Elle Fanning

Elle's acting career started when she was 18 months old, with a brief appearance in I Am Sam. As a little sister of Dakota, she played a younger version of Dakota's character Lucy. Similarly in her next role in Taken.

Elle in I Am Sam with Sean Penn

In the next couple of years Elle had small, single episode guest roles in Judging Amy and two CSI serieses. The CSI roles had even less dialogue than the Judging Amy clip below (original .mov available).

Judging Amy

Around these times, Elle also had a small role in a family comedy Daddy Day Care, which was released in 2003. That year Elle was in her first modeling shoot, for the Vogue Bambini magazine.

The Door in the Floor was Elle's first serious role: a large role in a high profile movie. She did very well, especially considering she only turned 5 during the filming, but role wasn't versatile enough for big conclusions about Elle's skill. Even then, this is one of the essential Elle movies.

The Door in the Floor's making-of

Released the following year, Because of Winn-Dixie is another routine kids' movie, with a dog focus. More interesting was Elle's 5 minutes long appearance in House M.D., of which there is a part below.

Part of Elle's role in the House M.D. episode "Need to Know"

In 2006 Elle had an enjoyable, small or medium sized role in Babel. The same goes for the TV series The Lost Room, where she has a little under 10 minutes of screen time. One minute of that below.

The Lost Room

Moving on to 2007 and 2008, both The Nines and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are again nice films where Elle has a fairly small but worthwhile roles. In the latter she's seen for under four minutes, so we haven't written any review of the movie, but the clip below gives a good idea of her style in it. The picture quality is glorious on the blu-ray, and the movie has been very well received. Unfortunately Elle's voice is not her own.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

As of writing this, Phoebe in Wonderland is her latest role, and easily the best. Elle plays Phoebe, a girl beginning to show symptoms of a mental disorder who escapes reality into Alice's Wonderland. Her role is broad and serious, finally giving her a chance to demonstrate her skills at full.

In the end, enjoy some of Elle's perhaps best talk show to date. Such energy and excitement, just like her big sister used to have in all her talk shows in that age.