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I am someone who’s weirdly kind of this adrenalin junkie and I love feeling terrified and challenging myself.
ELLE FANNING LOVES HER CHARACTER, BUT THE ACTRESS ISN’T QUITE SURE IN WHICH DIRECTION THE GREAT WILL GO The Great Streaming, Amazon Prime
She is one of the first feminist icons of someone who was put into a very upside-down world and was hit with the reality of the situation and saw something that needed to be changed and actually spoke out and tried to change it. — ELLE FANNING ON CATHERINE THE GREAT
Elle Fanning wasn’t deeply familiar with the story of Catherine the Great, the longest reigning female ruler in Russia’s history. But quickly after she agreed to lead Hulu’s The Great, she learned there was more to the famed empress than the rumour she’d had sex with a horse.
“I didn’t know much about her. I knew about the horse rumour — which is sad,” Fanning, 22, says on a Zoom call from Los Angeles. “That horse thing is the first form of slut shaming, basically.”
In The Great, Fanning leads a refashioning of Catherine the Great’s rise from wide-eyed bride to Russian Emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult) to the enlightened and ruthless leader who left an indelible mark on history. But it tells its story by tweaking history and amping up the comedy with bits of vulgar humour.
She spoke about what drew her to Catherine, why The Great is not Masterpiece Theater and what she’s been bingeing at home while riding out the pandemic.
QFor people who haven’t seen it, The Great is an absurd comedy mixed in with history. This isn’t a typical period drama.
AThis belongs to the same world as Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette or Stanley
Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon — I love those movies. They can take liberties and they aren’t afraid to take risks in changing things. But what’s funny is people think we made up things, but we really didn’t. I think (creator) Tony (McNamara) knows more about Catherine the Great than anyone; he just chose to twist the facts a bit. The peeing on wheat (pregnancy test) was something else they did during that time period. It’s apparently 75 per cent as accurate as a pregnancy test. I don’t promote it, and who knows how long it would take to bloom, but that’s something he looked up. So I think he was trying to find the facts that would fit our tone.
QI was surprised to see how many different shows and movies have centred on Catherine the Great and her reign. Why do you think audiences have been drawn to her?
AI guess it’s a modern story in a lot of ways. She is one of the first feminist icons of someone who was put into a very upside-down world and was hit with the reality of the situation and she was someone who saw something that needed to be changed and actually spoke out and tried to change it. That’s something that I think is very relevant to today and can speak to everything we’re going through now. I think it’s great that we get to explore her story and show what she did. Her period was known as the Enlightenment period and she brought female education (to Russia) and she was the longest woman ruler of Russia and she brought science and art to the court, so it’s sad that some people only know her for that horse rumour.
QWhat made you want to play her?
A Funnily enough, when I read the script I had not seen The Favourite, so I had nothing to compare it to. Having not seen that, I was super surprised and shocked by Tony’s writing and how unique it was. I am someone who’s weirdly kind of this adrenalin junkie and I love feeling terrified and challenging myself. When I’m under pressure is where I thrive.
QThe show is very much about Catherine coming into her own. What do you hope the story says to young people?
A What I love so much about her is she starts off as this young romantic, optimistic character who is thrown into this situation. But she has to learn along the way. She’s not the strongest person in the room at all times. She has to find her passion again in a lot of ways, and sometimes she wavers on that.
Her optimism sometimes goes away and she has to re-evaluate and also learn from others. Decisions are going to have to be made and sacrifices have to be made. I don’t know that I’d be willing to sacrifice as much as she does, especially at the end, but she knows she has to do that for the greater good. That’s a special human being. She kind of becomes ruthless, but she has to be. And her youth is what helps her along the way.
QWhere do you hope The
Great goes in season 2?
AThere’s so much we could explore. Tony was writing scripts as we went along, so none of us knew how the story was going to end. Obviously, it is history, we’re not spoiling anything. But how the series concluded, I didn’t think it was going to end that way. So I am curious to see what’s in store for Catherine.
QYou’ve been acting since the age of two. Last year, you were the youngest juror ever at the Cannes Film Festival. How did you know this is what you wanted to do with your life?
AI think if you see my home movies as a kid, I was such a ham. Obviously, this person was going to be in the entertainment world in some capacity (laughs). But acting was just so fun for me. It only became a job when I did this movie called Phoebe in Wonderland when I was nine. I had to play someone with Tourette syndrome and I had to meet people and learn what that was like. That was when I realized that I had a responsibility to people to do a good job.
QWhat are you watching while you’re at home under lockdown?
AWe’re a big reality show house (laughs). So we watch a lot of the Real Housewives franchise. I watch a lot of game shows. I watched My Brilliant Friend, which is really, really good. But I am a binger. If I get involved in a show, I will stay up and watch it in like two days. My sister (Dakota) has been bingeing all the seasons of the West Wing.