Elle Fanning spoke candidly about how nudity is treated in her new Apple TV+ series Margo has money problems, and why she is particularly proud of the way the project was approached.
The Oscar nominee plays Margo, an undergraduate who becomes pregnant by her English professor and turns to OnlyFans to support herself and her baby.
In adapting Rufi Thorpe’s novel with showrunner David E. Kelley, Fanning said she had long conversations about how to depict nudity in a way that felt purposeful rather than gratuitous.
“I’m really proud of the way nudity is portrayed on [Margo’s Got Money Troubles]because it’s not overly sexualized at all,” she said. PEOPLE.
“A lot of it actually has to do with the necessities of motherhood, the need to feed your child and breastfeed. And then it’s sort of juxtaposed, later, when Margo does her OnlyFans. But I think it’s a good commentary on how her relationship with her body is changing.”
She noted that nudity is “never the focal point of the scene”, which she found creatively interesting rather than uncomfortable.
The physical preparation for certain scenes was more complex than expected.
For the breastfeeding sequences, Fanning wore prosthetics with a milk-injection mechanism.
“I was in the trailer and they were putting them on, and then I was like, ‘OK, I’m just going to leave.’ And I’m like, ‘Wait a second, I can’t go out.’ It’s not a shirt.'”
Fanning stars alongside Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, Michael Angarano, Thaddea Graham and Greg Kinnear.
New episodes of Margo has money problems stream Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
