Best known as: Young actress from The Cat in the Hat and Man on Fire
Name at birth: Hannah Dakota Fanning
Dakota Fanning is the super-busy child actor whose performance in 2001's I Am Sam (with Sean Penn) earned her critical praise and a cascade of high-profile movie roles. Preternaturally mature and adorable, Fanning has also appeared in the comedies Sweet Home, Alabama (2002, with Reese Witherspoon) and Uptown Girls (2003), Steven Spielberg's TV mini-series Taken (2002) and the live-action version of Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat (2003, with Mike Myers). In 2004 she co-starred with Denzel Washington in the revenge drama Man on Fire, and in 2007 she found herself in the middle of a dust-up over a violent rape scene in the movie Hounddog.
Extra credit: Dakota's younger sister, Elle, is also an actress and has appeared with her in Taken, and I Am Sam.
