Elle Fanning’s Oscar nomination still undersells her year

Versatility is an actor’s bread and butter. If a performer walks into an audition, they’ve got to be ready to read the lines however the script supervisor and director see fit. Do it again, but this time with a little more grit. Give us emotion. Give us anger. Give us power. Actors have to be ready to adjust at a moment’s notice. Flexibility is the name of the game, second only to talent.

But versatility is also a lost art — collateral damage during the construction of the pipeline that...