Elle Fanning

Mary Elle Fanning (born April 9, 1998) is an American actress. She made her film debut as a child as the younger version of her sister Dakota Fanning's character in the drama film I Am Sam (2001). She appeared in several other films as a child actress, including Daddy Day Care (2003), Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Phoebe in Wonderland (both 2008), and the miniseries The Lost Room (2006). In 2010, she starred in Sofia Coppola's drama Somewhere, and in 2011, she gained wider recognition for her starring role in J. J. Abrams' science fiction film Super 8. Fanning played Princess Aurora in the fantasy films Maleficent (2014) and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019), while working in independent films from auteurs such as Sally Potter's Ginger & Rosa (2012), Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon (2016), Mike Mills' 20th Century Women (2016), and Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled (2017). From 2020 to 2023, she starred as Catherine the Great in the Hulu period satire series The Great, for which she received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards.In 2023, Fanning will make her Broadway debut, in the play Appropriate. Early life Fanning was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Heather Joy (née Arrington) and Steven J. Fanning, who played minor league baseball for teams affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals. Her maternal grandfather was American football player Rick Arrington, and her aunt is ESPN reporter Jill Arrington. Counted among the Arrington family's most notable ancestors is the gentleman farmer William Farrar. Fanning is the younger sister of actress Dakota Fanning; both she and her sister use their middle names as their given names per family tradition. They were brought up in the Southern Baptist denomination.