Ella Beatty is speaking out about the acting wisdom she absorbed from her Oscar-caliber parents as viewers discover her famous lineage.
The 24-year-old Juilliard graduate, who plays the title role in Netflix’s “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” is the youngest daughter of Warren Beatty, 88, and Annette Bening, 66, a Hollywood power couple married since 1992. The pair also share three older children: Stephen, Ben and Isabel.
Beatty’s breakthrough comes in Ryan Murphy’s true-crime anthology, which pivoted from convicted male killers Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers and Ed Gein to its first alleged female perpetrator. The season dramatizes Borden’s 1892 trial for the axe murders of her father Andrew and stepmother Abby in Fall River, Massachusetts, and her eventual acquittal.
The role follows Beatty’s earlier credits in Murphy’s “Feud: Capote vs The Swans” and the film “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” She appears opposite Vicky Krieps, who takes on a disturbing dual role in the limited series.
Asked what guidance she has received from her decorated parents, Beatty offered a single word in an interview.
“Listen,” she said. “Listen is the best advice.”
Beatty expanded on her homegrown education in a Vanity Fair interview last month, describing how she absorbed her parents’ craft from an early age.
“I’m so lucky because my mom is such a brilliant artist. My dad as well, of course,” she shared. “From when I was a very little girl, I watched their artistry—the side that happens at home when it’s not necessarily visible to the world. I absolutely have many memories of being sidled up to my mom, watching her go over material.”
Her father’s accolades include a Best Director Oscar for 1981’s “Reds,” which earned three additional Academy Awards. Warren Beatty has collected 14 total Oscar nominations, four for acting. Bening’s five acting nominations span “The Grifters,” “American Beauty,” “Being Julia,” “The Kids Are All Right” and “Nyad,” with two Golden Globe wins among 10 acting nominations overall.
The “nepo baby” discourse surrounding Beatty’s rapid ascent is tempered by her formal training and selective early roles. She is set to star in Sarah Polley’s film adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel “The Bell Jar,” her next major project.
The Borden case has persisted in American cultural memory for 134 years, fueled by its gruesome details and the defendant’s acquittal despite widespread public suspicion. Andrew and Abby Borden were found hacked to death with a hatchet in their home on August 4, 1892; Lizzie, 32 at the time, was arrested a week later. The prosecution’s circumstantial case failed to convince an all-male jury, who deliberated for just over an hour before returning a not-guilty verdict. No one else was ever charged.
“Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” is currently streaming on Netflix.