Falling into a trance with Elle Fanning

In both The girl from Plainville and The big, there are moments when a close-up of Elle Fanningher face fills the whole picture, her blue eyes stare directly into the camera, emotions wave through her face while her character comes to a shocking realization. In season two of The big, that is, when Catherine discovers that her husband, Peter, went to bed with her mother and then accidentally killed her. IN Plainville, that’s when her character, Michelle Carter, is convicted of involuntary manslaughter for using text messages to pressure her boyfriend to commit suicide.

“Now that I think about it, cameras are always really, really close to my face,” Fanning says with a laugh during our conversation for Little Gold Men. “In a way, you have to drown out everything when you make those scenes … You have to put on blinders and you’re like in this trance with the camera. I kind of enjoy those moments.”

It’s not just the short moments that completely depend on Fanning – both series only work and work well because of the performances that Fanning is able to deliver as the lead role. “I think they mark a really special moment in my career,” says the 24-year-old actor, who has been working since the age of two, first as the younger version of his sister. Dakota Fannings characters in the film I’m Sam and the miniseries Taken. “In children’s acting, these roles are designed to be observant. I was very aware of that when I was younger, and I was a little jealous of the other actors that I wanted to work with because they are going wild and experimenting. .. These two roles have allowed me to act in a real way – and take action in my career. “

Fanning’s remarkable career revolved mostly around film when she was growing up, but since she signed on The big, TV has been prioritized. Although that means she has less time to record movies, it’s a sacrifice she’s happy to make for what felt like a unique opportunity, even if it was for the small (streaming) screen. “I feel like these shows have given me a challenge that no movie I have come across lately has held,” she says. “These characters couldn’t be better in the sense that they challenged me.”

IN The big, Fanning plays a strange version of the famous Russian ruler Catherine the Great who overthrows her husband (played by Nicholas Hoult) to rule Russia and try to bring it into a new era of education and enlightenment. Throughout most of the second season, which hit Hulu in November, her character is pregnant, forced to rule a nation, while keeping her troublesome husband in line and dealing with strange pregnancy cravings for dirt and rusty nails. “With Catherine, I felt like my acting muscle – wherever it is or whatever it is, or how silly it sounds – it really grew and I became less embarrassed,” she says. “I had really become a little more uninhibited.”

It’s a daring role that requires Fanning to commit to some pretty wild story lines, from delicate sex scenes to delicate comic dialogues. Catherine’s second season pregnancy added another layer for her to play with, though she was careful to treat it in a way that felt right for the character: “I felt like Catherine was not a very motherly person, so I was very pay attention not to touch my bump too much. “

The girl from Plainville also takes storytelling risks that could have gone very wrong if it were not for Fanning’s ability to deal with them. The show jumps through time, shows her character Carter’s trial, and then goes back to the budding relationship between her and boyfriend Conrad Roy, which – apart from a few meetings – mostly took place via text. To show the texts that were so crucial to the story, the creators decided to have Fanning and Colton Ryan, who plays Roy, plays them off against each other. “I was wondering how this was going to be cinematic. Texting is so boring. I thought if I’m going to see another show with people texting or the bubbles popping up – I can not do that. is not filmmaking for me, “she says.” I was pleasantly surprised when they came up with this device to have both of us in the room together. “