| 'SOMEWHERE' - exclusive ELLE FANNING Q&A! |
| Written by SUPPLIED |
| Wednesday, 27 April 2011 16:24 |
 Before filming started on SOFIA COPPOLA’s latest film 'SOMEWHERE', ELLE FANNING and Stephen Dorff, the actor who would play her on-screen father, had a little bonding time. It was, says this bright, funny and intelligent young actress, crucial and helped break down barriers and establish the realistic relationship that is at the very heart of the movie. “We did lots of cool things,” she smiles. “Stephen picked me up from school and we went to get frozen yoghurt together, we went bowling, we made pottery together and he came to my school to watch me play volleyball – that was so cool! And it really helped because by the time we started working on the film we were already friends and as I play Stephen’s daughter we had to be easy in each other’s company. It was Sofia’s idea for us to hang out and it really worked.” Twelve-year-old Elle is fast establishing herself as one of the most talented young stars in Hollywood alongside her sister, Dakota, who is four years older. Elle’s screen debut came when she was just two years old, playing a younger version of her sister’s character (Lucy) in 'I Am Sam'. 'Somewhere' represented Fanning's biggest acting challenge to date. Elle plays Cleo, the daughter that hard-living movie star Johnny Marco (Dorff) barely knows. Marco lives at the legendary Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, the hangout of the hippest, hottest young stars in town. His days are spent in a hedonistic whirl of casual sex, pills and booze, occasionally interrupted by press interviews and awards ceremonies. When his estranged wife suddenly announces that she needs some time on her own, Marco has to look after their daughter and her unexpected arrival forces him to reappraise his whole outlook on life. Filmed on location in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and in Milan, Elle clearly enjoyed being on the road with the movie – particularly in Italy where they filmed a sequence where Marco takes his daughter to a rather surreal awards ceremony and stays in a luxurious suite with its own swimming pool. Coppola actually went to the same awards ceremony and stayed in the same hotel – complete with its own pool – a few years ago with her own father, the legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.  Q: Did you see the film for the first time here in Venice? ELLE FANNING: I saw it a while ago in L.A. and then yesterday I saw it for the second time. Q: What was that like? ELLE: Well I feel like the second time I got to see more things in the movie and it was like ‘oh wow!’ I saw the things that sort of related to my character and it was really fun to watch. I love watching the way a movie turns out. And this one turned out so great. Q: Was it what you expected or did it surprise you? ELLE: Yes and no <laughs>. It was sort of a surprise to see it all come together and see how Sofia shot it and how she cut to things and I feel like every movie is always a surprise because you never know what it’s going to look like - because you are never in there when they are doing it and fixing it. Q: When was the first time you met Sofia? ELLE: She called me in for a meeting at her brother’s office. So I met her there and I didn’t even know the script or anything - she just wanted to come meet me and so we just talked about normal things. And then later I met Steven and all 3 of us were at the Chateau Marmont and then we read our lines together… Q: Did you and Stephen hang out a bit before filming started? ELLE: Yeah, we did and it was a while before we started shooting. We did some rehearsals and we spent time together to get to know each other and we also spent some time at the Chateau so that we would get to know it really. And Sofia used a lot of real people when she was filming at the hotel. Q: You had to kind of fit in with the hotel staff and the guests… ELLE: Yeah, exactly. Q: What was that like? ELLE: We were just filming and then there were people eating lunch outside and people walking around, it was just like the hotel on any other day... Q: Was it distracting? Having people walking around when you are trying to do a scene? ELLE: No, because we were doing scenes set in the hotel and so that’s what it would have been like because that’s where we were. Q: So before you started, you and Stephen hung out. What sort of things did you do? ELLE: We did lots of cool things. Stephen picked me up from school and we went to get frozen yoghurt together, we went bowling, we made pottery together and he came to my school to watch me play volleyball – that was so cool! And it really helped because by the time we started working on the film we were already friends and as I play Stephen’s daughter we had to be easy in each other’s company. It was Sofia’s idea for us to hang out and it really worked. It really helped doing those fun things with Stephen. He’s a really nice guy and we had a lot of fun. And there were times when it would be the three of us and Sofia came along, too. We all went bowling together. Q: Did your team win the volleyball match? ELLE: <laughs> I’m so mad! I felt like I played really well and I was so happy that Stephen was there and then we didn’t win! It’s always the way...  