In Dan Trachtenberg’s 2025 sci-fi film “Predator: Badlands,” Elle Fanning plays an android named Thia, found by the Yautja Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) on the dangerous alien world of Genna. Genna is a forbidding place, populated by all manner of lethal flora and fauna. The trees sprout quick-moving tentacles that reach out to grab potential prey. The fields are made of razor-sharp grasses, and the landscape is littered with indestructible apes, mega-bison, and acid-spitting land eels. Dek has come to Genna specifically to hunt a legendarily unkillable beast called the Kalisk, a cross between King Kong and a porcupine.
Dek finds Thia — or, more specifically, her top half — bound to a tree on Genna. She explains that she was ripped in half and left for dead while researching creatures as part of an elaborate specimen-finding mission. For the bulk of the excellent “Predator: Badlands,” Dek will carry Thia’s top half through the dangerous landscape while she chatters up a storm, curious about Dek’s species, but also warning him about the way this biome works. He remains gruff and taciturn throughout. Later in the film, it will be revealed that Thia has an android “sister” named Tessa (also Fanning).
Fanning’s performances are both marvelous, infusing her two android characters with hints of humanity. She is also, however, able to give her characters the appropriate artificial qualities, so audiences never lose sight of the fact that they are synthetic beings. They are both eerily human and inhuman in turns. And it seems that some of Fanning’s unusual talents aided in those performances. In a new interview with EW, Fanning revealed that she was able to unnerve her co-star immensely by the fact that she has double-jointed elbows and that she doesn’t need to blink for extended periods.
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Elle Fanning’s double jointed elbows and eerie eyes helped her play an android
Thia crawling across the ground in Predator: Badlands – 20th Century Studios
Her natural talents were something Fanning was happy to brag about. She admits that she enjoyed startling Schuster-Koloamatangi with her wide-open eyes and bendy arms. In her words:
“I do have double-jointed elbows, which is kind of shown off in a couple scenes, which I am proud of. […] Dan loved that. […] I can also keep my eyes open for a very long time without blinking, and so I would like to say I did that myself. They did not do that with the computer. There’s a scene where I have to look like I’m shut down, like a robot shut down, and I kept my eyes open. That was me.”
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Dan, of course, is Dan Trachtenberg, the film’s director. Meanwhile, Schuster-Koloamatangi, also being interviewed, agreed that Fanning’s bendy arms and creepy eyes were an asset. He recalls the first time Fanning was showing off her elbows to Trachtenberg, and how surprised he was. In his words:
“When she did her double-jointed thing, I remember looking over — I was sitting down just cooling off — and she was showing Dan. And I was looking like, ‘Wait, what the hell just happened? Did she just break her arms?’ It was very practical.”
Given that the Thia character is flung around a lot in “Badlands” and spends a lot of the movie bound to Dek’s back, having floppy arms was necessary. And, to Schuster-Koloamatangi’s point, it was one of the few moments in the movie that didn’t require additional computer effects. Trachtenberg recently admitted to /Film that the volume of VFX in “Badlands” was a unique challenge for him, so any excuse to use practical effects was likely pounced upon. Like Fanning’s elbows.
“Predator: Badlands” is now playing in theaters everywhere.
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