During her senior year of high school, King Princess, alongside her best friend, staged a “sexually explicit” production of Cabaret. She began as the director but was quickly demoted to musical director after being “way too harsh.”

“I was running that shit like the Navy,” the singer/actor tells me backstage at The Public Theatre in downtown New York. Looking back, she says it was the right call, giving her time to focus on the lead role of Sally Bowles.

Nine years later, the performer, born Mikaela Straus, is returning to her theater kid roots with an Off-Broadway debut as one of the leads in Girl, Interrupted, a new musical based on Susanna Kaysen’s beloved memoir. In it, Straus plays Lisa, the wily ringleader of the women’s ward at a psychiatric hospital, deemed a sociopath by 1960s standards—a role first made iconic by Angelina Jolie in the 1999 film adaptation.

At just 27, King Princess has already captivated audiences with her unapologetically queer pop-rock for nearly a decade, but she’s only recently delved into acting with roles in Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers, the 2025 drama Song Sung Blue, and the upcoming rom-com One Night Only. But it wasn’t always part of her plan—in fact, when her favorite psychic predicted her pivot to acting, she was reluctant. Music was always her first love, having spent much of her childhood at her father’s Brooklyn recording studio; theater was a favorite pastime but not a career path.

“My secret love for theater has always bled into what I do,” the performer, sporting a black vest and sunglasses indoors, recalls animatedly from across a conference table. “I love a stage piece. I love set design. I like my show to feel theatrical, and I think that comes from a deep love of stagecraft. Getting to do something like this does fulfill this part of me that I've kept semi-underwraps for a long time.”

While still in high school, Straus was signed to Mark Ronson’s Columbia Records imprint, Zelig Records, and was dubbed, nearly overnight, the face of queer pop thanks to her 2018 viral debut single, “1950.” (She’s since left the major label to go independent, releasing her third studio album Girl Violence under the Brooklyn-based indie section 1.) Acting became her way to feel the joy in performance again.

“With music, everything feels like a rejection and personal. I'm deeply triggered by my own art form,” Straus says. “Acting feels fun. I can put my pussy into something and audition and not get it, and that's okay because I learned something.”

This past February, Straus’ agent suggested she audition for Girl, Interrupted. She was initially hesitant, harboring reservations about playing a character synonymous with Jolie’s Oscar-winning turn, but she was inspired by the script excerpts and went through with it. Ultimately, the audition didn’t go as planned, but her moxie landed her the role.

“I fucked up the song five times—but it was funny. I was like, ‘This fucking song!’ which they liked,” she recalls. “It's rare that I'm like, I'm going to get that. But I was like, I'm going to get that.”

It was a full circle moment for Straus, who first watched the movie in high school. “It’s resonated with young women and non-male people who exist outside of what you are supposed to be, which is quiet, put together, and not too much,” she says. “If you were somebody who was referred to as ‘too much,’ that was the movie for you. I was definitely somebody who was referred to as ‘too much.’”

The Off-Broadway rendition of Girl, Interrupted (music by Aimee Mann; book by Martyna Majok) is equal parts poignant and inquisitive. It also feels more timeless than ever, emphasizing what it means to navigate the world as a young, often misunderstood and underestimated woman.

Straus’ feisty and unpredictable Lisa acts as a foil to her co-star Juliana Canfield’s Susanna, a measured, ambitious yet depressive writer who is unsure why she’s been institutionalized. Straus brings a dynamism to the role, making it clear that a deep pain percolates beneath her erratic exterior.

“The biggest thing for me was separating this person from King Princess,” says the singer-turned-actor. Beyond her “blueprint” of the source memoir, Majok’s book, and Jolie’s “incredibly embodied” performance, Straus learned what she could about Lisa’s psychology by reading portions of Patric Gagne’s Sociopath: A Memoir, at the recommendation of her friend and former costar Murray Bartlett. Nailing Lisa’s grandiose gait was just as essential. “I definitely would get stoned and watch YouTube videos of big cats,” Straus says, pointing to how the character often acts like a predator stalking her prey, or a caged animal growing increasingly agitated. She also watched clips of Captain Jack Sparrow, Alan Cumming on The Traitors, and Austin Powers—Straus’ “holy trinity” of references—to build Lisa’s particular panache.