Q: Tell me about the scenes where you had to improvise… ELLE: Oh, that was a lot of fun... Q: Because it looked like there was a couple of times when Chris Pontius said some things that really surprised you... ELLE: Yes, the whole thing with Chris was ad-libbed. It was crazy <laughs>. He came up with all these things to say and then he would go and talk to Sofia and say ‘I’m going to say this…’ but he didn’t want me to hear so then I would be surprised when he said it. Like when he said the thing about my ballet teacher being an alcoholic, and I was like what, and it was real, it was a true thing, but he never said it again, because then he wouldn’t have got the same reaction. Q: So were there other takes when he would say slightly different things? ELLE: Yeah, there were a lot of things and I never knew what he was going to come up with each time. It was crazy <laughs>. And then he said the thing about the warts on toes. He was very funny and he came up with a lot of different things. Q: And was there any kind of improvisation with Stephen as well? ELLE: Yeah, like playing the Guitar Hero while we were talking and everything; that was all improvised. And of course some stuff was scripted and had to be like that. We knew the structure of a scene but then you could just add in your own flair. And then Sofia would say ‘oh, I liked it when you said that...’ or ‘maybe try something different...’ and then on the next take we would try something different. It was really free. Q: Had you seen Sofia’s films before? ELLE: Yeah, I saw 'Marie Antoinette', and I loved that movie, with all the costumes and stuff, that was amazing and then I saw 'Virgin Suicides' as well and that was neat. I didn’t get to see 'Lost In Translation' yet. Q: You’ve already worked with a lot of directors so how does Sofia compare? ELLE: I loved working with Sofia. All directors are different but Sofia is really soft and she’ll tell you something, but she’ll say it in a way that’s really nice. But at the same time you can tell that she really knows what she wants and she knows exactly how she wants the movie to look. But she does it in a really sweet way and she gets her point across really well. She’s amazing. I’ve never even heard her get mad at all – never! Q: Have you worked with a woman director before? ELLE: I have, it was a short film that I did and I was really small, but this is like the first time I’ve worked with a woman like for this long of time. And going to so many different places was neat. And so we spent a lot of time together in Milan, we would go shopping and hang out. It was great. Q: The section filmed in Milan is very funny, especially the awards ceremony. Did Sofia tell you where that idea came from? ELLE: Yes, Sofia told me that she went to those awards with her Dad – they are real! And they really do give you those little statues that are like cats. It’s crazy. That was such a fun day in Milan and that whole thing were the final scenes we shot so we knew that the film was nearly over. And that hotel in Milan is amazing – it has its own swimming pool in the room. I couldn’t believe it. It was so cool. Q: Did Sofia try to shoot the film in sequence as much as possible? ELLE: Yeah, we did all the stuff in L.A., we got all that done, and then we went to Las Vegas and did the few scenes there, and then we did the Italy part of the movie. So I think that the hotel room with the pool was not available at one time so we might have had to push it a little bit, but Sofia really wanted that room because she stayed there with her dad. You walk into that room and it’s huge – it’s as big as a house. It’s crazy. It’s totally private and it takes up the whole of the top floor, you have to have a special key to get to the top floor. It was incredible. Q: Did you get to stay at the Chateau Marmont? ELLE: No I didn’t because I live in Los Angeles, so I just drove there.  Q: How does it work when you are on set with you schooling? Do you have a tutor? ELLE: Yeah, this one was during the Summer, so I didn’t have to do anything, but normally the school sends me the homework or whatever I need to do and then I do it on the set with the studio teacher. And you have to have like three hours of schoolwork everyday; you have to do that, like it’s SAG rules or something. But it’s fine. Q: Have you worked outside of the States on any other films? ELLE: Yeah, in Budapest for 'The Nutcracker'. We were there for a while, with my Grandma, and that was fun, I mean, it was crazy being there. It was totally different. I was there with John Turtturo and Nathan Lane and that was a lot of fun. It’s like a musical and I had to do some singing, which was neat. I think it’s coming out in Russia first. I guess I was away for like three months on that film. But I like the travelling. I like going to different hotels and getting to order room service – it’s fun. And it’s nice to go to some place that you’ve never seen before, like Hungary for 'The Nutcracker' and Italy for 'Somewhere'. Q: How do you keep