From drawing lessons with Jeff Bridges to red-carpet walks with Angelina Jolie, actress ELLE FANNING has led a remarkable Hollywood life – and she’s still only 17. SANJIV BHATTACHARYA meets an old head on very young shoulders.
Elle Fanning is showing me how transgender girls bind their chests to flatten their breasts. “It’s like a sports bra that you wrap around,” she says, her long, gangly arms making big circles, “only, it’s Velcro. And it really kills your back!”
Tall as a beanpole and pale as paper, Fanning arrived early for lunch today, at a vegan Thai café called H.O.P.E. in Studio City, Los Angeles. Looking quirky and elegant in a striped one-piece bathing suit, high-waisted jeans and Miu Miu platform shoes, she is full of laughter and excitement. “I had to wear one every morning,” she says. “It hurt so bad!”
Fanning is talking about her latest movie, About Ray, a family drama in which she plays a trans teen, Ramona, later Ray, who lives with her mother and grandmother (played by Naomi Watts and Susan Sarandon) in New York. It is a powerful performance that sees the petite blond actress with cropped brunette hair, lifting weights and getting into fights. “I was really nervous not to screw up, because this is for transgender kids out there,” she says. “We had trans kids at my school. They come back after the summer and you have to use different pronouns.”
Fanning is only 17; her youthful exuberance gives it away. But beneath that giggly teenage exterior is a 14-year film industry veteran, who has worked with Angelina Jolie (Maleficent), Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Annette Bening (Ginger & Rosa). She made her debut at two years old, playing the younger version of her actress sister Dakota in I Am Sam, with Sean Penn. Today, she is one of Hollywood’s hottest young stars.
Ray is one of a string of ambitious roles that Fanning has on the horizon. In Trumbo, out in November, she plays Bryan Cranston’s daughter between the ages of 13 and 30; in September, she’ll start shooting 20th Century Women, opposite her friend Bening, in a role that involves improvisation. And next year, she will play Frankenstein novelist Mary Shelley. “I know!” she squeals. “It’s such a big deal.”
It’s an impressive slate for any actress, let alone one who is still too young to order a beer. And yet, when I suggest that she is an “old soul”, she laughs. The term has been applied to herself, her older sister Dakota, now 21, and any child star who sounds like a kid on the one hand and a seasoned pro on the other. She insists that she feels “very 17”, and that her school friends just know her as “some weirdo”.
But Fanning’s maturity is undeniable. On the subject of social media, she says, “This generation is so into it, they’re always on the phone.” She has an Instagram account, but keeps it private: “Some celebrities have all of these photos and witty captions. But what if I didn’t have that and [my account] was a complete fail that no one followed?”
Her obsessions, too, are quaintly mature. Marilyn Monroe, for instance: “I have her face cream and face powder – my grandma got them for me at an auction when I was seven.” She lists Ray Charles, Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash as her favorite musicians. “You know that song, A Boy Named Sue?” she asks. “That makes me cry.”
But then Fanning has spent most of her life around adults. Her career began with wanting to emulate her sister. “It was like, if Dakota can do it, I can do it,” she says. Born into a family of athletes – her father was a pro baseball player, now a salesman; her mother a former tennis star – the siblings preferred to play dress up together instead of playing sports: “When The Devil Wears Prada came out, Dakota would be Meryl Streep and I’d play Andy. So fun.”
Fanning’s earliest memories are filled with famous names. From Daddy Daycare, she recalls Eddie Murphy joking around with her; on set for The Door in the Floor, Jeff Bridges taught her how to draw. “When you’re little, you just draw a triangle dress and stick legs,” she says. “But Jeff said, ‘No, legs should look fatter.’ Thank you, Jeff!”
After a few years of being homeschooled, Fanning decided, aged eight, that she wanted friends her own age. She attended Campbell Hall, which she describes as “just a private school, really normal”. Fanning’s version of normal, however, is not that of a typical teen. She is often on location during the semester, but still has homework to do. “There are times when I work all day, come back to the hotel, and do schoolwork until 4am,” she says.
Having worked with many great actresses, Fanning has a string of compliments for each. Susan Sarandon is “so sexy”; Naomi Watts is “amazing”; Angelina Jolie is “so huge”; and she can turn to Bening “with any questions”. But it was Patricia Clarkson, her co-star on Phoebe in Wonderland, who has had a lasting effect. Fanning was nine, and it was her first lead. “When Patty was in makeup she said, ‘My character wouldn’t have it that way.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I have a say in how my character is!’ That was the first movie where I realized what acting was.”
Does she ever talk shop with Dakota? “No, absolutely not!” she says, aghast. “I never look at her scripts. She’s doing a movie right now in Berlin; I don’t even know what it’s about.”
They do, however, talk about fashion, a shared obsession. “[My style] used to be hippie, bohemian, Virgin Suicides-like, but now I’m not afraid to wear pants, as long as there’s a twist,” she says. “I used to steal [Dakota]’s clothes, but one time the paparazzi got me. She phoned me from New York: ‘What are you doing in my clothes?’”
Fanning has outgrown her older sister now – she is 5’7”; Dakota is 5’4”. She is also reaching life’s milestones. She just passed her driving test, though her mother drove her to lunch today because she’s still “a bit scared”. Next year, she will graduate from high school. What will she do with her independence? “Maybe live in Europe – I love Paris,” she says. She has visited several times for Fashion Week, when she’s a regular front-row fixture for Miu Miu and Louis Vuitton. While Dakota is at New York University, Elle has no such plans yet. “I want to direct. And I love photography,” she says. “I might have a photography show, something spontaneous. I don’t think I’d be scared of it, either.”
She is, evidently, already very independent. Ever since 2011’s Super 8, Fanning has chosen her own scripts. “It’s pretty much up to me [now], because I have to be doing it. It’s easier now that I’m older. And I can read!” She prepares for roles in a solitary way: no acting lessons, no coaching. “I just sit and think and let my mind go crazy imagining,” she says.
Does she ever feel that, with all her responsibilities, she has missed out on being a teenager? “I worked with adults and experienced a lot of things [at a young age], so I got to form who I am a bit quicker,” she says. “Now, I am who I am and I’m comfortable with it. I wouldn’t rebel just to break the rules, but if I ever wanted to do something, I’d just do it. It’s my life, and I’m going to follow the path I want.”
About Ray is out Sept 18
