Background

Ethnicity: Elle Fanning is of mixed descent. Elle’s father is of approximately one half German and one quarter Irish descent, with his other ancestry being English, French, and Channel Islander (Jersey and Guernsey). Elle’s mother’s family has lived in the United States for many generations, and Elle’s mother is of mainly English ancestry.

Elle Fanning was born as Mary Elle Fanning, on April 9, 1998, in Conyers, Georgia, the United States. Elle Fanning comes from an athletic family. Her mother, Joy Arrington, was a professional tennis player and her father, Steve Fanning, was a minor league baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Elle Fanning is a younger sister of Dakota Fanning who is also a well-known American actress and model. In an interview, Elle once said: "We're just normal sisters. We both go to school and we just play together."

Fanning's maternal grandfather Rick Arrington was the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles for three years in the early seventies, and her aunt Jill Arrington is a Fox sportscaster.

Her mom named her Mary and her dad named her Elle, so her name is Mary Elle Fanning. Like her older sister, Dakota Fanning, she uses her middle name instead of her first name.

The Fannings did not move out to California until Elle was two years old. The parents had lived in the south for quite some time and picked up on southern values that they passed on to their children.

Education

Elle Fanning was home-schooled by her grandmother, Mary Jane Arrington, until 2007. Elle began attending Campbell Hall School, a private K-12 Episcopal day school in Los Angeles in the 4th grade, in Fall 2007. Later Elle graduated from Campbell Hall School on June 14, 2016. One of her classmates was Ariel Winter.

Fanning says she has no plans of heading off to college anytime soon.

Career

Elle's ascent into stardom began when she was almost three years old, when she played the younger version of her sister, Dakota Fanning's, character Lucy in the drama film I Am Sam (2001), opposite Sean Penn. She then played younger Dakota again in Taken (2002) as Allie, age 3.

But her first big independent movie without her sister was in 2003's Daddy Day Care, her first film independent of her sister and the first performance for which she received a Young Artist Award nomination. Also in 2003, Elle starred in The Door in the Floor, with Kim Basinger and Jeff Bridges. The producers had apparently originally planned on using identical twins for the shooting of the film since it was set to be a long, intense project, however, they were so impressed by Elle that they chose her for the film.

The young actress has been in several films since and has also done voice work for animated films like Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. She's played guest roles in television series and in mid-2006, was cast in the mini-series The Lost Room.

Her first major role was in 2005 in the Academy Award-winning film Babel, in which she appeared opposite Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, playing Blanchett's daughter. She received her second Young Artist Award nomination for her work in the film. In 2008, she had a small but pivotal part in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, again appearing alongside Pitt and Blanchett, but this time playing Blanchett's character as a child.

Although Elle was supposed to appear alongside Dakota again in My Sister's Keeper, the plan fell through when Dakota bowed out after learning she would have to shave her head for the role. However, in 2010, Elle starred as Mary, the lead character in The Nutcracker in 3D and since then she's appeared in starring roles in box office hits such as We Bought a Zoo (2011), opposite Matt Damon. Fanning played a significant role in ‘Super 8’, an American sci-fi thriller, which was directed by JJ Abrams. The story revolved around a group of teenagers who were filming a movie when a train derails and sends some kind of a dangerous presence to their town. The film was a commercial success and received numerous awards. It was also well-received by critics.

Next she starred alongside Angelina Jolie in Maleficent (2014), alongside Nicholas Hoult in Young Ones (2014), and alongside Bryan Cranston in Trumbo (2015).

The young actress' latest credits include the Oscar-nominated drama 20th Century Women (2016) with Annette Bening and Greta Gerwig, Ben Affleck's crime drama Live by Night (2017), the period drama Mary Shelley (2018) with Douglas Booth and Maisie Williams and Teen Spirit (2019), in which she provided her own vocals as a teenager who wants to become a professional singer. Once known as "Dakota Fanning's little sister," Elle Fanning has proved her acting talent, especially when she played a transgender teen in the major motion picture 3 Generations (2017), co-starring Naomi Watts as her mother.

In 2019, she also reprised her role of Princess Aurora in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. Fanning also has two more films in postproduction; All the Bright Places, opposite Justice Smith, directed by Brett Haley, based upon the novel of the same name by Jennifer Niven, and Molly, directed by Sally Potter, opposite Javier Bardem and Salma Hayek.

Achievements

• 

  Fanning's breakthrough came in 2011 with her starring role in J. J. Abrams' science-fiction film Super 8, for which her performance was praised by critics and earned her a Spotlight Award at the Hollywood Film Festival.
  
  Despite being only 21 years old, she has won nominations for several other awards, such as the Saturn Award, Teen Choice Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award.
  
  In May 2019, Fanning was appointed as a jury member of the international competition in the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival, becoming the youngest Cannes juror in history.
  
  Elle appeared on the cover of numerous magazines, including Vogue, Nylon, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and many others.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Low Down

    (Jazz pianist Joe Albany (John Hawkes) and his daughter Am...)

    2014
  • The Neon Demon

    (When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth...)

    2016
  • Astro Boy

    (Blast off with Astro Boy, the thrilling tale of a true he...)

    2009
  • The Vanishing of Sidney Hall

    (An enigmatic detective embarks on a cross-country search ...)

    2017
  • Reservation Road

    (Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, and ...)

    2007
  • We Bought A Zoo

    (Following the death of his wife, a Boston newspaper colum...)

    2011
  • Phoebe in Wonderland

    (This heartfelt, fantastical story of a troubled, imaginat...)

    2008
  • Somewhere

    (Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning star in Academy Award winn...)

