Elle Fanning connects punctually to the video call from a bright, white room somewhere in Los Angeles — relaxed, warm, and utterly herself. These are the closing weeks of a remarkable journey: Sentimental Value, the new film by Norwegian director Joachim Trier, has earned her a first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The news reached her half-asleep at her sister Dakota's house after a late night out. "My phone kept lighting up. I saw all the congratulations messages and thought the film must have achieved something — then I got the call confirming it. I walked through the house in shock. Dakota and my mum came out and we just screamed and hugged each other." Whether or not she takes home the statuette, the nomination marks an unmistakable turning point for an actress who made her screen debut at the age of three.

On the Sentimental Value set, Trier built the kind of environment Fanning clearly thrives in. "He creates a space where actors can open up and feel safe enough to be truly vulnerable," she says. "The film deals with quite dark themes, but it was made with so much lightness." The ensemble — including Stellan Skarsgård, Renate Reinsve, and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas — has since become a travelling circus of sorts, navigating the awards season together. Skarsgård, she notes with obvious affection, is "wonderfully funny and mischievous, almost a paternal figure." Their first scenes were filmed on the beach in Deauville, during the local film festival, and the bond forged there has only deepened since.

Next comes Rosebush Pruning, directed by Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz, an international production that brought her to Barcelona alongside, among others, Elena Anaya. ("The food there was incredible," she says, visibly lit up.) Working on European sets has revealed an unexpected advantage: not speaking the language on set gave her, as she puts it, "a kind of tunnel vision — I could concentrate entirely on my own world." The observation speaks to a broader truth about how she approaches her craft. "Many of my favourite filmmakers are foreign. But ultimately, a great director is a great director." Threading through all of it is her sister Dakota — collaborator, co-founder, and, on the morning of the nomination, the first person she called. The two have launched a production company together, Lewellen Pictures, focused in particular on female-led stories, and are set to share the screen for the first time in an adaptation of bestselling novel The Nightingale, where, naturally, they will play sisters. "In what she is strong, perhaps I am less so — and vice versa. We complement each other in an extraordinary way," Fanning says. Directing, she adds, is a longer-term ambition: "Perhaps in ten years. I've dreamed of it since I was young. But you need to find the right story first."

For now, the most immediate preoccupation is rather more glamorous: finalising the look she will wear to the Academy Awards. ("It's being made as we speak — we made a small change just yesterday.") Fashion, she explains, has been a lifelong passion, nurtured from childhood by a mother who let her raid vintage shops and experiment freely. At seven, she wore 1950s swimsuits as jumpsuits on the street. Today, her treasures include a turquoise Dior suit from the 1960s and a black Balenciaga skirt and jacket set from around 1959. "The fabrics, the hand-stitched embroidery — you just don't see that anymore. It melts my heart." Between vintage dresses and Slim Aarons photographs, Elle Fanning looks toward the future the only way she knows how: with lightness, and with joy.