The actress in question is Elle Fanning, sister to the well-known Dakota Fanning. Elle has carved out her own impressive career, recently featuring in projects like “All Her Fault” and the horror film “Vicious.” In “Predator: Badlands,” she stars alongside Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, who portrays Dek, an unlikely ally from the Predator species, ostracized for being the runt of his family.

Elle Fanning’s career spans both film and television, showcasing her versatility and talent, much like her sister Dakota. From critically acclaimed biopics to whimsical historical tales and Disney villain origin stories, Fanning has built a diverse portfolio. Let’s take a closer look at her journey leading up to “Predator: Badlands.”

Elle Fanning began her career at a young age, initially playing a younger version of Dakota’s character in the 2001 film “I Am Sam.” Following that, she appeared in guest roles on popular TV series like “Taken,” “CSI: Miami,” “House M.D.,” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” Fans of the latter series might recall her standout role in the intense Season 8 episode “Caged.” While Fanning predominantly focused on television early in her career, she made a significant impact in 2020 with her leading role in Tony McNamara’s Hulu original series “The Great.”

Like Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning has been working since she was a little kid — she even played the younger version of Dakota’s main character in Sean Penn’s 2001 film “I Am Sam” — and one year later, she started popping up in small one-off roles on big TV shows like “Taken,” “CSI: Miami,” “House M.D.,” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” (Fans of the latter might remember Fanning’s very prominent role in the infamously messed-up Season 8 episode “Caged.”) We’ll return to Fanning’s big screen exploits in just a moment, but that’s where she spent most of her time until 2020, when her biggest TV role came courtesy of Tony McNamara’s Hulu original series “The Great.”

McNamara, who’s also written similarly off-beat and wonderfully anachronistic portraits of real historical royals like Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2018 film “The Favourite,” pioneered this show that casts Fanning as Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. (As a reminder, Catherine the Great was a ruler who organized a coup against her idiot husband and ended up becoming one of Russia’s most beloved and famous rulers by ushering in a long age of propserity and artistic prowess.) That idiot husband, Emperor Peter III, is played brilliantly by Nicholas Hoult on the series, and Fanning is absolutely sublime as Catherine, an incredibly intelligent and shrewd politician who teams up with her handmaiden and closest friend Marial Brezhnev (Phoebe Fox) and other supporters to steal the throne from her own spouse. 

“The Great” ran for three seasons from 2020 to 2023, and in 2022, she also found time to star in the true crime miniseries “The Girl From Plainville.” The big screen, though, is where Fanning shines most reliably.

After “I Am Sam” in 2001, Elle Fanning went on to appear in a ton of films at a young age, including “Daddy Daycare” in 2003, the English voice dub of “My Neighbor Totoro” in 2005, and “Babel” in 2006. A few years after that, Fanning made an appearance in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” working with director David Fincher and luminaries like Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, and in 2010, she starred alongside Stephen Dorff in Sofia Coppola’s emotional father-daughter film “Somewhere,” marking her first role in a more “adult” project that allowed her to show off her growth as an actress.

In 2014, Fanning took a prominent role in “Maleficent,” the Disney villain origin story where Angelina Jolie plays the titular Maleficent to Fanning’s Princess Aurora; the two reunited for the sequel “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” in 2019. This is also the era where Fanning started taking ambitious and diverse roles in smaller independent projects like “20th Century Women,” “The Neon Demon,” and Sofia Coppola’s striking feminist Civil War film “The Beguiled,” but in 2024, she finally found her way into a smash hit thanks to “A Complete Unknown.” 

James Mangold’s biopic of Bob Dylan early in his career cast Timothée Chalamet as the world-famous singer and Fanning as his lover Sylvie Russo, a character based on Dylan’s real-life girlfriend Suze Rotolo. Fanning didn’t earn an Oscar nod like Chalamet did, but she did wow audiences with her sensitive, emotionally resonant, and layered performance as a woman who realizes that fame and temptation will always keep her and her partner apart, proving that she’s handily made the transition from child actor to adult star.

As for “Predator: Badlands,” Fanning’s newest big project, it hits theaters on November 7.