Elle Fanning

Biography:

American actress Mary Elle Fanning was born on April 9, 1998. As a child, she starred in the drama film I Am Sam (2001) as a younger version of her sister Dakota Fanning’s character. As a child actress, she starred in a number of additional films, such as Daddy Day Care (2003), Babel (2006), Phoebe in Wonderland (2008), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the miniseries The Lost Room (2006). After that, she starred in the science fiction movie Super 8 (2011) directed by J. J. Abrams and the drama Somewhere (2010) directed by Sofia Coppola.

In addition to working on independent films like Sally Potter’s Ginger & Rosa (2012), Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon (2016), Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women (2016), Coppola’s The Beguiled (2017), James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown (2024), and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (2025), Fanning portrayed Princess Aurora in the fantasy films Maleficent (2014) and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019).

She was nominated for two Golden Globes and a Primetime Emmy Award for her role as Catherine the Great in the Hulu period spoof series The Great (2020–2023). Since then, she has played Michelle Carter in The Girl from Plainville (2022), a limited series on Hulu. She debuted on stage in the Branden Jacobs-Jenkins play Appropriate (2023) on Broadway.