Starting her career at a fairly young age, Dafne Keen has already been in a number of fantastic movies and shows. Born in 2005, the Spanish and British actress got her start at just ten years old in the TV series, The Refugees. After that, she had her breakthrough with 2017’s Logan as Wolverine’s daughter, Laura (X-23). After her initial role as Laura, Dafne Keen appeared in a handful of other projects, including leading the BBC One/HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials, and found a place within the Star Wars franchise with her great role in The Acolyte.
She returned to her role of X-23 for ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, and has expressed interest in playing the character in future MCU projects. Despite still being so early in her career, Dafne Keen has built an impressive resume as an actor, and looks to have a bright future in Hollywood with the upcoming horror film, Whistle. There is a lot to like about Dafne Keen’s filmography so far, with some truly fantastic projects already to her name.
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The Refugees (2015)
Dafne Keen as Ana “Ani” Cruz Oliver
Every actor has to start somewhere in their career, and for Dafne Keen, her first role came in the TV series, The Refugees, in 2015. The series revolves around a rural community faced with millions of refugees who come from the future, seeking shelter in the present. It’s an interesting premise but doesn’t quite explore it to its fullest, running for only one season for a total of eight episodes. It’s still a solid entry in Dafne Keen’s filmography, but also the weakest of the bunch.
Despite only being 10 years old at the time, Dafne Keen already showed a lot of promise with her performance, with glimpses of greatness she would show the world just a few years later. One of the coolest aspects of Dafne Keen in The Refugees is that she acted alongside her father, Will Keen, who was one of the series’ leads.
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Ana (2020)
Dafne Keen as Ana
Released in 2020, Ana tells the story of a used car salesman taking a young girl on a road trip after being placed in his care. It’s set in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, highlighting the struggles they faced after. It’s a tender, heartfelt film about two people who are so different from each other, but begin to form a familial bond throughout.
Ana was sH๏τ entirely in Puerto Rico with an all-Puerto Rican crew.
Despite being released in 2020, Ana was actually sH๏τ just a few months after Logan came out, which marks the first acting job for Dafne Keen after Logan. Her performance as Ana is a highlight of the film, showing vulnerability and toughness in equal parts, taking on a character that shares similarities to her role as Laura in Logan, but with even more differences. Dafne Keen continued to show how good of a child actor she actually was.
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The Acolyte (2024)
Dafne Keen as Jecki Lon
Star Wars has grown incredibly divisive over the years, and The Acolyte got the full wrath from those who despise everything that Disney has done with the franchise. Still, The Acolyte isn’t nearly as bad as many might be led to believe. In fact, it is pretty good, existing as the earliest movie or show in the timeline, showing off the High Republic and having some of the best fight choreography from the entire franchise. On top of that, Dafne Keen was really great in it.
One aspect of The Acolyte that is undeniable is how great Dafne Keen is in her role as Jecki Lon, a padawan that is shown to be incredibly skilled with a lightsaber. Keen is more stoic than ever as Jecki, but she does an admirable job and her ending on the show is both incredibly cool and also quite tragic, with one of the best lightsaber duels in the entire franchise.
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ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine (2024)
Dafne Keen as Laura / X-23
Seven years after Dafne Keen’s breakthrough in Logan, she returned to her role of X-23 for ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine. It proved a smart move as ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine became the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time, and one of Marvel’s biggest films ever. Featuring a multiverse-spanning plot, ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine had all the gleeful, violent wackiness ᴀssociated with ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool, while marking the return of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Though Dafne Keen reprises her breakthrough role, Laura doesn’t get nearly as much screen time as she did in Logan.
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Dafne Keen as Laura / X-23 |
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Logan |
2017 |
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ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine |
2024 |
Still, Keen shows that she still has what it takes to play the character, retaining a lot of her signature physicality during her fight scenes, while also being able to communicate with Jackman’s Wolverine on a much deeper level, given how much older the character is now. The decision to keep her as the same variant that was featured in Logan was brilliant, and with the door open for her possible return in the future, ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine could be the next stepping stone in her career.
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His Dark Materials (2019-2022)
Dafne Keen as Lyra Belacqua
His Dark Materials was the first major acting role for Dafne Keen after her breakthrough performance in Logan. Based on the trilogy of novels by Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials is an underrated fantasy series, following the story of Lyra Belacqua, an orphan who is searching for a missing friend. The series ran for three seasons, adapting all three books in the trilogy to strong reviews, carving out its place alongside other top-tier fantasy adaptations.
She is tasked with carrying His Dark Materials on her shoulders for most of its runtime, and she lives up to the pressure, delivering an exciting, nuanced performance that captures the spirit of the source material.
Dafne Keen as Lyra is a much different character than her Logan role, showing just how much talent she had at a young age. She is tasked with carrying His Dark Materials on her shoulders for most of its runtime, and she lives up to the pressure, delivering an exciting, nuanced performance that captures the spirit of the source material. If Logan wasn’t convincing enough for some reason, His Dark Materials solidified Dafne Keen as one of the best young actors out there.
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Logan (2017)
Dafne Keen as Laura / X-23
When Logan came out in 2017, it was instantly thought of as one of the greatest superhero movies of all time. Eight years later, and Logan still feels a step ahead of most of its peers, drawing more from Westerns than superheroes, telling one of the most emotionally effective stories in the genre. It initially served as the swan song for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and including his clone “daughter” Laura (X-23), was a stroke of genius.
Dafne Keen was only 12 years old when Logan came out, which makes it all the more impressive that she was one of the biggest highlights of the entire film. Barely having any speaking lines, Dafne Keen’s physicality as Laura was inspiring, as she was able to show so much of her character with so few words, embodying the same feral energy of her “Dad”, the Wolverine. Not only is Logan her best movie, it is her greatest performance.
