‘OUR MAGICAL BOND’
Elle Fanning and Angelina Jolie reveal their special friendship
Few people on earth can make Angelina Jolie smile as much as Elle Fanning does. “I’ll always feel close to Elle”, says Jolie, 44, who met her when they filmed the 2014 Disney hit ‘Maleficent’. “The first moment she ever saw me, she was 14 and she ran up and gave me the biggest hug. Elle was the sweetest. Nothing about me intimidated her.” When the two reconnected to film its new sequel ‘Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’, their relationship only deepened. “I’m older, and the things we can talk about now are different,” says Fanning, 21. “I feel like I can ask her anything—and I have!” The two chatted with WHO about their evolving lives, the meaning of family and their glam new co-star Michelle Pfeiffer.
HOW THEIR LIVES HAVE CHANGED
Jolie was healing from her 2016 split with Brad Pitt when she arrived on set for the sequel. “It was a tough time,” she says. “I’d been coming off a few years of difficulty, and I was not feeling very strong. In fact, I was feeling pretty broken. It took me a moment to feel the strength of [Maleficent] again.”
During that time, Fanning’s career blossomed as she took on complex roles in films including 3 Generations and 20th Century Women and became a L’Oréal Paris brand ambassador. “That first film definitely changed things a lot in my life,” says Fanning. “Now I’m 21, I’m at a different stage. I’ve definitely had a lot of new experiences.”
LEARNING ‘YOU CAN CHOOSE YOUR OWN FAMILY’
The movie’s message resonated with both of them. “Aurora is human, Maleficent is a creature,” explains Jolie of their fairytale characters. “There are many who feel that because they are different, they’re not family.” Adds Fanning: “I think the great
“Elle knows I’m goofy. I know she has great strength” — ANGELINA JOLIE
theme is that family isn’t blood. You get to choose your own family. It’s such a beautiful message.” Jolie made it even more of a family affair, bringing her kids (Maddox, 18, Pax, 15, Zahara, 14, Shiloh, 13, and Knox and Vivienne, 11) to premieres. But she couldn’t convince any of them to make cameos in the movie, though Vivienne played a young Aurora in the first film. “I tried,” she says. “Viv still can’t believe I made her a princess. None of my kids want to be actors. [They’re into] business, humanitarian affairs, things like that. Nobody was interested!”
WHY MICHELLE PFEIFFER IS THE PERFECT FOE
Fanning says working with both Jolie and Pfeiffer,61, who plays Queen Ingrith, was unreal. “I felt like an audience member, watching them go at it back and forth. I was like, ‘Am I in a dream? Angelina Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer are going head to head in front of me, and one is wearing horns and wings and the other is wearing a tiara!’” Jolie struggled not to break character. “It was hard not to smile at Michelle. My character is supposed to hate her, but I adore her. She’s a force and has a great sense of humour.”
BONDING OVER . . . PAINTBALL?
Fanning, Jolie and Jolie’s kids snuck away during filming for a paintball fight. “Probably not Disney-approved, because we could have gotten injured!” Fanning jokes. “We had welts on our legs. I’d never gone paintballing before. Angelina does it a lot. She was good. I was trying. I hit her security guard in the neck. And he was on my team!”