How does Hollywood see you, Elle? And is it how you want to be seen?

ELLE FANNING When I was 14, I was cast as Sleeping Beauty in Maleficent, and that phone call definitely changed my life and my trajectory and it differentiated me from my sister [Dakota]. That role is very important to me, but also it’s a Disney princess, and I’m this blond and it comes with a certain stigma, right? And that’s the biggest movie I’ve done, so I’m recognized most for it. What was exciting for me about The Great was getting to try out the comedy world. People think of me as doing these serious, dramatic roles or just playing the kid, and I feel like I’m a funny person in real life and I love shocking people and proving that I’m not exactly who they think I am.

Elle, there are a lot of sex scenes in The Great, but there’s considerably more male nudity than female. How does that change a dynamic on set?

FANNING It’s interesting, Catherine the Great, in real life, was kind of the first woman who was slut-shamed. I mean, the whole horse rumor [that she possibly had sex with a horse] was created because she loved sex, she was very open and had multiple lovers. Obviously, our story is not a historical document, but a lot of truths are in it, and that’s a big part of Catherine’s character, so sex is incorporated into the show a lot. And of course it’s a period show, so we’re corseted up with multiple layers of skirts and just the logistics of actually getting naked — for the women, it takes a long time. So everyone’s just having fully clothed sex. It’s like, “All right, girls, we’re going to just lift up your skirt, and that’s fine.” And there was an intimacy coordinator on set, which was new to me.

SEDARIS Wow.

I have added some more new magazine scans featuring to Elle Fanning. More are coming!

Fanning discusses her new Hulu series, TikTok dances, how to perfect the poached egg and her reality TV obsession

In late March, Elle Fanning was supposed to go off to Budapest to film The Nightingale, based on Kristin Hannah’s bestselling novel about two sisters struggling to survive in Nazi-occupied France. Her co-star—for the first time since they made plays together at home as toddlers—was meant to be her older sister, Dakota, who is four years her senior.

But, as happened with most Hollywood movies and television series in production during the COVID-19 crisis, just a few days before the siblings were set to depart from Los Angeles for Hungary, shooting on The Nightingale was canceled, its release date postponed indefinitely.

“We’ve dreamed of this for a long time, and we talked for a while about what project could get us together,” says the 22-year-old Fanning, who underlines that they will star in The Nightingale at some point in the future. “We thought maybe we didn’t want to play sisters, but we’ve grown up in this industry and have a unique understanding of what it means to be sisters. So, at least the sister part we’ve got down.”

Though they were already quite close, at the moment, they are closer than ever, hunkered down at the family home in California’s San Fernando Valley, where Fanning usually lives with her mother and grandmother when she’s not filming somewhere on location. Now, Dakota, who was recently living in New York City, is bunking there, too.

“It’s a rare occasion that we get to be together,” Fanning says. “So we’re enjoying each other’s company.”

It will be easy, then, for the entire Fanning family to have a premiere party for her new series, The Great, which they can all binge together on Hulu. On the show, Fanning stars as a young Catherine the Great, sowing her seeds in a new marriage to Russia’s Peter III, played by Nicholas Hoult.

I have added some new magazine scans of Elle Fanning to the gallery. More are coming!

On IMDb’s new podcast, ‘Movies That Changed My Life,’ the star of Hulu’s ‘The Great’ opens up on just that — the films she watched growing up that influenced her career.

Elle Fanning is allergic the phrase “strong female characters.”

That’s what the star of Hulu’s new MRC-produced series The Great explained on the latest episode of IMDb’s newly launched podcast Movies That Changed My Life.

“What does that mean?” Fanning asked, in reference to her character Catherine, as in Cathering the Great, to host Ian de Borja, best known for his work on The IMDb Show. She wanted to show all sides to the historical figure, who gets a reimagining in the Tony McNamara-created series in which she stars opposite Nicholas Hoult. “I was really aware that I wanted to humanize her. She makes mistakes; sometimes she waivers, sometimes she’s weak and sometimes she’s incredibly brave. There’s room for that on TV — to have complicated female characters.”

