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‘Orphan’ Star Isabelle Fuhrman Thinks Playing the Murderous Esther Made Her a Nicer Person
Wilson 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).
