Even a notoriously cutthroat industry can’t shake the Fanning sisters’ bond. Elle and Dakota open up about (finally) starring in a film together, navigating Hollywood, and defying expectations: “If everyone in my life stopped talking to me, I’d be devastated,” Dakota says. “But if I still had my sister, I’d be like, ‘Well, I have her.’”
Growing up, when Dakota and Elle Fanning played make believe, both of them knew who was in charge. “I was the top dog no matter what,” says Dakota. “She was the groom, I was the bride. I was Anna Wintour and she was the assistant.” One of their favorite games was inspired by the TLC reality series A Baby Story: Dakota was the mother and Elle was her newborn. The younger Fanning would dive beneath a beanbag while her sister laid on top of it, mimicking labor. Eventually, Elle would emerge, wailing like an infant as Dakota bellowed, “Oh, my baby!”
“That’s like Nathan Fielder,” Elle says now, shaking her head. But she can’t be too embarrassed. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”
Any pair of siblings could devise their own A Baby Story game. But most kids don’t have access to prop medical equipment they received snagging a guest spot on ER. Every older sister busts her younger sister for stealing her clothes—but usually not after being tipped off by paparazzi photos. Now 31 and 27, the Fannings have been famous nearly all their lives. Both started acting as children; both had their first kisses on camera.Yet onscreen and in conversation, the sisters somehow radiate normalcy. Why aren’t they more…. “Fucked up?” says Elle, finishing the question. She leans back in her chair, taking a drag from an imaginary cigarette. “We’re like, ‘We’re so fucked up. You don’t even know the half.’ ” She laughs. But seriously: “Even though we were young in this business, I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. People want us to feel like we missed out. They love that narrative.”
The Fannings have always written their own story. They’ve worked with many of cinema’s great auteurs (Tarantino, Spielberg, and Coppola—both Francis Ford and Sofia). They’ve received Emmy nominations for splashy streaming projects. And yes, they’ve sidestepped the traps that snare many young actors forced to grow up too fast.
Perhaps most remarkably, they’ve also avoided the pitfalls that plagued some of Hollywood’s most famous (and famously feuding) sisters: Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland, Joan and Jackie Collins. When I ask Dakota if she and Elle ever feel competitive, something in her posture tells me she saw this question coming. But her answer is firm: “Zero. We obviously share a lot”—including a stylist and publicist—“but we’re very different. So I don’t even see something that’s right for her as being right for me. I don’t feel competitive. But I know that people probably don’t believe that.”
They’ll buy it more once Elle and Dakota finally make a movie together. After a packed fall, during which Dakota works opposite Sarah Snook in the Peacock limited series All Her Fault while Elle appears in Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and the sci-fi blockbuster Predator: Badlands, they will produce and star in The Nightingale—their very first time onscreen as costars.
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