Elle Fanning stays off social media to leave a "little mystery".

Elle Fanning

Elle Fanning

The 'Neon Demon' star - whose older sister Dakota, 22, is an actress too - tries not to post too much on Instagram as she doesn't want the public to think about her when they see her on screen.

She told the new issue of Elle magazine: "I recently turned my Instagram public on my 18th birthday, but I still don't post everything I do, and I'm not on Twitter or Facebook. You have to leave a little mystery.

"With old movie stars, all you saw were rare interviews where they only shared what they wanted to - that's what made them so interesting. You could separate the characters from the women, so if you watch them on screen you're not thinking about what they had for breakfast."

Meanwhile, Elle previously admitted she won't be opening an account on Twitter because she thinks there are too many arguments on the social media platform.

She confessed: "Well, my parents never let me have a Facebook account. And I had a private Instagram, but I was always a little intimidated by it.

"I have never had a Twitter account. People just argue on Twitter and I want to stay away. I guess I like Instagram because I am a visual person."

Elle has been in the acting business since she was three and would love to pursue her passion for photography if she went back to school.

She added: "If I do go back to school one day, which I think I will, it will be for photography ... [But Hollywood] feels very normal to me. I've always been on movie sets, and I have learned so much. I really hope to be a director one day, to feel so free to invent stuff ...To have something that's mine, my own thing that I pour myself into, that's my dream."