Elle Fanning covers the November issue of InStyle to promote Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. She’s absolutely adorable, inside and out. She just seems to be made of kittens. She radiates joy. This interview is mostly about fashion and how much fun Elle has with fashion, but there are some cute stories about Angelina Jolie too! You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

Her life goal is Phoebe from Friends: “I was always curious and mischievous. Like when I watched Friends, I loved Phoebe. I loved that she was gawky. I had a real awkward phase. I grew 12 inches in a year. I didn’t want to be like everyone else in school. There was a certain confidence that I had, that I was like, “I want you to make fun of me because that makes me feel cool.” There is, like, a fairy-tale aspect to that, so that was always kind of in me. And I was already doing films and stuff.

Her school experience: “I was home-schooled until the third grade. And then my mom kind of realized, “OK, you need to be around other kids.” [laughs] I went in fourth grade, and I was there until senior year. I went to all of my proms. The first prom was in ninth grade. I wore a white Ralph Lauren dress that we found at the mall. It was long and flowy with a V-neck tank. For the second prom I went to the Paper Bag Princess [in L.A.] and got a vintage bias-cut pink John Galliano dress.

Being around celebrities: “Super 8 was a big film, and we went to a couple of award shows, and experiencing all of that was extremely new. I also love seeing celebrities. I’m not jaded by that at all. I met Beyoncé at the Met Ball the first year that I was there [in 2011, when she was 13]. I totally freaked out over that. Leonardo DiCaprio, I totally freaked out over him too.

She faints all the time: “Oh, auditions, I can’t [do them]—I mean, obviously, sure, I can, but they make me so nervous. I fainted in an audition once. It was with Jessica Chastain. I didn’t get the part… I was young, but, yeah, I fell down in front of people. It was very odd. There were glaring lights, and I felt so hot. I fainted in Cannes this year too. Fainting is something I do. I was on my period. It was such a crazy feeling. It honestly happened at the best moment because I wasn’t on the red carpet. Could you imagine? That would have been kind of epic, though.

Advice from Angelina on how to do interviews: “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know all the information. Like, am I qualified to speak on this? But I also think it’s OK for people to say that they don’t know or aren’t sure yet. Angelina [Jolie] said that to me after a recent interview we did for Maleficent 2. She said, “You know what? It’s OK not to answer things.” I mean, I’m still learning.

What she learned from Angelina: “I was so young when I did the first film with her. I was very nervous then. My mom was with me. Now that I’m grown up, she sees me in a different way. We talked about different things. We went paintballing… she’s aggressive. We would do outings because her kids were there, so she was trying to schedule activities on the weekends. I had never gone paintballing before. We were in full-on armor. We were the only people in the place, with all of her kids. She and I were not on the same team. I was so bad. I hit their security guard in the neck, and he was on my team! [laughs] Angelina’s really good… I was good at hiding. I would just hide.

[From InStyle]

I love that her mom figured out that she needed to go to school, and that was probably one of the big reasons why Elle turned out so well-adjusted as she transitioned from child star to adult star. She was around kids her own age who had nothing to do with the film business. Of course, I doubt many of her classmates wore vintage Dior to the prom!! Lordy. As for Angelina organizing paintballing excursions with Elle and the kids… that’s adorable. Elle LOOKS like a Jolie-Pitt too, I wonder if Angelina ever got confused.

Covers courtesy of InStyle.