12/19/2023
Elle Fanning’s Broadway Debut Was a Baptism by Fire
Elle Fanning is sitting in her dressing room at The Hayes Theater in New York City, struggling to communicate with a delivery man dropping off her dinner. It’s the smallest theater on Broadway, according to the actress, but her Postmates driver cannot seem to find her. She’s taken a pause on discussing her latest project—a role alongside Sarah Paulson and Corey Stoll in the new Broadway family drama, Appropriate—to wrangle the sushi order. Understandably, she’s a bit distracted.In fact, there are a lot of things on Fanning’s mind when she sits down for a video call with W from her dressing room, which she shares with another Appropriate costar, Succession’s Natalie Gold. The 25-year-old is busy painting her nails black for the performance that evening. “I have to do my own hair and makeup,” she says between swipes. “They really trust you on Broadway.” This is just one of the many aspects of live theater Fanning has learned during her time working on Appropriate. Despite making her acting debut at just three years old as a younger version of her sister, Dakota Fanning, in the 2001 film I Am Sam, Fanning never got the opportunity to take her career onto the stage in the 22 years since.
Then, about eight months ago, the script for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s show came across her desk. Fanning immediately put it to the side, assuming her schedule wouldn’t allow for Broadway—she was, after all, fully booked with her Hulu show, The Great, plus her upcoming Timothée Chalamet-led Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. “I was upset because it was so undeniably good,” she says of the script. “Just one of the best things I’d ever read.”
