Saoirse Ronan reveals lookalike Hollywood actress she was pitted against for roles

Saoirse Ronan has revealed the lookalike starlet she was pitted against for roles when she was coming up in Hollywood.

The 30-year-old shot to fame when she was 13, earning an Oscar nomination for her role in Atonement alongside Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.

But in the early years of her success, Saoirse found herself being placed in competition with another blonde actress her age.

In fact, the child star in question is just two months older than Saoirse and was also heaped with acclaim for her underage performances.

The other actress reportedly auditioned for The Lovely Bones, which ended up being one of Saoirse's first major movies in the aftermath of Atonement, via IMDb.

Now Saoirse has shared that she 'would love' to perform alongside her former rival, in a new interview for the Elle Women In Hollywood Issue. 

'For a while, it was me and Dakota Fanning. And I would love for Dakota and I to work together,' Saoirse shared with the magazine.

Dakota was only seven when she became a household name for playing the daughter of Sean Penn's mentally disabled character in the 2001 drama I Am Sam. 

I Am Sam made her the youngest nominee in the history of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, assuring her position as one of Hollywood's premiere child stars.

Saoirse has now vaunted Dakota as 'one of the reasons why I got into acting in the first place, because when I was really young, she was working from such an early age, and I used to watch her stuff.'

She added: 'So to feel like: "Oh, there’s space for all of us now," where there’s still healthy competition, I think it’s great.'

The 2007 film Atonement, adapted from a novel by Ian McEwan, featured Saoirse as a teenage girl called Briony who makes a false accusation that destroys a man's life.

She catapulted to international stardom in the picture, earning an Oscar nod for best supporting actress but losing to Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton. 

Amid her first rush of fame, Susie landed the coveted role of Susie Salmon in Peter Jackson's 2009 movie The Lovely Bones.

Based on a novel of the same name by Alice Sebold, the film starred Saoirse as a teenager watching her family from the afterlife after being raped and murdered.

Dakota reportedly auditioned to head the cast of The Lovely Bones, which was ultimately both a critical and commercial failure - though Saoirse was widely praised for her performance.

The year The Lovely Bones released, Dakota could be heard in the title role of the stop-motion animated movie Coraline.

Adapted from a beloved children's book by Neil Gaiman, Coraline - by contrast to The Lovely Bones - was both a box office hit and a critical darling. 

Saoirse has enjoyed an acclaimed adult career, earning three further Oscar nods for the 2015 film Brooklyn, the 2017 film Lady Bird and the 2019 film Little Women.

She was showered with plaudits this year for her performance as an alcoholic in The Outrun, a movie she also helped produce.

Meanwhile, Dakota received an Emmy nomination this year for Ripley, the Netflix miniseries based on the 1955 Patricia Highsmith novel The Talented Mr. Ripley.