“Her physicality is certainly existing in the in-between of gender,” she explains, “That character is so flamboyant, but the flamboyancy isn't traditionally female. That’s really fun to play with and really interesting to play with—and something that exists within me too.”

Girl, Interrupted came to King Princess, she says, after she spent her mid-20s unlearning the notion that her best creative output would come from being emotionally wounded. Though there’s immense tragedy in the musical, its resonance lies in its belief in women’s resilience and their multiplicity. It felt like the exact project Straus was looking for: “I've never really been someone who fits in one genre…It makes sense that I like stuff that doesn't fit in a genre, and that I like doing cross-media shit. I always want to reinvent and find new ways to write music and act and sing and dance—and this is that for me. This is a crash course in becoming a better performer overall.”

Before Straus has to dash off to dinner, glam, and curtain call, she shares, with a warmth in her voice, how she’s been struck by the way the coming-of-age show has made her reflect on her own adolescence. “My teenage years existed around here, from the trek from Williamsburg to Manhattan, so I am reliving a part of my youth, but as an adult with perspective,” she says. “It’s been really emotional to have this schedule where I get on the train, I go enjoy my city, and I'm a part of this school of fish that goes from Brooklyn to Manhattan.”

She previously made that commute when she was last immersed in theater—painstakingly attempting to recreate the allure and eroticism of the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret in her own teenage rendition. While she was doing the most at the time, Girl, Interrupted has been a reminder to let go. “This is allowing me to take myself less seriously.”

When the curtain closes on July 12, that’ll be the sentiment that remains. “I get to do something that very few people get to do for work, and I'm very lucky to be doing that. And at the end of the day, it's not that fucking serious,” she says—as if speaking to the 18-year-old director in her.

A few weeks after receiving her first Tony nomination, Nichelle Lewis found herself seated at the annual luncheon celebrating this year’s nominees—and it was there that the reality of the honor really sunk in.

Speaking on Zoom ahead of a Friday night performance, she recalled exactly how that felt: “I was [thinking], I have this plaque with my name on it, and I'm here with all these other people who once had a dream. That was what hit me, just the fact that I got to be in this room full of so many of my friends and so many people that I love and have looked up to for so long.”

Lewis, 26, earned that nod for her role in Ragtime, the stirring Broadway revival of the 1996 musical from Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty, and Lynn Ahrens (which is based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel by the same name). The story is grand in scale: it follows three groups of people in turn-of-the-century America—Black Americans, Jewish immigrants, and the white upper class—as their fates, hopes, and futures all intersect during a period of immense social change.

As Sarah, one of the story’s central characters, Lewis goes on an emotional journey that spans despair, hope, love, and tragedy. It’s one of the banner roles for Black women in musical theater—Audra McDonald won one of her six Tony Awards for playing Sarah in the original production—and Lewis has poured herself into making the character her own.

Here, she speaks with Marie Claire about the cosmic way the role came to her, drawing on her grandmother for inspiration, and how the body keeps the score when portraying a painful—but also hopeful—story that still resonates today.

Marie Claire: You made your Broadway debut in 2024 as Dorothy in The Wiz. Coming off of that, what made Sarah a role that you wanted to play?

Nichelle Lewis: I really loved the depth that she has. Coming off of The Wiz, where I got to play this character that signifies Black joy and love and finding home—what “home” means to you—I wanted to do something that, not only encompassed that, but also the pain that Black people, especially Black women, go through on a daily basis, whether back in the day or now. I just wanted to really dig in, do more research, and feel connected to my ancestors, all the things that mean something special to me.

MC: Two other actresses were initially cast as Sarah before Ragtime opened Off-Broadway, but both had to drop out—and then it became yours. Did that change how you approached the role at all?

NL: I didn't really let it. One of the things that I live by is “When it is the right time, it's the right time.” I also live by this quote—it sounds so stupid, but, “Everyone has their own Crock Pot, so we all cook at different times.” The women who came before me, Joy Woods and Joaquina Kalukango, they’re both so incredible. They went on other really big exciting opportunities, and then [the role of Sarah] was just there for me to step into. I felt like the path was right for all of us, and everything happens for a reason.

MC: What, or who, did you draw on as you were deciding how you wanted to play her?

