How Elle Fanning Found Her Voice For Teen Spirit

By Ilana Kaplan


This past year has delivered a bevy of female musician narratives with A Star Is Born’s Ally (Lady Gaga), Vox Lux’s Celeste (Natalie Portman) and Her Smell’s Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss). Right now there’s another character to be added to the queue care of Teen Spirit’s Violet (Elle Fanning).


In Max Minghella’s directorial debut, Fanning portrays a lonely, aspiring singer living on a farm with her mother in the Isle of Wight, England. In between waiting tables and going to school, she spends her free time with her horse and singing at open mic nights. Everything changes for her once Vlad (Zlatko Buric), a former opera singer, takes on the role of her manager and coach, helping her compete for a American Idol-like TV series called Teen Spirit. Viewers get to be able to see the growth of Violet as a vocalist as she pursues her dream.


Like Portman and Moss, Fanning isn't known for her vocals — solely her acting. Though Teen Spirit proves that Fanning’s talents are multidimensional, she still needed to make for her role as a pop star — to a degree. The key to nailing the segment of Violet was showing her as a growing artist. “She's not particularly a polished pop star yet,” Fanning explained in a phone interview. “She's a growing performer and since you shoot the movie out of water, it was something that we really had to think about Whenever I was performing to prepare ensure that I was not doing also much, and making sure I was doing enough.” To help make sure Fanning was improving, she went to the apartment of the film’s executive music producer, Marius de Vries, daily to record videos of her singing all the songs daily. “I had to listen back and watch myself to be able to see how I might improve my performance,” she recalled.


additionally to refining her vocals, Fanning, who’s American, needed to learn Polish and refine a English accent, which she worked on with coaches. While Fanning had done English accents before, she had lower her voice to imitate one from Isle of Wight.


“We were looking for someone who could sing brilliantly, have the ability to retain and perform complex choreography, speak with a British accent, learn Polish, ride a horse, and carry every frame of the film,” Minghella mentioned of Violet’s character. “It was a near-impossible list of requirements and I don’t know if there's another living soul who has the faculties to pull this movie off.”


With the role of Violet, Fanning attempted to envision what sort of pop star she could be, by listening to and watching YouTube clips of pop artists she thought Violet would admire: Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. Before she arrived on set, Perry came to lunch while in filming, which Fanning unfortunately missed.


What she noticed in Violet's story, though, were parallels to Dua Lipa’s ascension. She even ended up going to one of her shows with de Vries to assist her with the role. On a personalized level, Fanning drew from her first concert: Gwen Stefani. Yet Fanning knew that Violet ultimately needed to be her own star.


“I mostly just had the songs that I was given, plus it was Marius and I that worked with each other to form [the character]. I didn't get converse with anybody,” she said.


Violet’s potential for pop stardom is documented while in the movie, however perhaps even better told while in the film’s riveting soundtrack, which features Fanning covering an array of some of the buzziest songs in pop music, including Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own,” Sigrid’s “Don’t Kill My Vibe,” and Ellie Goulding’s “Lights.” “Max is obsessed with music and has a real affection for pop, so we came into the project with a script full of songs that Max loved,” mentioned Tony Seyler, Interscope Executive VP of Film/TV Marketing and Licensing. Most of the soundtrack is comprised of live songs from the film, yet some were re-recorded to sound more polished.


The soundtrack, produced by Jack Antonoff, even featured an original song co-written by Carly Rae Jepsen and the Bleachers singer called “Wildflowers” — Jepsen can even be heard on background vocals.


Minghella routinely saw Antonoff as a hero and never thought he’d have the ability to work with him on the original song. “We met up at a diner in Toronto to talk about the movie and he played me a rough demo of 'Wildflowers,'” he mentioned. “After the initial verse I was already singing along. Jack then worked with Elle to really embody the song with the energy of the character.”


To mention Fanning was thrilled to work with Antonoff was a understatement. “I got to experience Jack in the studio, and watch him work exactly where he was working on Lorde and Lana Del Rey's album and all of those musicians I love. He's such a genius,” Fanning mentioned. She’s even in shock right now as soon as she sees her name come up as an artist on Spotify and Apple Music. “It’s sort of mind-boggling,” she admits.


While Fanning had a number of performances while in Teen Spirit, the most impactful was her final number, while she covered Sigrid’s “Don’t Kill My Vibe.”


“It was my last efficiency, it was the song that I knew the least because it was chosen late in the game, so I didn't get to practice that one as much as all of the rest,” she recalled. “And I knew it was going to be a super important moment in Violet’s journey.”


The efficiency featured a pivotal moment for Violet, her finally having this outcry or mad roar. “It was for Violet, yet I also realize it was for me, Elle,” she said.


Fanning feels differently about Teen Spirit than her other work, which is due in part to her singing being highlighted. “Putting the songs out and even just putting this movie out is very vulnerable,” she mentioned. “Singing, there's something about it that just makes you feel very raw and very seen.”


With Fanning revealing she’s an accomplished singer along with an actress, it begs the question: Will she release an album of her own? “I think this movie opened up this door,” she mentioned. “I don't know if my music could be exactly like Violet’s music. However I could be open to that.”