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Dakota Fanning
Name: Dakota Fanning
DOB: 23 February 1994
Birth Place: Conyers, Georgia, USA
Claim to fame: Actress
Star Facts
- Dakota was a cheerleader in high school and was voted homecoming queen
- She is the youngest actor ever nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award
- Dakota can play the violin
- She loves knitting, and has knitted scarves for Steven Spielberg, Robert de Niro and Oprah Winfrey!
Biography
With her family background, gifted actress Dakota seemed sure to go into sports. Her dad was a professional baseball player, her mum a professional tennis player, her granddad was an American football star and her aunt is a sports reporter. Dakota was a keen tennis player, but in the end chose a very different route to fame.
She began acting age five in commercials then picked up child roles in TV series like Ally McBeal and ER. She got her first major break when she was cast as Sean Penn’s daughter in I Am Sam at the age of seven. She went on to become everybody’s favourite child star, giving unique performances in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Charlotte’s Web, and picking up rave reviews from critics across the board. Her rare talent saw her become the youngest person ever nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award at the age of seven.
Dakota has now made the transition into glamorous teen starlet, with more grown up roles in the likes of The Secret Life of Bees, and as a vampire in the Twilight Saga movies New Moon and Eclipse. She also rocked out hard with her Twilight co-star K. Stew in the Joan Jett girlband biopic The Runaways. And all before she hit college age.
Dakota has now enrolled at New York University beginning her studies in September 2011, and she has two new Twilight movies on the way – she’s a busy girl!