an old soul. She's one of those gifted people that come along every now and then."

Fanning also recorded her lead role in Coraline during this time.

Fanning also played more mature roles, including Lewellen in Hounddog (2007), Lily in The Secret Life of Bees (2008), Cherie Currie in The Runaways (2010) and Jane in The Twilight Saga (2009–2012).

Throughout the 2010s, she continued appearing in independent productions such as the dramas Now Is Good (2012) and Night Moves (2013), the comedy-drama Very Good Girls (2013), and the biographical film Effie Gray (2014).

In 2018, she appeared in the heist comedy Ocean's 8 and had a starring role in the period drama series The Alienist.

She has since portrayed Manson girl Squeaky Fromme in the Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Susan Ford in the drama series The First Lady (2022), and CIA agent Emma Collins in The Equalizer 3 (2023).

Fanning was born in Conyers, Georgia.

She attended a Montessori School in Covington.

Her mother, Heather Joy (née Arrington), played tennis professionally, and her father, Steven J. Fanning, played minor league baseball and later worked as an electronics salesman in Los Angeles, California.

Her maternal grandfather was former American football player Rick Arrington, and her aunt is former ESPN reporter Jill Arrington.

Her ancestors include William Farrar.

Fanning is the elder sister of actress Elle Fanning; both of them use their middle names as their given names due to family tradition and were brought up as Southern Baptists.

When Fanning was a small child, she was an actress at the Towne Lake Arts Center in Woodstock, Georgia, starring in small plays.