As soon as Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer read Rufi Thorpe’s 2024 novel “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” both actresses were enchanted by the characters and wanted to be part of this world.
“I found Margo really inspiring,” Fanning said. “At every turn she picks the harder route but then faces this adversity and finds her power with optimism and positivity. I felt like they were people I’ve met before — people who could easily be judged at first glance. But in this series, it’s a lot about second chances.”
The Apple TV series, created by David E. Kelley (who has been married to Pfeiffer for 32 years), is tender and blisteringly funny. To develop a mother-daughter dynamic, the duo drew on their years-long relationship. Their shared history dates back to 2001’s “I Am Sam,” the Jessie Nelson drama starring Pfeiffer as a lawyer who agrees to help a man with intellectual disability gain custody of his daughter pro bono. The daughter is played by Elle’s sister, Dakota Fanning, and Elle appears as the 2-year-old version of the character. She and Pfeiffer then reunited on screen in 2019 with “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil,” with Pfeiffer as the power-hungry Queen Ingrith and Fanning as Aurora, the daughter-in-law she despises.
Their strong bond was paramount to making “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” as remarkable as it is. The comedy-drama centers on Fanning’s Margo, a 20-year-old aspiring writer who becomes pregnant with the child of her married community-college professor. She chooses to drop out of school and raise her baby boy, Bodhi, temporarily abandoning her dreams and following in the footsteps of her own young mother, Shyanne (Pfeiffer), a former Hooters waitress. Margo begins posting on OnlyFans under the name HungryGhost to make money for her baby. The series chronicles Margo’s cycles of shame, grief and frustration, which Shyanne once felt.
Yet instead of a sob story, Margo’s is an uplifting one as she finds an unlikely community and reawakens her creativity through her OnlyFans work. Instead of posting endless nudes like Shyanne fears, Margo turns her channel into its own world, using choreographed TikTok dances supervised by her former pro-wrestler father Jinx (Nick Offerman) to tell the story of an alien who’s learning about Earth.
Fanning consulted with several women on set, including directors Dearbhla Walsh, Kate Herron and Alice Seabright, to accurately depict young motherhood, from carrying a pregnancy belly to breastfeeding. And just as Margo learns to depend on Shyanne as she raises Bodhi, Fanning relied on Pfeiffer to help her navigate her birthing scenes.
Rufi Thorpe’s prose is so distinct. How did you bring these characters to life on screen while preserving the author’s voice?
ELLE FANNING Rufi was so open when working with David because she realized that a book and a TV show are two different things. She allowed us to really be free with the story — but at the same time, the series is very true to the book. There are certainly things that are expanded upon, like Shyanne’s character, but there’s so much to bite into.
I actually recorded the audiobook, and I’d never done that before for a part that I was going to play. Being able to say it out loud, I felt like I found Margo’s inner life, and it was easier to connect with her on the day of filming because of that.
She’ll play along with whatever you throw at her, and she’s just really smart and inquisitive about the material. I was just delighted.
Michelle Pfeiffer on Elle Fanning
How did you go about constructing Margo and Shyanne’s relationship?
MICHELLE PFEIFFER It’s in the writing, and the writing is so good. I have got to say that David E. Kelley, he can write for women. It’s just so beautifully drawn out, as are these characters. Also, Elle and I have an innate connection. She knows what I’m thinking. We can look at each other across the room and read each other’s minds. So when the writing is so fleshed out for you, all you have to do is show up and not mess it up.
How early in the production process did the two of you feel that connection?
PFEIFFER I’ve known Elle since she was 2 on the set of “I Am Sam,” and then I worked with her again on “Maleficent,” where I didn’t play such a nice character. Even though we didn’t have that many scenes together, I really connected with her as an actress. She makes really interesting choices, and that makes working with her so interesting. She’ll play along with whatever you throw at her, and she’s just really smart and inquisitive about the material. I was just delighted. I had already played Dakota’s mother [in 2022’s “The First Lady”], so we’re keeping it all in the family.
