Born in April 2000, Ella Beatty is the youngest child of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. The previous month, a heavily pregnant Bening attended the Academy Awards with her husband, where host Billy Crystal joked (via the BBC), "Something they produced together may be released tonight."

Following some alleged campaigning by her parents, Ella was accepted into the prestigious Juilliard in 2018. When she went off to college, her parents became empty nesters. "I think we're both still adjusting to the quiet at home," Bening admitted to AARP. However, the acting vet still got to see her daughter during this time. In 2021, Ella shared an Insta snap of herself and her mom cuddling on the New York subway following her performance as Leonora in "God's Ear." "Getting to play alongside my family at Juilliard after almost four years of intensive training was insane," Ella wrote. While at Juilliard, Ella (much like her brother Stephen Beatty) exhibited her activist streak, advocating for the college to implement anti-racism initiatives.

Like Benjamin Beatty, Ella has followed in her parents' thespian footsteps, appearing in short film "The Big Special" during her time at college. Soon after her graduation in 2022, she scored a role in Ryan Murphy's "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans," which explores the real-life stories of Truman Capote's "Swans," i.e., the writer's socialite pals. She plays Kerry O'Shea, who became a lifelong friend of Capote following his romantic relationship with her father, John O'Shea (Russell Tovey).