Born Hannah Dakota Fanning on February 23, 1994, in Conyers, Georgia. She was born into an athletic family as the daughter of a minor league baseball player and a tennis player. Her mother enrolled Dakota in an acting class at an early age, and Fanning landed her first commercial at 5 years old.
In 2004, Dakota appeared in the violent thriller, Man on Fire (2004), alongside Denzel Washington. Her reviews were excellent.
First in 2005 was Nine Lives (2005), as Maria, then the chilling Hide and Seek (2005) alongside Robert De Niro. By now, she was the busiest child actress in Hollywood, with a resume to die for. Her younger sister, Mary Elle Fanning (Elle Fanning), had also been discovered a few years earlier.
Four awards and seven nominations she had received so far have proven that she is indeed worthy to deserve the title. It is likely because of her immense love to acting that she is always able to give brilliant performances in each movie she starred in. This infatuation has grown at her very young age, looking upon her interest to conduct some role-plays repeatedly at home. “I've always played the mom and I play my sister as the daughter,” she admitted. “I wanted to be an actress on television and movies instead of just around the house.”