FANNING The Shyanne and Margo relationship is really the heart of the show. I love watching films and TV shows about mother-daughter dynamics and the complications of that. David wrote it so truthfully. Who’s the parent and who’s the child? That dynamic flips in the series, and also they’re best friends at times.
PFEIFFER That dynamic where the child is actually the one taking care of the parent — I find with some single parents that happens because I think there’s a lot of guilt about being a single parent and not being able to give them what you think is a conventional whole family. Shyanne has a bit of arrested development. She’s a little like the female Peter Pan, so when you have a mother like that, you’re forced to grow up and be responsible at a very early age.
What went into portraying the dynamic between mother and daughter after Shyanne learns Margo has been making money from OnlyFans?
PFEIFFER All parents want a better life for their children than they had for themselves. Shyanne has huge hopes and aspirations and is, in a way, living vicariously through Margo. She’s worked very hard and there were a lot of dreams she had to forgo in order to raise and take care of Margo. [Shyanne’s reaction] is total and utter fear that “God forbid she should end up like me and make a lot of the same sacrifices that I did.” There’s a certain grieving that comes with this for Shyanne, and it’s ultimately just guilt and shame because she hasn’t been the greatest example.
FANNING For Margo, OnlyFans starts from a place of desperation, wanting to provide for her child and really having no other place to turn, but then it turns into this beautiful creative outlet and an unexpected place for her to fulfill those dreams we were talking about. She starts the series as this aspiring writer, and when she makes this choice in life to have Bodhi, she thinks, I’ll have to give up on all of my dreams.
In finding OnlyFans, she can provide for her child and starts to find this agency and a place where she can write and create in a new way, but that also comes with a lot of judgment from the outside. It’s interesting to get to share a story that is about OnlyFans because there’s not a lot out there at the moment. It’s still relatively new. People are still discovering it, and there can be a lot of judgment in it, but it’s not just one thing.
What was it like learning those TikTok routines, Elle? And how time-intensive was it to learn them with Nick Offerman, Lindsey Normington and Rico Nasty?
FANNING We had a great stunt team. I mainly worked with the stunt team with Rico and Lindsey, and we would choreograph the TikTok sequences a couple days before we shot them. [The staged fight scenes] really are like learning choreography. Getting to dive deeper into that world and understand that they’re trying to sell the hit, but it’s done in a way where you’re protecting the other person when you’re taking the hit. It was interesting. It’s another version of performance, which is another theme in this show — the people that we are in reality and the facade that we have to put on sometimes to get us through life.
With Margo, she’s creating her HungryGhost character, and that’s cathartic for her. Jinx, in his wrestling, is doing the same thing. They’re both entertainers, so I love how both those worlds intertwined, and that Jinx was a part of creating the HungryGhost character for OnlyFans, for his daughter. It’s very touching. We also had a girl who I did ballet with growing up. She’s a choreographer now. Her name’s Sadie Wilking, and she came on to do the TikTok dance for us to Rico’s song [“Bad Debt”].
Shyanne has some very dramatic moments, but she serves as one of the more comedic figures throughout the show. Michelle, you’ve always had a knack for comedy, but it’s rare for you to be the comedic center. What was it like leaning into that side of your acting?
PFEIFFER I also feel like I’m really good at killing jokes. There will be this funny line, and my delivery just doesn’t quite do it justice. (Laughs) It’s the character and the situation. She’s very flamboyant, but you never know how these characters are going to be received, and a lot of it is in the editing and the timing with other actors. I mean, nobody’s funnier than Greg Kinnear [who plays her love interest, Kenny], and with Nick it’s like a whole different kind of comedy that’s sort of offbeat. All you have to do is be present in the scene with them. You have this wonderful writing. Some of it plays funnier than you thought, and some of it is more moving than you thought.
What do you want people to take away from Margo’s Got Money Troubles?
PFEIFFER This is about a lot of flawed people who are just trying to get by, and they’re doing the best they can. It’s to not judge on the surface of things because people are a lot more complicated than they appear, and they have whole lives behind them.
FANNING That’s what I was going to say. You see? She knows me.
This story first ran in the Comedy Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