There’s nothing complicated about Movies That Changed My Life. The weekly series features actors and filmmakers discussing the movies that inspired them and helped launch their careers. The podcast joins other popular IMDb original video series including The IMDb Show, IMDbrief and What to Watch. The inaugural episode features Westworld’s Jeffrey Wright, who was followed by Joel McHale, Judy Greer, Felicia Day and Kevin Smith.

New episodes come out every Thursday wherever podcasts are found, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, IMDb.com/podcasts and through IMDb’s iOS and Android apps.

Says Nikki Santoro, head of IMDb Consumer: “These personal and in-depth conversations with our customers’ favorite actors and filmmakers will reveal the defining moments in their lives, ultimately providing listeners with a greater understanding of their favorite performers, as well as recommendations for new films to add to their IMDb Watchlists.”

On the episode with Fanning, she also dishes on her upcoming film The Nightingale, a role that put her opposite sister Dakota for the first time in their careers; how the first time she watched The Neverending Story was with Bijou Phillips at Sean Lennon’s apartment next to John Lennon’s piano; and how she would dress up as the iconic Sandy while watching Grease. To listen to Fanning, click here. [Source]

With a starring role in a new Hulu series, Fanning is now in the driver’s seat of her career, taking on edgier and more ambitious parts.

“The Great” is, in many ways, Elle Fanning’s star-making turn.

Sure, she’s been famous for about a decade, but always with the wide-eyed wonder that accompanies youthful renown. When cannibals were eating her in “The Neon Demon,” her mother was stationed nearby on the set, supervising her 17-year-old daughter’s employment. She was there when Fanning dined opposite Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” ice-skated to Gwen Stefani in “Somewhere,” got alien-abducted in “Super 8,” experienced her first kiss in “Ginger & Rosa,” charmed a devilish Angelina Jolie in “Maleficent” and took a pregnancy test in “20th Century Women.”

Her parents no longer convoy her during shoots, which is probably for the best: “The Great” finds Fanning at her most adult, playing an anachronistic Catherine the Great discovering her own sexual and ideological moxie. Good thing Mom stayed home when it came time for Fanning’s big seduction scene in the second episode of the limited series, which premieres on Hulu this weekend. She was 21 at the time, having gained autonomy after years of consulting her folks on every career move.

“I was just so excited because I knew that I was pushing myself in another direction that I’d really never gone,” Fanning said during a Zoom interview last month. “I feel like I’m someone that loves being under pressure. I love feeling terrified and I thrive in those situations. And this certainly put me in those positions.”

Part of that had to do with the material. “The Great” is a dark comedy, and Fanning had never done comedy before. Tony McNamara wrote eight of the 10 episodes, channelling the same satirical spirit he brought to “The Favourite,” another farce about an 18th-century monarch. Fanning needed to capture the nuances of someone who has come of age without understanding the harshness of the real world. At once naive and headstrong, Catherine arrives in Russia for an arranged marriage to the buffoonish emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult). As a woman, she’s entitled to very little power. She can’t even open a library. She’ll have to force her way to the top by manipulating her husband’s intellectual shortcomings.

The Great is the latest historical drama to revisit the life and rule of Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Unlike previous versions, however, creator and the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Favourite Tony McNamara makes no apologies about its satirical take and disregard for historical accuracy in the stylish and bitingly funny Hulu series starring Elle Fanning as a younger version of the aspiring ruler adjusting to royal life as wife to Emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult).

Believing she’s marrying for love, a wide-eyed Catherine is shocked to learn that she’s seen as nothing more than a means to an heir when she arrives in Russia. Over the course of the season, with the aid of her servant, Marial (Phoebe Fox), and other newfound allies in court, the disenchanted consort sets out to kill her horrible husband and uproot the depraved kingdom she’s come to call home.

Similar to The Favourite, the series mixes humor, wit and a modern point of view with plenty of sex and nudity to bring to life this darkly funny version of events. “That’s so unique to Tony,” Fanning tells ET’s Katie Krause about McNamara turning this entire world on its head. “It’s just such a fascinating way to tell that story.” Hoult agrees, applauding McNamara for transforming a genre of “dull and dry” period dramas. “This felt just completely different to all those.”

If there are any other comparisons to McNamara’s film about Queen Anne, which also starred Hoult as Earl Robert Harley, it’s all in tone. “Tony’s voice is so idiosyncratic. Having done The Favourite, I did recognize the kind of rhythm and the pacing and that humor that is in this show,” Hoult continues, adding that Peter was “a really fun role to inhabit.”

