Elle Fanning On Feeling ‘Damaged’ As A Teen Actress

In a recent Hollywood Reporter roundtable interview, actress Ella Fanning looked back on the time when she tried to get a role in a movie as a 16-year-old. According to Fanning, this project resulted in some comments that aimed to damage her.

The actress said she had a team who created a ‘filtration system’ for her to keep her protected from damaging comments, but they missed one:

“I’ve never told this story, but I was trying out for a movie. I didn’t get it. I don’t even think they ever made it, but it was a father-daughter road trip comedy. I didn’t hear from my agents because they wouldn’t tell me things like this — that the filtration system is really important because there are probably a lot more damaging comments that they filtered — but this one got to me. I was 16 years old, and a person said, ‘Oh, she didn’t get the father-daughter road trip comedy because she’s unf*ckable.’“

Expressing her feelings toward that remark today, Fanning said:

“It’s so disgusting. And I can laugh at it now, like, ‘What a disgusting pig!’“

Fanning then claimed her confidence always kept her company while growing up under the spotlight. However, she was also concerned about the side effects:

“I was always immensely confident, but of course, you’re growing up in the public eye, and it’s weird. I’ll look at paparazzi photos from when I was 12 and think, ‘Is that a good thing to see such a mirror of yourself at that age?’ I don’t feel like it damaged me, but it definitely made me very aware of myself.“

Despite her unfortunate experience as a teen actress, Fanning admitted her team tried to protect her since she was around 8:

“I was very protected; I have an amazing manager and agent who’ve been with me since I was 8 or 9.”

During a previous interview with the ‘Happy Sad Confused’ podcast, the actress shared that she also wasn’t considered for a major role just because her follower count didn’t meet the expectations:

“I’m not going to say what it was, but I didn’t get a part once for something big — it might not have just been this reason, but this was all the feedback that I heard — because I didn’t have enough Instagram followers at the time.”

Below, you can watch THR’s interview, which also features Jenna Ortega, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Ayo Edebiri, Natasha Lyonne, and Devery Jacobs.