    2010
  • Twixt

    (This terrifying horror film, from Oscar-winner Francis Fo...)

    2011
  • The Nutcracker: The Untold Story

    (Join Mary on a magical adventure when her toy nutcracker ...)

    2010
  • The Nines

    (A troubled actor, a television showrunner, and an acclaim...)

    2007
  • The Beguiled

    (From writer/director Sofia Coppola comes the story of a w...)

    2017
  • The Boxtrolls

    (From the creators of Coraline comes a fun adventure in ab...)

    2014
  • Super 8

    (In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio...)

    2011
  • Teen Spirit

    (Violet, a shy teenager who dreams of escaping her small t...)

    2018
  • 3 Generations

    (Naomi Watts, Elle Fanning, and Susan Sarandon star in thi...)

    2017
  • Trumbo

    (Bryan Cranston stars as Dalton Trumbo, Hollywood's top sc...)

    2015
  • Young Ones

    (In a post-apocalyptic future when the water has become th...)

    2014
  • Mary Shelley

    (The torrid true-life tale of how a passionate love affair...)

    2017
  • Because Of Winn-Dixie

    (Based on the perennial best seller, Because Of Winn-Dixie...)

    2005
  • Galveston

    (After killing his would-be assassins, a hitman saves a ki...)

    2018
  • Babel

    (Tragedy strikes a married couple on vacation in the Moroc...)

    2006
  • I Think We're Alone Now

    (The carefully crafted paradise of the last man on earth (...)

    2018
  • 20th Century Women

    (A determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising ...)

    2016
  • The Door in the Floor

    (Old wounds are reopened and new ones forged when an aspir...)

    2004
  • Live By Night

    (A story set in the Prohibition Era and centered around a ...)

    2016
  • Ginger & Rosa

    (The Cuban Missile Crisis meets the Sexual Revolution in t...)

    2012
  • I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With

    (Curb Your Enthusiasm's Jeff Garlin is James, a frustrated...)

    2006
  • Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

    (The story of Disney's most iconic villain continues in Ma...)

    2019
  • I Am Sam

    (A mentally handicapped father hires a high-powered lawyer...)

    2001
  • How To Talk To Girls At Parties

    (Worlds collide when Enn, a shy teenager in 70s London, me...)

    2017
  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

    (Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts agin...)

    2008
  • Daddy Day Care

    (A father finds himself unemployed and decides to turn his...)

    2003
  • Deja Vu

    (An ATF agent travels back in time to save a woman from be...)

    2006
  • Maleficent

    (Angelina Jolie stars in the untold story of Disney's icon...)

    2014

• TV series

  • The Lost Room

    (Peter Krause, Julianna Margulies and Elle Fanning star in...)

    2006

Religion

Elle Fanning and her family are members of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Views

Elle donated a signed picture to Rocky Stone to be given away as a prize in a Dakota Fanning contest to benefit less-fortunate kids as part of the Toy Mountain Campaign 2006.

Quotations: "People's obsession with beauty and like, perfection, it can really destroy you. And wanting perfection, it's like, what is perfection, you know? It doesn't exist. Perfect doesn't exist, so you drive yourself crazy wanting it."

"To me, acting is just kind of making believe and dressing up. You put on your costume and walk a certain way and feel your character. Then cut, and you're Elle again."

"I would like to be a teenager in the '60s or '70s. It just seemed so free, so cool, just roaming around. We can't really roam around now."

Personality

Though she plays more demure characters, Elle describes her own personality as "high-energy". She decides on her next roles with her mother, but in the end, it always comes down to Elle's opinion. She and her sister have a fear of thunderstorms and lightning.

Elle loves vintage clothes, especially clothes from the 1950s. She says that she likes roles that are challenging and different. One of her favorite hobbies is horse riding, and she has her own horse. Her sister, Dakota Fanning, has a horse named Goldie.

She also takes ballet classes, as well as hip-hop dancing and jazz. She met her dance instructor while working on Phoebe in Wonderland.

Physical Characteristics: Elle Fanning is near-sighted and uses contact lenses most of the time.

Interests

• drawing, singing, dancing, horse riding

• Writers

  Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, Charlotte's Web by E. B. White, The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss, The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda

• Artists

  Sofia Coppola, David Blaine

• Sport & Clubs

  soccer, volleyball

• Music & Bands

  Beyoncé, Dolly Parton, Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift, The Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, The Like

Connections

Elle Fanning is currently known to be single. She was previously in relationships with Zalman Band and Dylan Beck.

Father:

Steven J. Fanning

Mother:

Heather Joy Arrington

colleague:

Octavia Spencer

Sister:

Dakota Fanning

Fanning sisters were not always close. As a matter of fact, they just recently started connecting in their older years.

Dakota was interviewed by Marie Claire and stated that being four years apart really hindered their relationship as sisters. Dakota, as the older sister, often could not relate to her little sister. They did not have a common ground of things to discuss or help them relate to each other.

It was not until they both had established careers in Hollywood that the two were able to connect and start bonding. Now, they are stronger than ever. Elle is not as much of the pesky little sister in Dakota’s eyes anymore.

ex-boyfriend:

Zalman Band

ex-boyfriend:

Dylan Beck

colleague:

Brad Pitt

colleague:

Joaquin Phoenix

colleague:

Tilda Swinton

colleague:

Felicity Huffman

colleague:

Nicolas Cage

colleague:

Charlize Theron

colleague:

Lena Headey

colleague:

Angelina Jolie

colleague:

Naomi Watts

colleague:

Keanu Reeves

colleague:

Nicole Kidman

colleague:

Kirsten Dunst

colleague:

Selena Gomez

References

• Elle Fanning