Elle Fanning Reveals She's Always Felt Like an Outsider—but Hollywood Embraces Her Quirkiness

With a new Miu Miu fragrance campaign and a revelatory vocal performance in the pop-powered movie Teen Spirit, Elle Fanning is on the rise.

In her first movie role at age three, Elle Fanning might have played a younger version of her sister, Dakota’s, character, but she didn’t stay in the shadow of her sibling for long. As she turns 21 this month, Elle has already racked up an impressive array of performances in her young career, variously playing a fairy-tale princess, a punk-rock alien, and a fashion victim in more than 30 films. “At first I would get mistaken for my sister,” she says. “Of course, to us we look nothing alike—we have completely different noses!”

Besides her film roles, Fanning has been garnering a lot of attention of late for her newest career move: In January, she was named the face of Miu Miu’s new fragrance, Twist. The scent combines sweet, effervescent top notes with a sensuous base of pink amber. “It’s hard and soft, which I quite like,” says Fanning.

Somewhat appropriately, part of the campaign for Twist—a short film shot by the artist collective Canada that traces a movie star’s chameleonic routine through multiple roles—plays on her seemingly limitless capacity for reinvention.

On camera she may recede into her roles, but at five foot nine, the statuesque actress is built to stand out. “I feel very comfortable being on the red carpet because Hollywood embraces my quirkiness,” says Fanning. “I always felt like it was a safe place to be—it was actually more like home than high school was.”

“I feel very comfortable being on the red carpet because Hollywood embraces my quirkiness. I always felt like it was a safe place to be.”

as a grade-schooler, Fanning, who still lives with her mother and grandmother in Los Angeles when she’s not working, enrolled at a prep school and did her best to have a normal life. But her daring fashion sense routinely drew stares. “I always felt like an outsider,” she recalls. “I remember once in seventh grade I got a pink shirt at Opening Ceremony that had Big Bird printed all over it, and I wore it with flared pants and wedges even though I was already quite tall.”

In the fashion world, however, that extra height has proved to be a bonus. A regular in the front row at Fashion Week, Fanning was at Los Angeles International Airport last year waiting for a flight to take her to the Miu Miu show in Paris when she got a surprise. “I got a call saying, ‘Mrs. Prada wants you to open and close the show,’” she says. “I was like, ‘What?!’”

Meanwhile, Fanning continues to push boundaries in her acting career, starting with a film that sees her stepping into pop-star territory. In Max Minghella’s Teen Spirit, out this month, she channels her inner Ariana Grande to play a shy British teen who dreams of escaping her small town on the Isle of Wight by entering a televised singing competition. As for using film as a springboard to a real-life music career, Fanning won’t rule out recording an album. “Why not?” she says. “I couldn’t say no to that.”