Dafne Keen, the Spanish-British actress who starred as Laura/X-23 opposite Hugh Jackman in the 2017 film Logan, said she was offered cocaine at Hollywood wrap parties when she was 11, 12 and 13 years old.
Speaking on the Nov. 3 episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast Inside of You, the 21-year-old described the offers as part of the adult party culture she encountered as a child actor. “I was getting offered coke at wrap parties,” Keen said. “Like, tiny. Like 11, 12, 13. So I saw what that was, so I was like, ‘I don’t really have any interest in that’… I was saying no, fortunately.”
Keen, born Jan. 4, 2005, in Madrid, linked the experience to her decision to avoid heavy drinking and drugs. She said she has never been drunk enough to get a hangover and described herself as “such a control freak with that.” As a teenager she sometimes told peers she had already taken something so they would stop pressuring her, while remaining sober. She still goes out late for music and dancing but stays completely sober.
In the same interview Keen praised Jackman for the way he looked after her on the Logan set. She called him “the best number one you could ever wish for” and “the best on-screen dad.” He felt “like a sort of parental figure,” she said. Jackman made sure no one abused her limited working hours as a minor, that she was having fun, and that she remained unaware of any tensions behind the scenes. “He was so incredibly protective and amazing,” Keen said.
Keen filmed Logan at age 11. The R-rated movie opened in early 2017 shortly after her 12th birthday. She has said the production treated her like a respectable artist whose opinions on scenes were taken seriously. California child-labor rules limit minors’ hours and require studio teachers; Keen’s comments suggest the set followed those protections closely.
Her path to the role was competitive. Keen began auditioning at 10 and reached a final stage alongside Millie Bobby Brown. The two young actors met at a hotel before the screen test. Keen, already friendly with Brown, thought she had no chance. “She’s gonna book it, like there’s no way I’m booking it,” she recalled thinking. Keen got the part after a memorable audition that included physical work with Jackman.
After Logan’s release, Keen faced unwanted attention in Madrid. She described adult male fans sending letters, Bibles and music boxes to her home and showing up at her small school with cameras. Some followed her there. “It was terrifying,” she said. She credited advice from her grandmother for keeping perspective: a bad person is like someone with a drum in a waiting room—loud, but outnumbered by quieter, respectful people.
Keen made her screen debut at age 10 in the 2015 BBC series The Refugees with her father, English actor Will Keen. Her mother is Spanish actress and director María Fernández Ache. She later played Lyra Belacqua in His Dark Materials, appeared in Star Wars: The Acolyte, and returned as X-23 in Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024. She is set to appear as Artemis in Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
Keen has not identified the people who offered her cocaine or the specific productions involved. Her account adds one more voice to ongoing discussions about the gap between formal protections for child actors on set and the informal industry environments they sometimes enter.