There’s something to be said, given all Catherine the Great did in her lifetime as the late 18th-century ruler of Russia, that the unfortunate bestiality rumor — you know, the one about the horse — remains.

“Fake news,” said Elle Fanning on the Variety After Show, presented by National Geographic, on Instagram Live. “It’s pretty sad [that] this extraordinary, almost — dare I say — first feminist icon has been reduced to this horse rumor,” she said.

Fanning plays the Russian empress in her new Hulu satirical series, “The Great,” which kicks off with Catherine’s arrival in the country to wed the mercurial, temperamental Peter (Nicholas Hoult). Her optimism about the union is quickly dissolved as Hoult’s Peter soon reveals his capacity for cruelty and selfishness, leading to her plans for a coup. The show, as Variety critic Caroline Framke puts it, “straddles the line between period drama and slapstick comedy with acrobatic ease.”

“We’re definitely in the pocket of that dark comedy, and [creator] Tony [McNamara]’s writing is so specific and witty and irreverent,” said Fanning. “It’s so fun to play with, but you have to get the tone right — especially the rhythm of the words needs to be at a certain pace. And I think it was so important for us — the whole cast is so gifted dramatically and comedically — so we were able to go back and forth and walk that tightrope.”

Hello there, I hope everyone is keeping safe.

Just a small update here to know how everybody is. I really hope you and your families are fine and safe.

Situation here in my country is a few better, but my personal situation is still the same. I must admit that I am afraid of this virus, maybe because I am a risk person, so, I feel safe at home.

I am still working on the site, trying to upload all the stuff that I have inside my hard disks (a lot). Hope everyone is enjoying the updates and hope to make some great moments to the people who are bored at home. So, if you want to make some suggestions, ask for stuff to be added first…or just to talk, please, feel free to contact me.

Also, I really want to keep my site and I am trying my best; but with this situation, it is so difficult so, if you want to help to maintain this site online, please, feel free to go here to donate. Every little bit helps! I need to pay host monthly so, every single dollar would be a great help to me right now.

Thanks to everyone who visit the site. I would like to send you a big hug to you all.

Anne

Dakota and Elle Fanning have both been in show business since they were very young, but they’ve never really shared the screen together. All that will change when they take on their roles as sisters Vianne and Isabelle in the film adaptation of Kristin Hannah’s bestseller, Nightingale.

Though they both appeared in 2001’s I Am Sam, Elle, 22, tells ET’s Katie Krause that she doesn’t count that as sharing the screen with her older sis.

“Technically, in I Am Sam I played her at a younger age, so we weren’t really acting together and I was so young, so yeah, this is the first,” she says of her upcoming role in Nightingale.

The story follows two sisters torn apart at the start of World War II.

“Your sister knows you more than anyone. She can sniff anything out of you, she can push your buttons more than anybody,” Elle adds. “It’s like that dynamic is so special and unique, you’re family more than anybody. That’s the closest, she is my closest person. The book really explores that. They’re a bit misunderstood more in the book but still we have that foundation. That we won’t have to work hard for, that’ll be there.”

Unfortunately, the film was just about to start production when the coronavirus pandemic hit, putting a halt to filming on almost all major shows and movies.

“We haven’t shot it yet, so that’s the thing. We were about to go shoot and then everything happened, so it was kinda put to a halt and I know as much as you,” Elle admits.

But that doesn’t mean the actress isn’t busy. Even while quarantined at home with her family in Los Angeles, Elle is hard at work promoting her new Hulu period dramedy series, The Great, in which she plays Catherine the Great.

She co-stars alongside Nicholas Hoult, who was also on the video call to talk about their hilarious new project.

“Tony McNamara, who is our showrunner, creator, wrote the pilot and is the man,” Elle says of The Favourite scribe. “His tone and irreverence and just that dark humor is completely up my alley… It’s just such a fascinating way to tell that story full of humor and really delicious language. That’s so unique to Tony. And just Catherine as a character, I absolutely loved playing her. It was just the ultimate gift to be a part of this show and get to bring her to life and show our version of Catherine.”