Dafne Keen was an instant breakout as Laura Kinney the mini mutant in the 2017 film, Logan. While the movie was a strong farewell to Hugh Jackman‘s interpretation of the Wolverine signaling an end to the mutant, Keen delighted many fans with her magical portrayal as Logan’s heir.
Following that phenomenal portrayal, she was poised to take on whatever big opportunities that came her way. And did they come? Yes, A slew of them. And she snagged all including Ana which she is currently filming. She is set to star in a timely franchise of her own in an adaptation of His Dark Materials. Join me on this voyage of amazing discovery as we explore the story of this prodigy.
Who is Dafne Keen? Age
Named Dafne Keen Fernández, the prodigy was born sometime in 2005 to a British father, Will Keen, and a Spanish mother, María Fernández Ache. She has a fair command of both languages which helped her land the role of the pre-teen Latina mutant besides her martial arts and acrobatics skills. She was only 11 then and was mostly mute on set but when she did speak, it was a torrent of fiery in brief bouts of Spanish.
Her parents are both in showbiz and thus she quickly acclimatized to the screens at a young age. Before her 10th birthday, Dafne had already made her silver screen debut. She appeared alongside her father as Ana “Ani” Cruz Oliver in the television series The Refugees in 2014 through the eight-episode single season.
Then in 2017, she made her film debut with an epoch-making role as the mutant child of the wolverine mutant X-23 aka Laura Kinney in the Marvel superhero flick, Logan. The 2017 film is the 10th installment in the X-Men film franchise and has been deemed by critics the best superhero movie ever. The blockbuster was equally a commercial success with $600 million in the box office worldwide.
Although it was a fitting end to the iconic Wolverine, Jackman’s character, the fierce newcomer Dafne arises as a star and has left us a lot to explore as the new potential Wolverine. Moreover, Patrick Stewart who reprised his role as leader Professor Charles Xavier and the film director James Mangold were full of praises for the child mutant with Mangold dubbing her a remarkable kid and a method actor of 11 years of age.
Keen, besides the many acclamations also garnered a number of nominations including Critics’ Choice Movie Awards for Best Young Performer, Chicago Film Critics Association for Most Promising Performer, and 2018 Houston Film Critics Society for Best Supporting Actress. Furthermore, she won the Empire Awards for Best Female Newcomer and the MTV Movie & TV Awards Best Duo along with Hugh Jackman.
Having inherited Wolverine’s intensity and explosivity, not to mention sick combat skills, she is set to take the stage in her own supernatural franchise. She is gearing up for an eight-episode adaptation of the Philip Pullman trilogy, Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper’s His Dark Materials. Therein, she would portray the heroine Lyra, an orphan girl who slips into a parallel universe and makes some supernatural friends. The series would also co-star Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lyra’s friend, the aeronaut Lee Scoresby.
Dafne Keen’s Parents
The starlet comes from an acting family and has proven that she is her father’s daughter. Her father is a British actor known as Thomas Cranmer in the British television series Wolf Hall and Michael Adeane on Netflix’s The Crown while her mother is a Spanish actress, theater director, and writer. She is credited for her role in the Brit gangster film Anti-Social (2015) which co-starred the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle.
Her other relatives also attained fame in their own right and include her paternal great-grandfather, Edward Curzon, 6th Earl Howe.
Having attained celebrity status in the entertainment sphere, whatever it would take to make their daughter attain the same, is a sacrifice worth making. While auditioning for her role as Laura, the Keens helped her to seek out Shane and Mangold’s 2005 biopic on Johnny Cash Walk the Line both of which influenced the violent R-rated flick.
The actress, who stands at 4’11” also enjoys ballet, singing, acrobatics, apart from acting and she is also an award-winning gymnast.
