Dakota Blue Richards was born on April 11, 1994 in South Kensington, London, England. She is an actress, known for The Golden Compass (2007), The Secret of Moonacre (2008) and Dustbin Baby (2008). Ten thousand girls turned up for open auditions in Cambridge, Oxford, Exeter and Kendal for the role of Lyra Belacqua in the adaptation of 'His Dark Materials: Northern Lights'. In June 2006, twelve-year-old Dakota, a Londoner schoolgirl, was awarded the part after the casting directors took a shine to her in the Cambridge auditions. Her name, Dakota, is the name of a North American tribe who are native to the northern plains states of the USA. Her dream role is as Alice in "Alice in Wonderland", and she was originally going to audition for Alice in Wonderland (2010) but found out later that director Tim Burton wanted an adult actress. Hadn't read "The Little White Horse" before she was cast in the movie adaptation (The Secret of Moonacre (2008)) but read it on a flight to Hungary, where she would film the movie. Since 2010 she has supported Action For Children, the first charity in the UK to help vulnerable youth break through injustice and deprivation. In 2008, Dakota Blue attended a two-week camp at Lake District organized by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Commission's aim was to bring together teenagers from different backgrounds to discuss discrimination.
She had just come home grumpy from a bad day at school when The Golden Compass (2007) director Chris Weitz called her. Dakota's mother tried to put him on speaker phone, but accidentally hung up on him. Weitz called back and informed them of the good news. Traveled from her home in Brighton to Cambridge for the Lyra auditions under one condition: that she wouldn't be too upset if she was passed over. The makers of The Golden Compass (2007) sent Philip Pullman(Author of His Dark Materials trilogy) footage of their 40 favored girls who'd auditioned for the role of Lyra. He personally endorsed the two that he favored, one of them being Dakota Blue Richards. At the age of 13, she was cast in The Secret of Moonacre (2008) through an audition that lasted for merely one day. By the premiere of The Golden Compass (2007), the Secret of Moonacre had already been filmed. In 2011 Dakota Blue Richards posed naked for Oceans 2012, a campaign against overfishing. Dakota Blue backs The Young Actors Group, a Brighton-based acting school that opened in 2014. This acting school gives children and teenagers the training to work professionally on stage and screen.
Dakota Blue Richards
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