“I’m never watching this again”: the TV show Elle Fanning boycotted as a matter of principle
Actors get used to rejection; it’s just part and parcel of the job, but that doesn’t make it sting any less, especially when you’ve got a sibling in the industry to compare yourself to.
Elle Fanning was born four years after her sister, Dakota, and when she was just two years old, she played the younger version of her character in I Am Sam.
It was her first introduction to the big screen, but certainly not her last – in fact, it didn’t take her long to land roles in some pretty big productions, like the English dub of My Neighbour Totoro (also starring her sister), Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, and David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Fanning quickly forged her own path and began working with impressive directors, from Francis Ford Coppola to Nicolas Winding Refn, proving herself to be the kind of actor who doesn’t turn down a challenge. Despite the success she has since achieved, including an Academy Award nomination for Sentimental Value, she still holds a shred of resentment for her sister landing a role in a show that she auditioned for – back when they were little kids.
As a result, she refuses to watch the sitcom episode that her sister landed, and she didn’t, because if there’s one thing that never fully fades despite your age, it’s good old-fashioned sibling rivalry.
“A few things like that happened when I was little, I had an [audition] to be on Friends once… I might be remembering this wrong, but I think I was gonna be one of Phoebe’s triplets,” she told Net-a-Porter.
Born in a 1998 episode of the iconic TV series, which ran for ten years and defined the American sitcom with its new image of the friendship group as a family unit, the triplets are seen in later episodes, and Fanning wanted to be part of it. She might have only been young, but she still couldn’t believe it when her sister then went on to land a role on a 2004 episode of the series.
She explained, “I auditioned for it, but I didn’t get it, and I was like, ‘I’m boycotting the show, I’m never watching this again.’ Then my sister was on it, and I refused to watch the episode. I was like, ‘I am not watching this!’”
Fanning was only six, but she was bitter that Dakota got to star in the show and not her. You can hardly blame her – the show is a staple of American culture, and even when she was that young, she knew how cool it would’ve been to appear on Friends.
Who knows if Fanning ever watched the episode featuring her sister… She played Mackenzie, an eight-year-old girl whom Joey befriends while her parents sell their house to Monica and Chandler, appearing in the final season of the show, and although it was only a small part, it was one that allowed the elder Fanning to be part of sitcom history, and it seems like her younger sibling will forever be a little jealous. Who wouldn’t be?
