Dafne Keen has revealed she was offered cocaine at Hollywood wrap parties beginning when she was just 11 years old.
The actor, now 21, made the disclosure during an appearance on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast earlier this week. Keen, who broke out as the young mutant Laura in 2017’s Logan, spoke candidly about her early experiences in the entertainment industry and why she has remained sober throughout her career.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been drunk enough to even have a hangover. I’m such a control freak with that,” Keen said on the podcast. “Because also I think as a child actor I witnessed so much of that as a child that I just had no interest.”
Rosenbaum pressed her on whether she had witnessed heavy drinking on set, prompting Keen to describe the drug offers she received as a preteen. “I was getting offered coke at wrap parties,” she 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’.”
The podcast host expressed shock at her age, remarking, “11 or 12? Man, I didn’t start that early.” Keen fired back: “Well, me neither. I was saying no, fortunately.”
Despite the pressure, Keen said her social life has not suffered from abstaining. “I would say I’m a fun time,” she continued. “I don’t really need it. I’ll go out and stay out ’til 6 but sober. Just for the vibes, just ’cause I like music and I like dancing and I like people.”
The actor also admitted she developed a strategy to deflect peer pressure during her teenage years. “I did used to lie as a teenager so I wouldn’t get peer pressured,” she shared. “I’d be like, ‘Nah, I’m good. I don’t wanna drink. I already took something.’ Dead sober. Like, the goodest goody-two-shoes ever.”
Keen contrasted the party scene with her experience filming Logan, where she said the cast went out of their way to make her feel valued as a young performer. “They were all really good on that set at making me really feel like a grownup and making me really feel like a respectable artist,” she said. “My opinion really felt like it mattered. If I said I thought something about a scene, people would think about it. And I don’t know if it was fake or not, but it really felt like I was included in the process.”
Keen reprised her role as Laura opposite Hugh Jackman in last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine, returning to the character that launched her career at age 11.