This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.Dakota and Elle Fanning on Taking Charge in Hollywood

Kayla Webley AdlerThu, March 19, 2026 at 1:00 PM UTC

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Dakota and Elle Fanning’s Next ActKevin Mazur

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Dakota and Elle Fanning grew up on-screen, filming their first movie, I Am Sam, at the tender ages of 6 and 2. After decades in front of the camera, it makes sense that the now 32- and 28-year-old stars want to get behind it, too. In 2021, they launched their own production company, Lewellen Pictures (named for their family dog), and began producing series, including Hulu’s The Great and Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, and Margo’s Got Money Troubles, which premieres this month on Apple TV.

The Fanning sisters couldn’t be closer. In conversation, they finish each other’s sentences like twins, and they tell me going into business together felt natural: “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Dakota says.

When we spoke in February, they were preparing to film The Nightingale, an adaptation of Kristin Hannah’s bestselling 2015 novel that follows two French sisters during World War II. Slated to premiere in February 2027, it is the first movie their company has produced, and it will also be Dakota and Elle’s first time appearing together in a project (they’ve played the same character at different ages before but never shared scenes). After years of forging their own paths, “being able to come together just feels right,” Elle says.

You two have worked in Hollywood for a long time, and I’m curious what you think of the status of women in the industry in this moment. Natalie Portman recently said she felt a lot of films made by women last year were overlooked during awards season.

Dakota Fanning: I feel so supported and excited about the projects that I’ve been part of that were led by women, but I think there could always be more. I worked with a director, Kelly Reichardt, and someone had said something about a female director and she was like, “I’m just a director.” You want to get to a level of equality where you don’t have to separate them. You always want to get to the point where, I don’t know, maybe there are more female directors than male one day, who knows?

Elle Fanning: Statistically, of the movies that have been nominated for Best Picture that are directed by women, it is still very small, a really disturbingly small number. Women are so blatantly outnumbered. You do have to keep talking about it and also keep working with female directors and trying to get their stories out. You keep fighting for the numbers to not be so disproportionate.

The theme of Women of Impact this year is women artists supporting one another. So I’d love to hear how you’ve felt supported by other women throughout your careers.

EF: I’m really lucky because throughout my career, I’ve worked with so many female directors. One of my first big roles was in Somewhere, and Sofia Coppola was at the helm of it all. So as a young girl, to watch her in charge was really inspiring for me. I’ve had her as this kind of North Star for me in my career at very important ages. I also worked with Sally Potter, who’s an incredible director. I think I was 13 when I did [Ginger & Rosa]. That was a really special experience; I felt very safe working with her. Especially when you’re in those precious moments of girlhood, to have someone there who understands those experiences and will treat them with care and be precious about it…it’s something that I look back on now and realize that it was amazing that I had that. And now that Dakota and I are stepping into being producers and working with young girls like ourselves—like, we now play mothers to younger actresses—you think about the role models that you had and try to emulate those people.

Dakota and Elle at the 2003 Los Angeles premiere of Uptown Girls, which Dakota starred in.Jon Kopaloff

DF: The first movie that I ever did, I Am Sam, was written and directed by a woman, Jessie Nelson. So my very first experience on set, at 6 years old, was with her, and I think that set me up to think that that was totally normal. And the first actress I ever worked with was Michelle Pfeiffer, who I worked with again 20 years later—literally, like, to the day. It was my birthday. I turned 7 on I Am Sam, and I turned 27 when we worked together on this series called The First Lady directed by Susanne Bier, another formidable woman in my life. And now it’s even more full circle with a show that our company is producing that Elle is in, Margo’s Got Money Troubles, that Michelle is also starring in. So it’s very, very special to have had these women as role models throughout our entire careers—it is not something that I take for granted.

And, always, this is something that I think comes up when we’re talking about projects that we want to take on with Lewellen Pictures: Audiences love seeing women act together on-screen, and we’re always looking for opportunities to create those environments on-screen.

EF: Yeah, to perform with cool women in roles about the complexities of female friendship and the complexities of just being a woman in general. We’ve gotten scripts sometimes where you’re like, “God, this could be so good, but there’s just something missing. This isn’t actually what female friendship is like.”

DF: With All Her Fault [in which Dakota co-starred with Sarah Snook], that was something that I really responded to in the story. Between my character and Sarah’s character, it was so ripe for the picking to have them at each other’s throats—to have the two women pitted against each other in this stressful time. It was unusual to see a plot not go in that direction, but I don’t think it’s unusual in real life to see that. The relationship that was portrayed on the show was much truer to the friendships that I have in my life.

Dakota in Hulu’s All Her Fault.PeacockYes, we want fully formed female characters, please. So why a production company? What is appealing to you about this kind of work?

DF: When you have been acting for a long time, you feel so reliant on other people for opportunities, waiting for other people to believe in you or see something in you. Taking a producer’s role gives you more control. You see so many actresses taking this path and wanting to kind of create their own way, and I understand that very deeply.

It’s also a way to exercise different muscles. We’ve produced two true-crime documentaries that might not be expected from two women like us. It’s also exciting to be a part of a project from the ground up. You feel pride in a different way than when you’re just hired to be an actor. You’re part of the editing and the post and the marketing decisions—all of that.

EF: Yeah, I like the post-production part. I love editing. I fell in love with it on The Great, which we were producers on. That was also the first time that I had experienced pitches and got to see behind the curtain. And we’ve also learned not to apologize for knowing things. We are young, of course, but we’ve been in this business a long time. We realized that, no, we don’t have to apologize for knowing the answer to this question or how to problem-solve; we can fire back occasionally. My voice has certainly grown as I put my ideas into the ring in a strong way.

