Dakota Blue Richards

Born            :  11 April 1994
Occupation  :  Actress

Personal Life

Dakota Blue Richards born 11 April 1994 is an English actress. Her debut was in the film The Golden Compass, as the lead character Lyra Belacqua. She was also cast as the lead of another two movies, Dustbin Baby and The Secret of Moonacre, the latter of which was released February 2009. She also played the character Franky Fitzgerald in the third Generation of the BAFTA winning, E4 television series Skins.

Richards was born in South Kensington, London, the daughter of Ruby Richards, a social worker. She is of German descent through her grandmother. She was named Dakota Blue because her mother wanted a combination of a place-name and a colour. Dakota was inspired by the Sioux tribe, members of whom her mother had become friends with during a year in the U.S. (her mother also liked the fact that it was unusual as a name) and Blue was Dakota's father's nickname, and her mother thought it went well with Dakota.

The family moved to Brighton shortly after Dakota was born. At school she took very few drama classes and she was not an active participant in class assemblies or school plays. She missed out on the part of Mary in the nativity play. When she was 11, she moved onto the nearby K-BIS Theatre School. She had always enjoyed acting, but considered it "just a fun little hobby thing" and "never really thought [she]'d get into doing it professionally". She attended Newlands School in Seaford from year 8 up to year 11  and Brighton College until 2012, where she completed her A-levels in Psychology, Philosophy and Politics.