If history was taught the way that The Great teaches history, we might be in better shape. The Hulu series doesn’t concern itself with telling a historically accurate biography of Catherine the Great, but it gives us a captivating heroine to root for in the performance by Elle Fanning. While Fanning has grown up almost literally before our eyes, her performance as the Russian empress is bold, sexy, and cunning.

At the very start of the series, Catherine has a romantic, sweeping idea of marriage. When she meets her husband, Peter (a dastardly Nicholas Hoult), those dreams are automatically dashed after she sees how he runs his court like a royal frat house. She quickly realizes that she is just there to produce an heir, but she hatches her own plot to overthrow her husband and rule a country that she feels a powerful tie to, despite not being born there. Catherine coddles, humors, and spars with Peter, and Fanning takes her from a delicate girl to a badass in a matter of episodes.

How Fanning hides her strength from Hoult is the best thing about the series. It makes you wonder if Catherine is surprised by her own moxie and manipulative mind. Catherine declares war on a man who takes her life and her body, and Fanning’s performance is a loud cry in taking back her power.

Awards Daily: This is the third series to come out about Catherine the Great in the last 8 or so years. Why do you think we are so fascinated with her?

Elle Fanning: It’s interesting, right?

AD: Yeah.

EF: Everybody wants to talk about her right now. I think it tells something about the world we are living in right now. I’m happy that there are all these different versions about her story. Obviously, our version has a very specific tone and not completely historically accurate. We want to create our own version of her, and that’s what Tony [McNamara] does so well. He merges in facts and what she did in a very specific way. I didn’t know much about Catherine the Great before I read the script. I had heard the horse rumor.

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Fanning discusses her new Hulu series, TikTok dances, how to perfect the poached egg and her reality TV obsession

In late March, Elle Fanning was supposed to go off to Budapest to film The Nightingale, based on Kristin Hannah’s bestselling novel about two sisters struggling to survive in Nazi-occupied France. Her co-star—for the first time since they made plays together at home as toddlers—was meant to be her older sister, Dakota, who is four years her senior.

But, as happened with most Hollywood movies and television series in production during the COVID-19 crisis, just a few days before the siblings were set to depart from Los Angeles for Hungary, shooting on The Nightingale was canceled, its release date postponed indefinitely.

“We’ve dreamed of this for a long time, and we talked for a while about what project could get us together,” says the 22-year-old Fanning, who underlines that they will star in The Nightingale at some point in the future. “We thought maybe we didn’t want to play sisters, but we’ve grown up in this industry and have a unique understanding of what it means to be sisters. So, at least the sister part we’ve got down.”

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Elle and Nicholas Hoult are featured on the May edition of the Emmy Magazine, check the scans with Elle in our gallery:

Backstage, known for being a source for career advice and casting opportunities, had a Instagram interview with Elle and it’s on their IGTV, check it out: