Elle's life when she isn't filming a movie consists of attending a regular school ("It's not a super actor school, which is good. I like being around people who are just kids"), going to ballet class in the afternoons ("Cheerleading isn't for me"), having slumber parties with friends (she cites The Devil Wears Prada as "a great sleepover movie"), and decorating the bulletin board in her bedroom with fashion magazine tear sheets (she loves fashion, but she has "too many Marilyn Monroe posters" on her wall, so it's a small one).
Even though she's worked with Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, and two Coppolas (Francis Ford of The Godfather fame and Sofia, whom she likens to "a big sister"), Elle doesn't think she's that different from other kids her age. "Some people do piano lessons after school; I do movies," she says earnestly.
In her new film, We Bought a Zoo, she stars alongside Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, whom she says she was "so excited and sort of nervous" to meet. "I always feel like they're just a name—like they're not real at first. Then once you get to know them, you're like, That's Scarlett and Matt! It's not, like, Matt Damon." She and Scarlett, who nicknamed her Elbow, now "talk on e-mail all the time."
Elle is not a Method actress. She plays a goofy but totally endearing twelve-year-old experiencing first love in We Bought a Zoo, but, she says, "I never really pull from experience. I just sort of make believe. That's why I like acting. You can create or imagine anything. It's not like I've fallen in love," she explains, "but I've had crushes and things."
Her Hollywood crush is Ryan Gosling. ("Me and my friends saw Crazy, Stupid, Love, and we were freaking out," she gushes. "Everyone falls in love with him after that.") In real life, however, she's not interested in dating yet. "In seventh grade, it was sort of a big deal to have a boyfriend," she says. "You're not in elementary school anymore, and you feel a lot older. But you can't do anything. Your mom has to drop you off! It's sort of awkward. You're sitting here, and the parents are over there. I don't know—not for me!" The boys at her school have some catching up to do, anyway: Elle is the tallest one in her grade.
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