NL: I definitely drew from my grandmother. She’d planned to come see this show before she passed, and I remember being so nervous for her to come see it, because I knew that she had a lot of trauma. A lot of people don't realize that this really wasn't that long ago. When I think about my grandmother, I think about the fact that she was alive at a time where she was turned away from a lot of restaurants, and she was around when Ruby Bridges went through the doors of that school building [in 1960]. I watched her as I grew up. I watched how, because of her history and her trauma, when she would interact with a lot of white people, she would shrink herself. She would look down, she wouldn't really look them directly in the face. And I feel like it got better as she got much older and started to not care, but I derived the way that I move my body in this show from how she moved. When Sarah is around other Black people, or with immigrants, she’s a little bit taller, but when she’s around white people, I might make myself smaller. That’s all from her knowledge that she shared with me. But also, just from everything I know of that time, how they were just set free from slavery, there's no world in which Sarah would not be traumatized from these things. There’s so many things that have helped me build this story, including all the research I've done, talking to my family, and also all the knowledge that I have as a Black woman as well.

MC: Sarah goes on such an emotional journey over the course of the show. We meet her at her absolute lowest point, but then see her find love and hope before her story becomes tragic. How do you prepare yourself to go to those places eight times a week?

NL: It’s really hard because I do allow myself to go to a deep and painful place every night. I just feel it’s my duty as someone who hasn't had to live through things like the Tulsa massacre. I have to hold this weight and spread both the joy and the pain, and so I think that that’s something that gives me strength every day to do it. But my body does carry it, and I often get chills as I come off stage. It’s a really weird sensation when your body decides, “I know what you're doing, so I'm going to do it too.” But I find that I also feel extremely strong, and I wonder if that's similar to things my ancestors felt—it’s the pain, but also the strength that comes from it. I think that's what's so beautiful about this story in particular, and why it’s been resonating with people.

MC: You and Joshua Henry, who plays Coalhouse Walker Jr., are just incredible together. Your big duet, “Wheels of a Dream”—where he and Sarah are singing about their hopes for their son and his future—is so powerful. Tell me about building your characters’ relationship with him.

NL: The very first day that I met Joshua, and the very first day we did our reading, the characters just had this spark, and everyone in the room felt it. It was the most insane feeling. I remember we sang “Wheels of a Dream,” and we both felt so energized. I can’t explain how the souls of those characters just locked into one another so quickly, but it was immediate. I feel like a lot of us say theater is church, but it does feel like that, especially after “Wheels of a Dream,” when we have this moment of joy together and their connection just fills up a whole entire theater. It's the most wonderful thing ever.

MC: How has your performance changed over the course of the run? You’ve had so much more time with her now.

NL: Oh, it has changed and deepened in so many ways. I think I've learned a lot about myself and about Sarah and Coalhouse, and all the relationships Sarah builds and grows in. I feel like I find new things every night, somehow. Because everybody in the cast are such generous actors, it feels right every time. I don't know how it’s possible, but it’s one of those shows that continues to just blossom every night.

MC: Audra McDonald was the original Sarah, and I know that she gave you some advice about leaving Sarah at the theater when you go home. Are you able to do that, or is it hard?

NL: So it was very hard for me for a while, because again, I might be able to leave it, but my body remembers it; the body keeps score. There are just so many people that come into play here that help me to keep going, because without them, I don't know if my body could withstand the trauma that this character goes through eight shows a week. Some people can move throughout space and not go through that on stage every night, but for me it's important to allow myself to go through those things. I come home, I take a deep breath, I sit with my dog, maybe watch a few TV shows, do what I have to do to get my mind out of that place, and hopefully relax my body. I do try really hard to take what she told me, and remind myself that it's okay to let it go and come back tomorrow.

MC: When this is done, you'll get to pay it forward and give that advice to the next Sarah.

NL: Yeah! I'm gonna be like: Get you a heated blanket, get you a therapist, a psychiatrist— all the things.

MC: This show takes place more than 100 years ago, but we’re still dealing with versions of what these characters experienced—people of color, immigrants, women. Why do you think Ragtime is speaking so strongly to us today?