And then also, literally, Dakota is family. We can be extremely honest. I think that’s how we lead. Even with acting, our careers, our lives—we have to come from a place of truth. And we hope that the projects we choose also come from that place and feel very authentic.

So far, everything that we’ve produced, we’ve pretty much starred in, but we’re trying to find some things that we can produce and not be in. I think that’s the next step.

Allyson RiggsIs there anyone you’re dying to work with now that you’re in charge?

DF: God, so many.

EF: The list is endless.

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DF: I’m now desperate to work with Joachim Trier at some point. Sentimental Value is so unbelievable, and Elle’s experience was so wonderful. And so that would be something I would be very excited about.

EF: Jane Campion is someone we talk about a lot. Holly Hunter, we’ve never worked with her either. We’re from the same hometown in Georgia.

When you look back at your childhood, is there anything that now feels like it was foreshadowing all of this? Was there a moment when you knew owning a production company together was an eventual goal?

DF: When I was in a film [Every Secret Thing] that Frances McDormand produced, she was really adamant that you want to take ownership of projects and find that control. I remember having a conversation with her that really impacted me and left me feeling like this was something I’d do eventually, so it lived in the back of my mind for a while.

Elle and I didn’t have some profound conversation about it; it just naturally felt like this was what we should do. Elle and I are very, very, very close. Yes, I’m older and Elle’s younger, but we were raised the exact same way and we shared everything. Our mom at Christmas would even the presents out; if they were a little bit different, she’d be like, “They’re the same price, though.” Family was everything. What’s mine is hers. What’s hers is mine. What’s mine is my mom’s. What’s hers is my mom’s, which is mine. It’s a joint effort between all of us to live this life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So it was a natural step that if we formed a company, we would do it together, because that’s just our mentality in our family. And I think that makes the victories that much sweeter, and the hard times a little bit easier, because you’re all in it together.

Elle and Michelle Pfeiffer in Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles.Apple TVYou named the company after a dog your family had when you were growing up?

DF: Lewellen was our first and only dog growing up. One day we were with Brittany Kahan Ward, our manager and producing partner, and her husband Chris, sitting around their dining table, talking about the company, and he was like, “Well, you should name it after Lewellen.” She was getting older at the time, and we were devastated that she was older and couldn’t even think about that possibility—as pet owners can relate to. It’s a way to immortalize this creature that brought so much happiness and joy into our lives.

Is there anything you wish you knew before starting out in this industry?

DF: I don’t know if I could have known any more at 6. I knew the maximum amount that anyone could know at that age. No one in my family was in this business at all. And my mom was basically the age that I am now when we came to Los Angeles to try this. That’s so funny to think about. We were really figuring it out together.

Frazer Harrison

I’ve loved my life and my experiences and the timing of my lessons. I feel like they’ve all come at the right time. Something that you think is the biggest disappointment or the biggest loss or letdown, there will come a time—and it may be in eight years—but there will come a time when you will go, “Whoa, if that had happened, then this wouldn’t have happened.” I’ve had so many of those moments, and it makes disappointments easier, because you have faith that one day you’ll understand.

What kinds of projects are you drawn to now?

EF: So far, there’s been a through line about misunderstood women, or complicated women, or women who have had something society has put on them. Those are the roles that Dakota and I gravitate toward wanting to play, and they are also the characters that I love to watch. And it doesn’t mean that they necessarily have to be the hero of the story or do everything right. We gravitate toward the complicated, because we like to challenge ourselves. When something is hard to crack, or it’s like, “No one really knows how to write this,” or “They don’t know the way in,” we want to devour that and take over and be like, “Let’s find a way.”

DF: And then sometimes it’s like, “Oh, well, nobody’s going to like this character,” and it’s like, “Well, okay, I don’t like everyone I meet either.”

EF: Yeah, we’ve definitely heard that about women characters, specifically. People say, “Oh, we need to make her a little bit easier or more palatable,” and we’re just not interested in that.

Eric Charbonneau

What is your biggest goal in starting this company?

DF: World domination.

EF: We’re really excited for The Nightingale, which is going to be a big step for us. We were going to film it years ago, but then the pandemic happened. Back then, we weren’t signed on as producers; the company hadn’t formed yet. And now it feels like this is the perfect time to finally do this together, and act together, and get to produce it and have more say.

I read that for a long time, you were leery of acting together. What was it about The Nightingale that felt right?

DF: It was the power of the book. The reach is so massive and widespread. It was back on the New York Times bestseller list recently; it keeps finding new readers. There are lots of complicated things within the story, but at its core, it’s actually a quite simple story, which is the everlasting love between these two sisters, set within a time period that is so rife with tragedy. It’s clearly a story that people are able to put themselves in in some capacity and feel all those emotions and the dynamic between our characters. So that was just impossible to ignore.

EF: It definitely started to feel inevitable.

DF: It’s the first time that it felt like an undeniable thing. Whereas when we were younger, it felt a little more clichéd and it didn’t feel emotionally right.

EF: And it wasn’t. It might’ve been more for the gimmick of it. But at the age we are now, after having forged our own paths and our careers and acting styles separately, being able to come together just feels right. And we have to do it so people will stop asking us. [Laughing.]

DF: We’re like, “We’re going to literally disappoint everyone we’ve ever met if we don’t make this happen somehow.”

This story appears in the April 2026 issue of ELLE.

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