Elle Fanning On Playing a Spoiled Brat in BOXTROLLS
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Created: Thursday, 25 September 2014 22:29
- Published: Friday, 26 September 2014 12:15
- Written by Lupe R Haas
Elle Fanning last played the sweet natured and trusting Princess Aurora in the blockbuster Disney fantasy Maleficent, but the 16-year-old actress went the extreme to voice the bratty-type in the stop-motion adventure BOXTROLLS. Fanning reveals how she played a likeable “spoiled brat.”
Elle Fanning is keeping busy in 2014 starring in four films with BOXTROLLS being the latest from Dakota Fanning’s little sister. Fanning lends her voice as Winnie, a 9-year-old girl living in the posh Victorian-era town of Cheesebridge where wealth, class and fine cheese are the obsession. Underground a community of creatures called the boxtrolls hide away from the humans as they raise an orphaned boy, Eggs (voiced by Isaac Hempstead Wright of Games of Thrones).
At first when you meet Winnie, the only child of Mayor Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris) of Cheesebridge, audiences may not like her. Elle Fanning explains why.
“She can be spoiled at times. I think the audience will see…they probably will not want to like her in the beginning because she’s definitely bratty. You get to see her kind of sensitive side as the movie progresses. “
She adds Winnie is not mean-spirited at all when trying to convince Eggs that he’s not a boxtroll but a human boy. However, when she first read the script, she describes Winnie as much more unlikeable as a brattier and “snooty” version of the character. According to Fanning, once they found her voice in the first voice over session, they made her much more feistier than mean-spirited.
For the role in the third movie from Laika Studios (Coraline, ParaNorman), Fanning took on a posh English accent for Winnie. The American actress has played British characters twice before in previous projects, but when your co-stars are primarily English actors such as Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead Wright (Game of Thrones), Simon Pegg, and Jared Harris is the pressure on to deliver?
“I was comfortable with the rhythm of it, but still you’re always intimidated because you don’t want to let down or insult anyone who has that accent.”
Elle Fanning doesn’t disappoint in BOXTROLLS sounding natural as a posh, feisty 9-year-old. Luckily the only similarity Fanning shares with Winnie is her mannerisms the animators captured from video footage during her recording sessions.
BOXTROLLS opens September 26.