in touch with your friends? E-mail and Facebook? ELLE: Yeah, there’s like this iChat thing, I talk to them and text them, and stuff like that, so we always keep in touch. Q: How did Sofia ask you to approach playing Cleo? ELLE: Well, Sofia wanted me to act like Cleo is really lonely because her parents have split up and her Mom has just abandoned her and now she’s living with her Dad but the thing is she doesn’t really know him that well, because she hasn’t really lived with him before. And now she is trying to make the most of it. All of her life she has been trying to make the most of it. I think she’s a bit older now and she kind of realizes what is going on and that it’s not working out. Q: Did Sofia talk to you about the loneliness that Stephen’s character feels? ELLE: Yeah. I feel Johnny is really lonely, even though he is this cool guy and lots of girls like him, but really he is very lonely. And Cleo is lonely too. And then she comes into his life and turns him around and he finally realizes that he needs to be a real Dad. He realizes that he has to wake up and changes his life. Q: Okay, so apart from making movies, what are your interests? ELLE: I do ballet five days a week out of school with a teacher at her house. She has a little cottage with a room full of ballet bars and it’s really cool. I’ve always been such a girly girl, that I feel like ballet with all the tutus, was just something that I wanted to try. I tried it at school first and then I really wanted to do it seriously so now I have a teacher. It is hard but I really like it. I got on point like a year ago. I think you have to be a certain type of person to do it, but for me it’s a lot of fun. Q: But it’s physically tough isn’t it? ELLE: Yeah, and my feet bleed and stuff <laughs> but I love it. Q: You have a very beautiful ice skating sequence in 'Somewhere'. Did learning ballet help you with that? ELLE: Yes, it did. I was doing ballet before I started training for the ice-skating and it did help. It helps with the balance, mostly, and they are both very graceful. Q: Had you skated before? ELLE: No, I never did. I just did the ballet and then I had to learn to skate as well. I’ve skated for fun, but I had to learn how to figure skate. I trained for two months. I would go every day at 5am before I went to school and then I would go again after school. It was so hard. Q: It’s a very beautiful scene and you must be very pleased with it… ELLE: Yes, I can’t believe Sofia put it all in. I was so excited on the day that I finally did it. We picked out the dress I was going to wear and then everyone – all the crew – were watching from the bleachers while I was doing it. And when I finished they all started clapping and it just felt so good. Q: How many times did you have to do that? ELLE: We did a lot of things; we did it a lot, from different angles and stuff. But we did the whole sequence in one full day. Q: And do you still skate now? ELLE: I did the ballet before, so I’m going back to ballet. The ballet is good for the ice-skating, but then the ice-skating is not good for ballet because when your foot is in the boot, it’s not pointed, so it’s geared towards different muscles that you don’t need for ballet. Q: How serious are you about ballet? ELLE: Well my dream is to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet. I don’t know if I ever will, but that is my dream.  Q: But do you still want to carry on with acting? ELLE: Yes, I always want to do the acting. I love it. Q: How do you fit in making movies with your schooling? ELLE: It kind of works itself out. If the time is right then I’ll do it. And with 'Somewhere' we did it when I was on holiday from school so that was just perfect. Q: How old were you when you first acted? ELLE: I was two <laughs>. Q: Does it get easier, or does it get harder? ELLE: When I was tiny it was different. It’s more fun now that I’m growing up. It’s definitely more fun now. Q: And do you talk to your sister about it? ELLE: Not really. We hang out and do our homework, make our beds and all of that stuff. It’s not that we choose not to talk about acting it’s just that it doesn’t really happen. There’s other stuff going on <laughs>. Q: What other things do you like to do when you are not working? Are you into music? ELLE: I love to sing. I love singing Beyonce songs <laughs> and ‘Single Ladies’ is my favourite. And I love going on sleepovers with my friends. And yeah, I listen to music. Sofia introduced me to Phoenix because I didn’t know them before. I met them and I listened to their music and I have them on my iPod. They are so cool. But I usually like singers more than bands. So Phoenix are the only new band on my iPod but I’ve got The Beatles on there, too, because my Dad puts all the classic stuff on there for me. He’s like ‘you need to know what I listened to when I was a kid...’ Q: Have you made any other movies since you finished 'Somewhere'? ELLE: No, I haven’t done anything. I’m starting middle school, so it’s a new campus, and I’m worried that I’m not going to get to my classes on time. But I’m sure something will come up soon. But first I’m concentrating on my new school. |
