‘Orphan’ Star Isabelle Fuhrman Thinks Playing the Murderous Esther Made Her a Nicer Person
variety.comWilson Chapman editorIn November 2019, Isabelle Fuhrman began receiving a barrage of text messages from friends, family members and random acquaintances about an episode of “Dr.
Phil.” The episode garnered publicity at the time for its bizarre interview with Natalia Grace, a Ukrainian orphan who was adopted by the Barnett family, before being abandoned by them after they claimed she was an adult sociopath masquerading as a child.“Anybody that I had ever met, people came out of the woodwork messaging me being like, ‘have you seen this?'” Fuhrman tells Variety.As the interview itself referenced, the situation bore a close resemblance to the plot of “Orphan,” the 2009 Jaume Collet-Serra thriller that featured an 11-year old Fuhrman as Esther, a 9 year-old Russian girl adopted by Kate and John Coleman (Vera Farmiga and Peter Saarsgard).
Initially seeming like a polite, adorable and well-mannered child, Esther quickly begins displaying disturbing and violent behavior, as well as knowledge of culture, sex and philosophy well beyond her years.
Eventually, the film’s famous twist ending reveals that Esther isn’t a child at all, but a 33 year-old Estonian woman with a rare form of proportional dwarfism that causes her to look like a child.
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