Dakota Fanning
Born: 24 February 1994
Where: Conyers, Georgia, USA
The young actress belies her age in a range of roles from the blockbuster War of the Worlds to the slapstick comedy of Cat in the Hat.
She began her career at the age of five when she was picked from thousands of hopefuls to appear in an advert for washing powder.
She went on to land a co-starring role on ER and appeared on other popular TV shows such as C.S.I., The Practice, Malcom in the Middle and Spin City.
She also landed a role in Ally McBeal, playing the five-year-old incarnation of Calista Flockhart's title character.
Fanning made her feature debut in Tomcats, starring Jerry O'Connell and Shannon Elizabeth, Father X-Mas and I Am Sam, in which she stars as Sean Penn's daughter - forced into foster care on her 7th birthday.
The role won her a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Young Actor as well as a Golden Satellite for Outstanding New Talent, which she shared with Harry Potter's Rupert Grint.
Immediately after completing I Am Sam, Dakota went on to co-star in the thriller Trapped with Charlize Theron and Courtney Love and next appeared opposite Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama.
In 2003, she starred as a precocious heiress opposite reluctant nanny Britanny Murphy in the lame Uptown Girls.
Subsequent roles included the role of Sally opposite Mike Myers in the live action adaptation of the Dr Seuss classic Cat in the Hat.
In 2004, she played a kidnap victim opposite Denzel Washington in Tony Scott's brutal thriller Man on Fire.
Recent work has included the role of Tom Cruise's daughter in Spielberg's big budget adaptation of HG Wells' War of the Worlds.
