At 21, she’s already a seasoned Hollywood pro. This month, she adds YA romance All the Bright Places on Netflix to her impressive oeuvre, with even greater things to come.

I meet Elle Fanning in a London hotel restaurant, where she jumps up to hug me the minute I arrive. It is noon on Sunday, “so should we order breakfast or lunch?” she asks the waiter, who is just as uncertain. He says she probably knows the menu better than he does by now, given that she’s been living here for six months while filming Hulu’s forthcoming show The Great, about Catherine the Great. I tell her I want this interview to be a natural conversation rather than a recitation of a list of questions. “Oh, good,” she says, her blond hair falling onto the straps of her babydoll petticoat dress, a smudge of last night’s mascara under one eye. “Interviews terrify me! No matter how comfortable you feel or how lovely the person, it’s still like, what I say is gonna be out there forever.”

Fanning began her career at age two, playing the younger version of her elder sister, Dakota Fanning, in various screen productions. By the age of four, she was winning her own parts, such as a cheeky preschooler in the Eddie Murphy film Daddy Day Care. (I rewatched it recently; you can already see the talent in the wide-eyed, imaginative kid who seems to be following the script intuitively.) By 2005, she was playing the child of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett’s characters in Babel, reuniting with the pair three years later in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Her grandmother homeschooled her and chaperoned her on film and TV sets. (Her mom did the same with Dakota.) Yet in Fanning’s mind, she tells me, she was still simply playing. At home, initially in Georgia until the family moved to L.A. for the girls’ work, she and Dakota were “always dressing up and having these elaborate fantasies that we would play out,” so she hadn’t fully understood this was also a career. When Fanning was nine and cast as a girl with Tourette’s syndrome in Phoebe in Wonderland, she was taken by the director to meet children with the same condition for research. Something clicked, and she could almost see her future. “I realized, Oh, this is a job, and I’m telling someone’s story, and there is a responsibility of getting it right,” says Fanning.

She is such easy company, with a certain bubbly innocence. You can see why Disney cast her as Princess Aurora against Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent. It’s a role she first took on at age 14, but she’s 21 now, and after doing last fall’s sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, she and Jolie are on different terms. “Angelina’s and my relationship definitely changed. She didn’t have to look at me as a kid; she didn’t have to censor what she could talk about.” She laughs. “That was exciting, to have that relationship.”

At 21 years old, actress Elle Fanning has an impressive list of credits under her belt. Appearing on the silver screen at just three years old, she most recently stole our hearts as Princess Aurora in Disney sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, a character she first portrayed at 16.

Outside of the cinema, the Hollywood princess have also had an affinity for fashion and beauty—specifically with Italian fashion house Miu Miu, for which Elle made her runway debut at Paris Fashion Week last year. Now, the long-time friend of Miu Miu is also the face of the house’s latest fragrance, the Miu Miu Twist. The campaign, released earlier this year, saw Elle hopping from one set to another, being her quirky self as she amuses herself with puns related to Miu Miu.

We catch up with the starlet to talk about being a muse, her relationship with sister Dakota Fanning, and the best advice that Angelina Jolie has given her.

Elle and Dakota Fanning will play onscreen sisters in TriStar Pictures’ adaptation of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale.

The best-selling novel tells the story of two sisters coming of age in France on the eve of World War II and their struggle to survive and resist the German occupation of France. It was inspired by the courageous women of the French Resistance who helped downed Allied airmen escape Nazi-occupied territory and hid Jewish children.

Melanie Laurent, who worked with Elle Fanning on the drama Galveston, will direct from a script by Dana Stevens. Elizabeth Cantillon is producing through her Cantillon Company banner.

“The Nightingale will be the first time we act on screen together. We have played the same character at different ages but have never spoken to each other in front of a camera. For years, we have looked for a film to do with one another and then this gem appeared,” the Fannings said Wednesday in a joint statement. “As sisters, to share our artistry with each other while bringing such a powerful sister story to life is a dream come true. We are so lucky to have our fearless director, Melanie Laurent, to guide us along on the journey. Let’s do this, sister!!”

Elle Fanning was last in theaters in Disney’s Maleficent sequel, Mistress of Evil, and will next be seen in the Netflix movie All the Bright Places. She is set to star as Catherine the Great in the Hulu miniseries The Great.

Dakota Fanning most recently appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and will next be seen in the TNT series Angel of Darkness.

The sisters are repped by WME, Echo Lake and Hanson Jacobson. Laurent is repped by WME and France’s UBBA. [Source]

Elle Fanning covers Glamour Spain, December issue. You can go to the gallery to take a look to the scans. Don’t forget to buy the magazine.

Elle Fanning covers InStyle Spain, December issue. You can go to the gallery to take a look to the scans. Don’t forget to buy the magazine.

Finally, I got the time to organize and upload the photoshoots of Elle Fanning from 2019. I have added the photos to the gallery and I love these ones. I wish to have some money to get a new layout here.

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Elle Fanning covers InStyle USA, November issue. You can go to the gallery to take a look to the scans. Don’t forget to buy the magazine.