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Elle Fanning is channeling royalty. The 24-year-old actor stars as Russian Empress Catherine the Great in Hulu’s darkly comic period drama The Great. She says playing the character has influenced her life offscreen in some surprising ways. 

Elle Fanning plays a legendary Russian empress in ‘The Great’ 

Elle Fanning as Catherine, wearing a floral-patterned dress in the Hulu series 'The Great'
Elle Fanning as Catherine in ‘The Great’ Season 2 | Gareth Gatrell/Hulu

In The Great, Fanning plays a German princess who is married off to Peter (Nicholas Hoult), the tsar of Russia. Thrown into an unfamiliar – and in her eyes, uncivilized – world, Catherine has to learn to adapt to the ways of the Russian court while also attempting to introduce modern reforms, such as teaching women to read. 

In the show’s second season, which premiered in November 2021, Catherine has gained the upper hand over her boorish, dim-witted husband. But she finds being the ruler of all of Russia is more complicated than she expected. She also becomes a mother, which alters her relationship with Peter in important ways. 

The actor says playing Catherine has helped her become more confident 

Fanning recently spoke with Deadline about The Great and Hulu’s The Girl From Plainville, where she plays a troubled teenage girl who convinced her boyfriend to die by suicide. She’s a producer on both shows, and she said that playing Catherine helped her as her career has expanded to include more than acting. 

“I’ve definitely grown into my voice,” she said. “Weirdly, like, The Great and playing Catherine has helped me with that because she’s a young woman, and a lot of the time, is not looked on with the greatest respect.” 

The Maleficient star went on to say that she had to remind herself that although she was young, she’d been acting since age 2. “So, in a lot of ways, I think people like to think, ‘Well, you’re young, you don’t know.’ It’s like, ‘Well, you know what, maybe I do this time?’ Just learning to speak up and building that confidence, I’m enjoying that,” she said. 

Fanning contributed a key idea for a scene in ‘The Great’ Season 2 

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For Fanning, finding her voice means that she’s been able to contribute in different ways when working on the show. She pointed to a scene in The Great’s second season when a pregnant Catherine lets loose at a party.

“[W]e needed something to show that Catherine was trying to have a good time, and what was her drunken party trick … I came up with the idea of, ‘What if I do a bridge because I can do a back-bend and serve macaroons on my stomach as a table?’ And Tony [McNamara, The Great‘s screenwriter]’s like, “Perfect. That’s great,’” she said. “Then you’re in that moment, you’re like, ‘What am I doing, this is my job?’ But it served the show right.”

“She’s helped me so much,” Fanning said. “It’s a significant role in my life and career, it’s just very special.”

The Great Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on Hulu. The show has been renewed for season 3.

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