Elle Fanning

Mary Elle Fanning was born on April 9, 1998, in Conyers, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. Her father, Steven J. Fanning, played for minor league baseball teams affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals, and her mother is Heather Joy, née Arrington. Her maternal grandfather was football player Rick Arrington, and her aunt is ESPN reporter Jill Arrington. A notable ancestor on her maternal side is the planter William Farrar, and her paternal grandmother was a German immigrant. Fanning is the younger sister of actress Dakota Fanning; both sisters use their middle names as given names, a family tradition. They were raised in the Southern Baptist denomination. Fanning graduated from Campbell Hall School in 2016.

Fanning began her acting career at age three, appearing as the younger version of her sister Dakota's character in both the film I Am Sam (2001) and the miniseries Taken. At four, she secured her first role independent of her sister in the comedy Daddy Day Care (2003). She was cast as Ruth in The Door in the Floor (2004), opposite Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger; producers had originally planned to use identical twins for the demanding schedule but were sufficiently impressed with Fanning to cast her alone. In 2004, she provided the voiceover for Mei in the English-dubbed version of Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, with Dakota voicing the older sister Satsuki. Mid-decade credits included the role of Debbie, daughter of the characters played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel (2006), appearances in episodes of House M.D. and Criminal Minds that same year, and a small part in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), in which she again played a younger version of a Cate Blanchett character. She also took the title role in Phoebe in Wonderland (2008).

Fanning gained wider recognition through her leading role in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere (2010), playing the daughter of a self-destructive actor. The film won the Golden Lion at the 67th Venice Film Festival. The following year she starred as Alice Dainard in J. J. Abrams' Super 8 (2011), receiving a Spotlight Award at the Hollywood Film Festival for the performance. In 2012, she played the title role of Ginger in Sally Potter's Ginger & Rosa, set in 1962 London opposite Alice Englert. International attention came with her portrayal of Princess Aurora alongside Angelina Jolie in Disney's Maleficent (2014), directed by Robert Stromberg. She returned to the role in the sequel Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019).

Among her other film credits, Fanning appeared as Jesse in Nicolas Winding Refn's psychological thriller The Neon Demon (2016), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and in Mike Mills's 20th Century Women (2016). She appeared in Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled (2017) and in James Mangold's A Complete Unknown (2024). Her performance in Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in Dan Trachtenberg's Predator: Badlands (2025).

On television, Fanning starred as Catherine the Great in the period satire series The Great, which ran from 2020 to 2023, earning a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She also portrayed Michelle Carter in the 2022 miniseries The Girl from Plainville. Across her career, she has received nominations for four Golden Globe Awards in addition to the Emmy and Academy Award nominations.

Fanning made her Broadway debut in 2023 in Appropriate, a play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.