Fan reactions were mixed when Elle Fanning, 23, first announced that she was to portray Michelle Carter in a miniseries depiction of the infamous “texting-suicide” case (in which Carter pressured her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to commit suicide eight years ago). Now, as The Girl From Plainville premiered on Hulu last week, fans are not only praising Fanning’s “accurate” and “dedicated” performance, but also the transformation she underwent to recreate Carter’s courtroom scenes.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Fanning detailed her experience preparing and ultimately playing Carter, and the emotional toll it took on her. “Her look definitely evolves and changes a lot, and she grows up a lot,” said Fanning, who took on the role of the lonely teenage girl, who in the show, as ET writes, had a two-year relationship with a boy she met during a vacation in Florida that largely unfolded over text message before he killed himself. In total, the series spans across 7 years of Carter’s life. It also recounts the fame and fallout that followed Roy’s death, and then it concludes by showing the highly viewed and followed trial that resulted in her being sentenced to 15 months in prison.
Fanning noted that “it was an intense” 5 month shoot in Savannah, Georgia in the second half of 2021 and something she had to jump right into after filming the second season of The Great only weeks before. “It was such a shock to my system, I would say,” she added. Fanning also revealed that she spent a lot of time alone in her apartment between filming thanks to COVID, and she read the thousands of text messages between Carter and Roy to prepare. She also watched The Fault in Our Stars and Glee as those two popular pop culture relics reportedly influenced Carter’s mind at the time.
Fanning said that being in Carter’s “headspace” was like being “very much trapped in that moment.” Even off-screen, she said,“I really did not feel like myself for those five months […] You can’t help but not feel like me, especially when you look in the mirror and you don’t look like yourself.” As for those long-awaited court scenes, creator Liz Hannah also said that the costume team was able to find and source the exact outfits Carter wore in real-life for Fanning.
Apart from specific costume pieces, Fanning said she had to wear “a prosthetic piece at the forehead” to change her hairline. “That was an interesting part of the process ‘cause I’ve never had to really transform myself in that way before,” she said. Hannah and Fanning’s castmates, including Chloë Sevigny, Norbert Leo Butz and Cara Buono agreed that it was “scary” seeing Fanning arrive onto the set as Carter, especially in the courtroom scenes. “It was like seeing Michelle walk in,” Hannah recalled. From her forehead piece to her filled-in eyebrows, everything about Fanning’s resemblance to Carter made us do a double take! The Girl From Plainville will have new weekly episodes on Hulu until May 3rd.
