How Elle Fanning, ‘Money Troubles’ team made HungryGhost pop

“I was laughing out loud. And I was crying with her.”

This is how Elle Fanning remembers the first time she read Rufi Thorpe’s bestseller “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” now a winsome Apple TV series on chosen families, urgent financial realities and motherly resilience created by TV powerhouse David E. Kelley (“Big Little Lies”) with Fanning in the lead. Also an executive producer of the heartwarming dramedy, about a Fullerton College dropout who becomes pregnant by her married professor and launches an OnlyFans account to make ends meet, the Oscar-nominated actor was taken by Margo’s strength and vivid imagination. Her support system is a band of other misfits, caring figures even when they don’t approve of her choices: headstrong mom Shyanne (Michelle Pfeiffer); former pro-wrestler dad Jinx (Nick Offerman); boundlessly creative LARPer roomie Susie (Thaddea Graham); and experienced OnlyFans collaborators KC (rapper Rico Nasty) and Rose (Lindsey Normington).

Fanning has been living with this character for a while now, having recently recorded the audiobook as well. “I felt free playing her,” she explains. “She had something unabandoned that I wanted to capture.” Margo’s unrestrained spirit deepens thanks to her OnlyFans alter ego, HungryGhost, a mesmerizing, 1960s-coded alien-fembot with retro outfits and a large sexual appetite who is discovering Earth for the first time. “HungryGhost is birthed from Margo’s experience of feeling like an alien,” Fanning says. “Her peers don’t have children. And as a new mother, she’s certainly seeing her world through a different prism.”

Fanning wanted to emphasize Margo’s writerly talents, an intention Kelley shared. “At her core, Margo was a writer,” he says. “I think the reason that her son, Bodhi, came into being is that his father struck a chord in recognizing that. That’s probably what Margo fell for. And so we very much wanted to explore Margo the writer.”

With the videos Margo creates on TikTok as HungryGhost, the show does exactly that. “I laughed out loud at a lot of the things in the making of those little vignettes,” recalls Kelley. “Some were improvised, some scripted. There is one where HungryGhost talks directly into camera, saying she is going to invade and conquer the viewers. I loved the visuals and delivery of that — it spoke to Margo’s nucleus of being a creative.”

In order not to lose sight of Margo during HungryGhost sessions, executive producer and director Dearbhla Walsh (“Bad Sisters”) considered the photographic tension between reality and fantasy, framing the OnlyFans vignettes by showing Margo’s real world around it. “You rarely just see the screen of OnlyFans,” explains Walsh, who directed four episodes. “You also see the outside: baby’s dirty nappy or Margo’s ordinary knickers or track pants, all the unglamorous and unsexy things.” To Walsh, those choices represented Margo’s sense of control. “She’s a director and you could always see the creation [process], how Margo brought theater into her OnlyFans.” Such decisions also helped eliminate unnecessary sexualization and fetishization. “You only ever see her naked breasts when she is functioning as a mother and breastfeeding.”

Costume designer Mirren Gordon-Crozier wanted to marry Margo’s two worlds with well-considered pieces and subtle hints that bridge them. “Margo has a favorite alien T-shirt. And then in an early episode, she has another button-down shirt that has an alien. Hopefully, the viewers notice that it’s in her subconscious.”

Fanning with Thaddea Graham, who plays Margo’s crafty roommate Susie.

(Apple TV)

We witness two versions of Margo’s alien persona throughout: an expensive-looking fantasy iteration that Margo imagines on a giant movie theater screen, and the actual “budget” one that Margo and Susie create, which needed to look homemade because the two women don’t have a lot of money. “The fantasy outfit is a 1960s throwback. I saw it like [Jane Fonda’s] ‘Barbarella’ with the cone bra and the antenna. She is coming to capture the cowboy aliens,” Gordon-Crozier explains. For the lovably imperfect real-life version, the designer wanted to reflect the artistry of Margo’s supportive roommate, who is instrumental in the realization of her friend’s art. “Susie is crafty and she’s into role-playing. In my mind, she had a closet full of clothes.” Finding inspiration everywhere, from fashion photography to Harajuku Girls, Gordon-Crozier especially emphasizes filmmaker Michel Gondry’s influence. “I love that he always has a DIY element to everything he does.” With that spirit, bedazzling some cowboy costumes took a village, with everyone chipping in: “Even Elle helped. I added all these moons and stars to her boots. While waiting for the shoot, she sat on the back of my truck and we bedazzled together.”

Meanwhile, Fanning had her own reference points. “I’m a big Pinterest girl and I looked up a lot of photos from the ’60s. I was also inspired by ‘The Jetsons,’ which I watched a lot growing up.” To perfect Fanning’s Space Age skin makeup, department head Erin Ayanian used a sparkly, turquoise cream eye shadow, bought in bulk since it came in tiny containers. “There were definitely shades of ‘Lost in Space’ and myriad other 1960s sci-fi stories,” says Ayanian. When it came to Margo’s bouffant hairstyle as the dream HungryGhost, stylist Jaime Leigh McIntosh used a combination of three wigs in pink. “It looked so fun next to the shade they’d chosen for the skin tone. I hope we’ll see some people in HungryGhost costumes next Halloween!”

To Fanning, there is a similarity between her own acting process and the way Margo and HungryGhost inform each other. “In my relationship to the characters I play, we’re nourishing each other. You don’t know it in the moment, but you realize it in hindsight. When I did ‘The Great,’ I felt like I was morphing into Catherine, my confidence was growing. And through HungryGhost, Margo is building her confidence too.”