Dakota Fanning is an actress who is famous for her breakthrough performance in I Am Sam. As a child performer, she has won numerous awards and remains to be the youngest person ever to have been nominated for a Screen Actor’ Guild Award.
Born on February 23, 1944 in Conyers, Georgia, Dakota Fanning is the daughter of Joy, a professional tennis player, and Steve J. Fanning, who played minor league baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals and now works as an electronics salesman in Los Angeles.
At the age of 5, Fanning tapped into the entertainment scene first by appearing on a TV commercial with Ray Charles for the state lottery and for appearing in a Tide commercial as well. She then landed her first significant acting job, which was a guest appearance on the medical drama ER, where she played a car accident victim who had leukemia. Gradually, she was offered more guest roles on shows like Friends, CSI, The Practice Spin City and Malcolm in the Middle.
In 2001, Dakota Fanning carved a niche for herself in the movie industry as she was chosen to star opposite Sean Penn in I Am Sam, the story of a mentally retarded man who fights for the custody of his daughter. For this role, she earned numerous awards and nominations, including a BFCA Award for Best Young Actress and a Satellite Award for Outstanding New Talent, just to name a few.
After her performance in I Am Sam, director Steven Spielberg cast Fanning in the lead child role of Allie in the science fiction miniseries Taken. Simultaneously, she worked on various movie projects such as Trapped, Sweet Home Alabama and Hansel and Gretel. In 2005, she starred opposite Robert De Niro in the thriller Hide and Seek, and reunited with Steven Spielberg in War of the Worlds, which also starred Tom Cruise.