What Happened to Dakota Fanning?

By CelebPaid Editorial Team · 8 min read

Dakota Fanning.Image via Wikimedia Commons

The Rise to Fame

Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994) is an American actress. Fanning is known for her roles in blockbuster films and independent features, both as a child actress and as an adult. Her accolades include nominations for four Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Fanning received recognition at the age of seven for starring in the drama film I Am Sam (2001), being nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award. She cemented her stardom in the films Uptown Girls (2003), Man on Fire (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Charlotte's Web (2006) and The Secret Life of Bees (2008), and transitioned to mature roles with The Twilight Saga (2009–2012), the indie dramas films The Runaways (2010), and Night Moves (2013). Fanning also acted in Ocean's 8 (2018), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), and The Equalizer 3 (2023), and The Watchers (2024).

Since 2018, she has held starring roles in the television series The Alienist (2018), The First Lady (2022), and The Perfect Couple (2024). She received Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her portrayals as an American expatriate in the Netflix thriller miniseries Ripley (2025) and more of the former for playing a concerned mother in the Peacock mystery miniseries All Her Fault (2025).

The Peak Years

Early life and education

Hannah Dakota Fanning was born on February 23, 1994, in Conyers, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. 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. Her maternal grandfather was former American football player Rick Arrington, and her aunt is former ESPN reporter Jill Arrington. Her ancestors include William Farrar. Her paternal grandmother was a German immigrant. She has a sister, Elle, who is four years her junior. Per family tradition, both go by their middle names rather than their first names.

The family moved to Los Angeles in 2000 to support Fanning's acting career. In June 2011, Fanning graduated from Campbell Hall School in Studio City, California, where she participated on the varsity spirit cheerleading squad and was twice voted homecoming queen. From 2011 to 2014, she attended the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University majoring in women's studies, with a focus on the portrayal of women in film and culture.

1990s: Acting debut and early roles

What Changed

Fanning first acted at the Towne Lake Arts Center in Woodstock, Georgia, starring in small plays at the age of five. In 1999, she began her professional acting career, appearing in a Tide television commercial. Her first significant acting job was a guest role in the NBC primetime drama ER. Fanning then 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 adolescents.

2000s: Breakthrough and child actor stardom

In 2001, Fanning was chosen to star opposite Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer in the film I Am Sam, as the daughter of a mentally challenged man who is fighting for child custody. 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.

Where Dakota Fanning Is Now

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.

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 10 years old, and creates a heart-winning character." In 2004, she made an appearance on season 10 of the television series Friends as Mackenzie, a young girl who moves out of the house Monica and Chandler are buying. 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." Also in 2004, Fanning narrated the documentary film In the Realms of the Unreal.

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 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. War director Steven Spielberg praised "how quickly she understands the situation in a sequence, how quickly she sizes it up, measures it up and how she would really react in a real situation." Fanning moved to another film without a break: Charlotte's Web, which she finished filming in May 2005 in Australia, and premiered on December 15, 2006. During the summer of 2006, Fanning worked on the film Hounddog, described in press reports as a "dark story of abuse, violence, and Elvis Presley adulation in the rural South." Fanning's parents have been criticized for allowing her to film a scene in which her character is raped. Fanning defended the film, though, by saying to Reuters, "It's not really happening. It's a movie, and it's called acting." Although the film was a failure both at the box office and with critics, Roger Ebert praised Fanning's performance, comparing her to Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver. In the same year, at the age of 12, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, becoming the youngest member in the academy's history. Later that year, she was ranked 4th in Forbes list of "Top-Earning Stars Aged Under 21", having earned an estimated $4 million in 2006.

Legacy

In the spring of 2007, she filmed Fragments – Winged Creatures alongside Kate Beckinsale, Guy Pearce, Josh Hutcherson, and Academy Award-winners Forest Whitaker and Jennifer Hudson. She plays Anne Hagen, a girl who witnesses her father's murder and who turns to religion in the aftermath. In July, Fanning appeared on a short film titled Cutlass, one of Glamour's "Reel Moments" based on readers' personal essays. Cutlass was directed by Kate Hudson. From September to the end of the year, Fanning filmed Push, which centers on a group of young American expatriates with telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities who hide from the Division (a U.S. government agency) in Hong Kong and band together to try to escape the control of the division. Fanning played Cassie Holmes, a 13-year-old psychic.

In January 2008, Fanning began filming the film adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees, a novel by Sue Monk Kidd. Set in South Carolina in 1964, the story centers on Lily Owens (Fanning), who escapes her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father by running away with her caregiver and only friend (played by Jennifer Hudson) to a South Carolina town, where they are taken in by an eccentric trio of beekeeping sisters (played by Queen Latifah, Sophie Okonedo, and Alicia Keys).

Her films, horror animation Coraline and science-fiction thriller Push, were released on the same day, February 6, 2009. Fanning played Jane, a member of the Volturi Guard, in New Moon and reprised the role in Eclipse, based on novels by Stephenie Meyer. New Moon was released on November 20, 2009, and Eclipse was released on the following June. On in March 2009, she was ranked number three on the list of Forbes' Most Valuable Young Stars after having earned an estimated $14 million.

2010s: Transition to mature roles

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