It's 10 a.m. on a sunny Saturday in Los Angeles, and Elle Fanning is sitting in a corner booth at Pacific Dining Car, an old restaurant frequented by Cary Grant in its heyday, talking about the curious life of a thirteen-year-old movie-star-slash-eighth-grader. She's dressed in a white poufy-sleeved Charles Anastase blouse, plaid Oliver Twist-style Rodarte pants that she wore to school the day before, and Weejuns penny loafers, which she kicks up on the banquette to show me they have actual pennies in them. "My mom used to wear the same kind when she was little!" she exclaims. Later today, she will visit her friends, the Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy, with whom she'll gab about Halloween costumes (she was the Morton Salt girl), the Katy Perry concert she recently attended, and the bar mitzvah she's going to this evening (and to which she'll wear another pair of Rodarte pants—sparkly ones—though she predicts the rest of the girls will be in miniskirts and crop tops).
Elle's life when she isn't filming a movie consists of attending a regular school ("It's not a super actor school, which is good. I like being around people who are just kids"), going to ballet class in the afternoons ("Cheerleading isn't for me"), having slumber parties with friends (she cites The Devil Wears Prada as "a great sleepover movie"), and decorating the bulletin board in her bedroom with fashion magazine tear sheets (she loves fashion, but she has "too many Marilyn Monroe posters" on her wall, so it's a small one).
Even though she's worked with Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, and two Coppolas (Francis Ford of The Godfather fame and Sofia, whom she likens to "a big sister"), Elle doesn't think she's that different from other kids her age. "Some people do piano lessons after school; I do movies," she says earnestly.
In her new film, We Bought a Zoo, she stars alongside Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, whom she says she was "so excited and sort of nervous" to meet. "I always feel like they're just a name—like they're not real at first. Then once you get to know them, you're like, That's Scarlett and Matt! It's not, like, Matt Damon." She and Scarlett, who nicknamed her Elbow, now "talk on e-mail all the time."
Elle is not a Method actress. She plays a goofy but totally endearing twelve-year-old experiencing first love in We Bought a Zoo, but, she says, "I never really pull from experience. I just sort of make believe. That's why I like acting. You can create or imagine anything. It's not like I've fallen in love," she explains, "but I've had crushes and things."
Her Hollywood crush is Ryan Gosling. ("Me and my friends saw Crazy, Stupid, Love, and we were freaking out," she gushes. "Everyone falls in love with him after that.") In real life, however, she's not interested in dating yet. "In seventh grade, it was sort of a big deal to have a boyfriend," she says. "You're not in elementary school anymore, and you feel a lot older. But you can't do anything. Your mom has to drop you off! It's sort of awkward. You're sitting here, and the parents are over there. I don't know—not for me!" The boys at her school have some catching up to do, anyway: Elle is the tallest one in her grade.
Physically speaking, Elle Fanning stopped being Dakota Fanning's "little" sister a year and a half ago, when she shot past her now-seventeen-year-old sibling in height. Professionally speaking, the thespian—who began her career at age two playing a younger Dakota in I Am Sam—came into her own after critically acclaimed roles in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere and the summer blockbuster Super 8. (Neither she nor her sister has ever taken an acting class—how's that for natural talent?) But it's Elle's sartorial growth spurt that causes her to squeal with delight.
"I remember the first time Dakota asked me for fashion advice about what to put with what," she says. "I was like, My big sister is asking me?"
It's impossible not to be charmed by Elle Fanning. She's poised, down-to-earth, full of energy and life—and one of the sunniest people you'll ever meet. She is also one of the best dressed. "Is it weird that I'm obsessed with a thirteen-year-old?" Alexa Chung once asked me. Among Elle's fashion admirers are Marc Jacobs (she starred in his fall Marc by Marc Jacobs campaign), Karl Lagerfeld (who hosted Elle, her father, and her grandma in Paris last summer for her very first fashion show, Chanel couture, bien sur), and Rodarte (with whom she's collaborated on a short film and whose dreamy clothes she wears to both school and bar mitzvahs as well as on the red carpet).
"She's the go-to fashion person in the family," Dakota readily admits. "Elle knows every single model, every single collection, every single piece from every single collection. She has a real passion, and it's not at all in a materialistic way. She genuinely appreciates the workmanship and creativity. It's funny, 'cause when you're an older sister, you try to be the leader and example, and I've recently had to accept that we're equals. The day has come when I actually need her help. I've had to admit that to myself and break down and be like, 'Little sister, does this look good?'"
"You should see my computer at home," Elle says. In lieu of Facebook and Twitter—she may be the only teenager who's on neither—she scours style.com and street-style blogs, dragging her favorite looks into desktop folders. "Even before there's a premiere, I'll know my favorite dress from one of the collections," she says. Her usual picks include Valentino and Rodarte, but she's also very excited about Louis Vuitton's spring collection. "Oh my gosh!" she shrieks. "They looked like little cupcakes and pastel pastries—so pretty!"
Unlike the majority of her classmates, who hike up their uniform skirts and wear "lots of makeup," Elle is not a fan of looking too adult. She prefers her uniform below the knees "to change it up," and she never wears lack—"well, almost never," she says. "I'd much rather look like a two-year-old than a 21-year-old." She's obsessed with Marni shoes—"the clunky ones," she explains, "because I feel like I'm too young to wear a super stiletto." Other things she deems off-limits until she's older are diamond jewels, red lipstick, and gowns. "You don't want to do everything right now," she says. "You want to wait for that special moment."
When she and Dakota attended the Met Gala last May (a first for both), Dakota wore a princess-style gown; Elle, a high-neck minidress. "I'm always quirkier!" she says. "If people say something is sort of weird, I'm like, Oh, that's a great compliment!" Consider yourself warned, Us Weekly.
So far, though, the only trouble Elle's gotten into with the tabloids is with her sister. "She steals my clothes!" Dakota protests when asked what she and Elle fight about the most. (For the record, Dakota insists they get along "really well, but I can't say we get along 100 percent of the time because we are real sisters.") "As far as I'm concerned," Dakota continues, "there's a no-closet-sharing policy, but as far as Elle is concerned. . .I'll go in my room, and there will be clothes on the floor, clothes missing, clothes that are now in her closet. Last summer," she says, "I was in London working on a film, and I was looking online and these pictures came up on my homepage. She was in my hat, my dress, my shoes. I called her up and was like, 'I caught you! They photographed you wearing all my stuff. Put it back!'" she shrills.
Yes, Elle is a talented actress, budding fashion icon, and all-around sweetheart, but she's not completely above acting her own age. Her response when Dakota confronted her? "She hung up on me!" Dakota says, laughing. "She didn't care at all."
