How To Be Hot As Elle

What’s on the horizon? As we find out, things are looking up for the straight-shooting Elle Fanning.

- Jason Adams

Regular childhoods usually involve going through the motions, with high school, homework, crushes and beyond. For young ingénue Elle Fanning, growing up on screen (she made her debut at the tender, toddling age of two in I Am Sam as older sister Dakota’s younger self) it was all that, and more. While the whole world was watching, she has grown from child star and into her own. From a break-out role as Alice Dainard in J.J. Abrams' Super 8, Elle has shown that she is very much her own woman capable of juggling roles from whimsical (as Princess Aurora in Maleficent) to dramatic (as the eponymous protagonist in Mary Shelley). And the past few years has seen a slew of movies (I Think We're Alone Now, The Beguiled, and How To Talk To Girls At Parties) while not major blockbusters, have shown a young actor with grit and true acting chops.

When she’s not posting pictures of Angelina Jolie photobombing her on Insta (!) or posing up a storm in fashion campaigns (she has walked for Miu Miu and fronted their videos, and she was the face for Tiffany & Co’s 2018 campaign) Elle finds her voice amid the chorus of strong women in the world. Here, she touches on the most extreme thing she has done for a role, the dimensional characters she gets to play and where she finds her inner strength.

You’ve worked quite a lot in England. How different is it playing an English character to the ”all-American” girl we see today?