Elle Fanning may have grown up on camera, but acting wasn't always something she thought of doing for a living. It wasn't until she starred in Phoebe in Wonderland as Phoebe, a child with Tourette syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder, at the age of nine that she began to really think of acting as something that she could do as a career.
Fanning explained to Interview that the role of Phoebe was her first true leading role and it was the first time that she really had to dive into research for a character. As part of her research, she met with kids who were diagnosed with OCD and Tourette's, and it clicked for her that acting is about "figuring out the character."
Once Fanning realized this, she also realized that she loved the entire process of pretending to be someone else, putting on a costume, playing your part, and then transforming back into yourself when the scene is over. "So I thought, 'Well, if that's what it is, then I definitely want to do it,'" she explained.
