Elle Fanning and her ex-boyfriend of four-plus years, Max Minghella kept their romance private for essentially the most part—but their history was robust and had some public moments. Fanning confirmed their breakup to Harper’s Bazaar UK in April 2023, saying she is currently single. “But I’m a hopeless romantic. I feel in love at first sight,” she said. “Call me crazy, but I feel in those things. I feel that it’s my destiny.”
She previously confirmed they were still on and powerful on November 1, 2022, when she shared a photograph of them in a pair Halloween costume together on her Instagram grid. That appearance silenced any breakup rumors then.
The 2 have been romantically linked since July 2018, after they were seen holding hands in Florence, Italy, per Us Weekly. In August of that 12 months, they were seen out on a date in London.
“They seemed so relaxed and comfy,” a source who saw them in London told Us then. “They were very low key and comfy with one another, and searching over for each other and chatting quietly to one another after they were together stuff.”
It wasn’t until May of 2019, on the annual Met Gala, that they made their red carpet debut as a pair.
Matt Winkelmeyer/MG19//Getty Images
The 2 began dating after they worked together on the film Teen Spirit (2018), which Fanning starred in and Minghella wrote and directed.
“I mean, we just really love working together,” Fanning told Entertainment Tonight in 2019, when asked about her love life. “That was, like, very special, and he’s such friend.”
Minghella, 37, also kept things skilled within the interview, though he did gush over his 24-year-old girlfriend plenty, calling her “the one actress who could have carried” the movie. “It’s an incredible list of necessities. You may have to find a way to sing, you may have to find a way to bounce, you’ve to, , find a way to talk Polish convincingly, do the British accent, play the age range and carry the movie with an incredibly nuanced performance,” he said. “It’s loads for one person, and he or she just handled all the things with such discipline and professionalism and he or she never complained.”
Fanning and Minghella’s relationship is clearly each skilled and romantic. But who’s Minghella? Here’s what to find out about Fanning’s ex-beau and the history they did share.
Fanning and Minghella made a rare red carpet appearance together on December 15, 2022.
The then-longtime couple stepped out for the Los Angeles premiere of Minghella’s film Babylon. Each matched in black, with Fanning wearing a vintage Alexander McQueen dress.
Getty Images
Getty Images
He and Fanning last shared a photograph together on Halloween 2022.
The 2 were a really private couple, but Fanning made it clear to fans they were still on and powerful during Halloween 2022. Fanning dressed as Tiffany, Chucky’s bride, while Minghella was Chucky himself.
He was born and raised in England
Minghella was born in Hampstead, London, to a father from an Italian immigrant family, and a mother from Hong Kong. Minghella said his mother, Carolyn Chao, was actually a serious influence on his creative endeavors. Chao is understood for her work as crew on The English Patient (1996) and Madama Butterfly (2020), in addition to several other projects. She worked as an actress in a couple of projects within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, based on IMDB.
“My mother’s an enchanting, wildly intelligent one who—I do not know learn how to say this—she’s very Chinese,” he told Esquire Singapore in 2019. “She’s of a special culture and really carries that along with her. So film has been the one thing we each connect over and love…She introduced me to all the significant filmmakers.”
His father was a director, playwright and screenwriter
Minghella’s father was Anthony Minghella, who died in March 2008, when Minghella was 22 years old. Anthony was best known for his work as director on The English Patient, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director in 1997. He also directed the award-winning film The Talented Mr. Ripley (2019) and was posthumously nominated for an Oscar as co-producer for The Reader (2008).
Minghella made his feature directorial debut with Teen Spirit in 2018, and he told Esquire Singapore that he thought his late father can be a fan of the pop musical a couple of teen girl with a dream to flee her hometown for a profession as a singer.
“I do not know if he’d like every movie I make. But this movie I do think he’d like loads since it’s focused on music and my dad loves pop music as I really like pop music. Also, the immigrant element of it’s so inherited from him. I believe he would connect with that, too.”
Minghella’s older sister, Hannah, is head of motion pictures at Bad Robot, a job she took after serving as TriStar Pictures and TriStar Television president.
You almost certainly recognize him from Handmaid’s Tale
Within the series, an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel, Minghella plays a personality named Nick Blaine. Nick is the guardian and driver for Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strzechowski). He can also be the love interest of June Osbourne (Elisabeth Moss).
“I find Nick to have so many shades of gray to him,” he told Harper’s Bazaar in 2019. “He’s often a mystery to me, and at the identical time, I find him very near home. His are very comfortable shoes to wear.”
But he’s made appearances in several other popular projects
He could be most recognizable as Nick, but Minghella has been around and in show business for much of his life. He was in The Mindy Project, Spiral (2011) and The Social Network (2010). In 2005, he he played Aaron within the movie Bee Season alongside Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, and Kate Bosworth.
One particular play inspired him to grow to be an actor
Minghella told DuJour magazine that Kenneth Lonergan’s play, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, about wealthy teens in Nineteen Eighties Latest York City, made him wish to act. He saw the play in 2002, when he was still a teen.
“I actually did not have any interest in being an actor in any respect. That play modified my life in so, so some ways,” he said. “That was the singular thing that got me interested.” He told Esquire that he was “already a fairly douchey kid at school” and that “getting [acting jobs] on top of it was an excessive amount of.” He added that his best friend, Josh, was the one who brought him back all the way down to earth during a automobile ride.
“I used to be on the phone, rolling calls all the drive, and I never spoke to him, or acknowledged him or said, ‘Thanks for selecting me up,’ and we got out of the automobile, and he just lost it on me,” Minghella recalled. “I used to be 17 and that actually was a wake-up call.” He added: “Acting is the most effective job for shredding people’s egos.”
He enjoys a straightforward routine
Minghella appears to be the style of one who at all times desires to be busy. “Most days, I work on whatever nonsense I’m involved with then I walk and get coffee,” he told DuJour. He told the magazine that he has a daily coffee place, which is the one place (in 2017, anyway), where he said people recognized him.
“I really like the familiarity of that, actually,” he said. “I’m a sucker for them knowing my name and saying hi and having my order ready.”
And considers himself a “serial monogamist”
Esquire reported that Minghella is a self-identified serial monogamist and that he said he’d never dated anyone he didn’t wish to marry—even when he was 14.
Esquire wrote in 2019: “Yes. He’s in a relationship. Yes. His mother has met her. No. Don’t consider the Web about who it’s. Most of the women he’s said to have dated, he’s never even met.” He and Fanning, in fact, have not hidden their relationship though with public appearances together.
Hilary Weaver is a contract author based in Latest York who writes about politics, queer issues, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and each woman the Queen has ever made a dame. I saw Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again thrice in theaters, and that is just about all you must know.
Senior News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring Latest York City.
