How 'Margo's Got Money Troubles' re-created the world of OnlyFans with a twist

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“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...