Dakota Blue Richards (born 11 April 1994) is an English actress. Her debut was in the recently-released film The Golden Compass, as the lead character Lyra Belacqua, having beaten 10,000 other girls for the part. She has also been cast as the lead in another movie, The Secret of Moonacre, which is expected to be released in 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: Northen 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 mother is an American anthropologist.
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.
She had just come home grumpy from a bad day at school when 'The Golden Compass' 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.
Her name, Dakota, is the name of a North American tribe, who are native to the northern plains states of the USA.
Before being awarded the role of Lyra in "The Golden Compass", she was a fan of the His Dark Materials series, having read the books and gone to see the stage play in London.
The makers of The Golden Compass 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.
Beat out over 10,000 girls who went to the open casting calls in Cambridge, Oxford, Exeter, and Kendal for the role of Lyra.