NL: I think people, when they come and they sit in those seats, they're like, “We're still living through these stories.” We all came together and talked about the ending—Sarah and Coalhouse both have passed, and their little baby goes to a white family even though Sarah still has family down in the South—it’s not the most beautiful ending, you know? It's messy, it's raw, and it's sad. We all just sat in a room one day and we just said, “How can we make sure this feels the way it needs to feel?” And Lear [DeBessonet, the director] said, “We're not going to be sitting around with big smiles on our face, because it’s a moment filled with so many things.” That pause right before we all sing the word “dream” is so important, because it allows people to really feel all those things. I think that's why it’s resonating, because we allow them to come into our world and feel the things that we feel as well.

MC: You’re so right—it leaves that hope that the future will be better. But I also thought about everything Sarah and Coalhouse’s son would have lived through in America over the 20th century. It’s not a fully happy ending.

NL: Yeah, it’s not. Maybe that isn't talked about enough. I feel like a lot of people talk about the hope, and there is a lot of hope, but hope a lot of the time comes with pain. Because when we feel this pain, we feel like the world needs to change. That's when we start holding on to hope that things will change for the better.

MC: How has this experience made you think differently about the kind of performer you are?

NL: I don't know if this has really changed my perspective, but it has expanded my perspective. I've always wanted to change others' lives, and that has always been the biggest thing for me since my father passed. I remember just realizing the impact people can make while living, and even after they've passed. I wanted to make an impact and a positive one at that. I just didn't know how—I think doing this role has made me realize this is how we do it. It's by telling stories that may feel difficult, that may be challenging to take on, but are also beautiful and hopeful, and it gives people something to hang on to and to think about when they leave the theater. It has helped it grow into something so much bigger, and I just hope to be able to continue impacting people's lives and to continue sharing the love and the joy that I have and the stories that I have to share.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

This story contains light spoilers for Is God Is. Aleshea Harris wrote Is God Is for herself. Over a decade ago, the playwright wove together inspiration from Greek tragedies, spaghetti westerns, revenge thrillers, and her own Southern upbringing to craft the story she wanted to read about Black female rage. She didn't know whether it would ever be performed—but after a buzzy 2018 Off-Broadway premiere that won her an Obie Award and drew attention from Hollywood executives, she’s now the screenwriter, producer, and director of a feature-film adaptation.

“Is God Is was a turning point for me,” Harris tells Marie Claire over Zoom. “This was the first time I was like, No, I'm just going to do what I want to do, what I think is delicious.

She says it was “soul work” to write. The result is a timeless yet contemporary folktale following discarded twins, Anaia and Racine, as their mother tasks them to find and kill their father, who burned and left them for dead 18 years ago. Every step of bringing Anaia (played by Mallori Johnson in the film) and Racine’s (Kara Young) bloodthirsty odyssey to the screen was painstakingly intentional; from casting legends like Vivica A. Fox and Sterling K. Brown to play to (and against) their celebrity personas, to recruiting collaborators, like producers Janicza Bravo and Tessa Thompson, who nurtured and built upon the first-time filmmaker’s vision. Harris’s film doesn’t pause to explain the intricacies that it explores, or diminish itself to make its audience comfortable; it’s just brash, explosive, and unapologetic as it reads on the page.

Though its themes of vengeance, trauma, and lookism are universal, Is God Is is first and foremost a story about Black womanhood. The twins don box braids and waist beads, they utilize humor in the face of pain, and rap girlie bops make up the soundtrack. Beyond that, Anaia and Racine's voyage is an allegory for the many ways Black women stay resilient, even when their community fails them. That's what Harris says she hopes audiences recognize as the film's base truth: "The inherent value and power of Black women."

Below, Harris chats with Marie Claire about crafting the style of her film’s world, depicting Black violence onscreen, and exploring her own girlhood through Anaia.

MC: The dialogue in the play and film is very true to Southern Black vernacular, but it also feels haunting. What were some of your inspirations?

AH: It often takes me a long time to start a play because I have to find its mother tongue. I need to know how the people speak in this universe, and then I'm trying to be inventive. This is in many ways Black Southern speech, but even that's quite general. It's really me recalling from memory and the ways that I speak—but then there's also a poetic gesture inside of it. That's the inventive part, where I'm creating a word that I know people will understand what it means, but it's not in the dictionary.

