Elle Fanning - VEntertainmentOnline.com

Elle Fanning Biography

Though only young Elle is already a veteran in the movie business, having attended her first Hollywood Premiere when she was three-and-a-half.

Elle is the younger sister of "Twilight" actress Dakota Fanning, who is four years older, and she began her acting career by playing a younger version of Dakota's characters in both the mini-series "Taken" and the film "I am Sam".

Because of her acting commitments she was home-schooled from kindergarten to third grade, she did not start attending regular school until fourth grade.

Fanning won her first role independent of her sister in 2002 when she was 4-years-old in the film "Daddy Day Care". The following year she played Ruth in "The Door in the Floor" opposite Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger. The producers had intended to cast identical twins due to the intense shooting schedule, but they were so impressed with the 5-year-old they only used her.

Fanning's distraught performance in the film panicked her on-screen father Jeff Bridges, she screamed, cried and hit him. But after the take she just laughed and ran off to play with her toys.

Despite the sisters' early rise to stardom the family live a very normal life. Her mother Joy (Arrington) was a former professional tennis player and her father Steve played minor league baseball for St Louis Cardinals and they are all members of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Fanning said when asked "There's nothing special about us, we're just normal sisters. We both go to school and we just play together." With a grandfather who was a notable American footballer (Rick Arrington) it is not surprising his granddaughter enjoys playing soccer.

She is a big fan of Marilyn Monroe and her grandmother once spent $600 to buy her an old cream container that used to belong to the film star.

By the end of 2006, when she was 8-years-old she began to book lead roles. Her first was "Reservation Road" when she played Emma Learner, the grieving daughter of Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly. The film dealt with the aftermath of a tragic accident in which her brother is killed.

She has just finished filming Francis Ford Coppola's new film "Somewhere" in which she plays the daughter of a washed-up Hollywood actor (played by Stephen Dorff) who stumbles through a life of excess at the Chateau Marmont Hotel.

On December 8th 2010 a very grown-up 12-year-old walked down the red carpet with Coppola at the Los Angeles premiere. She wore a haute couture black Valentino dress and dazzling Valentino-designed bow mules.

In 2011 she will play the leading role of Lily in Cameron Crowe's film "We Bought a Zoo". Lily is the 13-year-old daughter who is illegally working in the zoo restaurant and living on the property with her only parental figure Kelly, played by Scarlett Johansson.