From her early years of child stardom to her current status as a leading lady, ELLE FANNING has achieved more than many actors twice her age. She has flexed comedic muscles as an empress in The Great – which garnered her two Golden Globe nominations – launched a production company with her sister Dakota, and is now stepping into the role of a convicted criminal. Here, the actor talks to MARTHA HAYES about defying expectations and why she’s cautious of the pernicious power of social media

Elle Fanning is reminiscing about the mid-2000s, when she and her older sister Dakota would get mobbed walking around Universal Studios in Hollywood. “If one person saw Dakota [then a child star known for her roles in Uptown Girls and Charlotte’s Web], it was a spiral effect,” she shares over lunch at a Los Angeles deli close to her home in the Valley.

“I wasn’t getting recognized, but I was part of the madness. I’d be like, ‘Dakota! Dakota!’ to try and make it happen.” She rolls her eyes, visibly cringing at her seven-year-old self. “I was the worst.”

By the time she was 12, Fanning – who made her screen debut aged two playing a younger version of Dakota’s character in I Am Sam (2001) – had a dedicated fan base of her own, following her breakout roles in Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere and J.J. Abrams’ sci-fi smash hit Super 8. In the past decade, she has gone on to cultivate a career many veteran actors only dream about, starring in multi-million-dollar blockbusters (such as Maleficent and its sequel) and working with respected art-house auteurs, such as Nicolas Winding Refn in psychological horror The Neon Demon.

Now Fanning is turning 25, it would be clichéd to call this stage of her career a ‘coming of age’ – nevertheless, she has certainly hit a new era. She can now play a mother; she can still play a schoolgirl. And this year she is doing both. The former is, of course, the role of Catherine, the 18th-century Empress of Russia in satirical drama The Great, which has been confirmed for a third series and for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe. The latter is the lead in the true-crime drama The Girl from Plainville.
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Elle Fanning was beyond focused when it came time to play Michelle Carter, the teen who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging her boyfriend, Conrad Roy III (played by Colton Ryan), to end his life.

The court case was splashed all over the news in 2017, so Fanning had footage to study when preparing for Hulu’s “The Girl From Plainville.” However, that wasn’t what she spent hours watching. Instead, she binged “Glee,” which was Carter’s favorite show, so much so that it took over parts of her life.

“She was a huge ‘Glee’ fan. I had seen the show, but I watched a lot of it on set. Reading the pilot, in the last scene she’s singing ‘Make You Feel My Love,’ mimicking Lea Michele’s grief. Lea’s grief was real in the show; she’s also mourning her real-life boyfriend,” Fanning tells Variety. “I’ve never met her, but I know every mannerism that she does in that scene. I have a legal pad of notes. I wrote down every time she blinked, every time she moved her hand with each word to mimic the emotion. It was a real exercise. I felt really connected to her, because I feel like I’ve seen her grieve. It was very meta.”

At the end of the first episode of “The Girl From Plainville,” Fanning sings the song to herself in the mirror, pausing only to rewatch the “Glee” episode to make sure she was getting the motions down.

“As an actor, I was very eager to commit it, but I also knew how important it was for the story because I think the series turns and you start questioning Michelle’s motives in a way,” Fanning continues, noting that Carter overly dramatizes things in her life. “I think our show threads the needle of those Y.A. themes, but we’re trying to do the opposite. We’re trying to completely not sensationalize this story. But at the same time, Michelle is kind of being she’s the star in her own TV show or in her own Y.A. movie.”

The balance between fantasy and real life was something that Fanning, who has been acting for more than 20 years, can relate to.
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