The playwright Suzan-Lori Parks says, "Words are spells in our mouths," and I think of a story as a very immense and complicated spell. Each of those ingredients has to be just right. If someone's going to say, "gonna," that's different from "gon’." "What you gon’ do" is different from "what you gonna do." The rhythm is different and can shift the sensibility of it. That's exactly what Is God Is is to me. It's got one foot in the familiar and then one foot in something else that's imaginative.

MC: The sequence introducing Vivica A. Fox’s character God/Ruby is a great example of the movie skewing reality toward the mythic. How did you approach adapting that scene visually and keeping it rooted without fully leaning into magical realism?

AH: Keeping the balance with all these genres—when I'm playing with a bit of a Greek chorus, but also there’s nods to the culture with the braiding and the nails—it's a gut thing. I feel like nothing should be there that's just ornamental. It should be supportive of the story.

When we get into the mother's space, it gives her a size and a texture to have the suggestion of a halo, to have her hair look like a veil, and to have these women [with her]. On one hand, they're attendants, which we see in the real world, but they also move in unison. They're extensions of her body, so that's the magic of it. It's like riding that line for me: We've got one foot here, one foot there, and that's the creation of a new world.

MC: How did you land on Racine and Anaia’s look, which feels very contemporary, but also fits within the film’s gothic style?

AH: I have to shout out our incredible costume designer, Angelina Vitto. Her lookbook made me more excited to tell this story. I remember saying to Angelina that I felt like Racine and Anaia's silhouette is like the punk band Bad Brains. There's something that feels a little tomboy, but there's a feminine flair. And she brought back Aaliyah and Gwen Stefani back in the day. The dresses that they wear when they meet their mother, I was [initially] like, “I don't know.” But you see what it does as part of this greater tapestry. She nailed it.

MC: There are some changes from the play to the film, including the introduction of Divine (played by Erica Alexander). Why did you decide to add her?

AH: I had gotten the note that we needed a little more of an obstacle for the twins as they went on their journey. So I wondered who else organically exists in this world? Who else has their father left behind? It made sense that there could have been another woman and another son.

A lot of people comment on what I'm trying to say about the Black church with this scene. When I wrote that, I was thinking that she's got a kind of cult. I was also thinking about institutions, so not only the church, in the way that she protects this man. Despite the terrible thing that he had done, he can come into the fold and be welcomed into her arms; the lack of wanting to hold him accountable, the lack of empathy for these women and their mother. We see versions of that in the culture, unfortunately, and that's what I'm trying to call out, because I think accountability is good for the entire community. I am coming for a certain reaction to harm that I think is problematic, and Divine was a great way to do that.

MC: There’s an ongoing conversation about the depiction of Black pain and trauma in film. What considerations did you have about how much violence to actually show on-screen?

AH: I'm very conscious of pain that exists because we are Black and pathologized, but I hope that this movie is about so many other things. I was sitting with that, where I know that my people experienced certain things, but I want to tell this story. Inevitably, because of the nature of anti-Blackness, there's overlap between the awful things that happen in the world and some stereotypes somebody has about us. To me, it goes without saying that not all Black men are like this man. If you're making a revenge story, which I am, and you like writing about Black people, which I do, your revenge story is going to have Black people, and somebody is going to be the bad guy. Unfortunately, gender violence exists in our world, and there's something to be said about it, but I think the way that one says it is important.

I knew that I did not want to show [God/Ruby] being tortured. It's also true to ancient Greek tragedy that the violence happens inside the home, and then you see or hear about the results of the violence. So we shot it in such a way that we wouldn't be directly on the violence. We would help the audience to engage other senses through sound or obscure the act. We'd have the camera on the person who was casually standing there while the violent, horrible thing happened, which tells us a lot.

MC: The film's themes of who is perceived as "ugly" and Anaia being dehumanized based on her appearance are so potent and really resonated with me. What conversations might you have had about that aspect of the film?

AH: People have said that it meant something to them that I had a Black woman calling herself ugly onscreen. We know the ways that beauty standards work; they're harmful to all women, and especially non-white women. That's something that I had sort of forgotten about or wasn't conscious of [at the time], but I absolutely wrote this from the inside, so I wrote from feeling ugly.

Growing up, I knew that I was [considered] ugly. I remember being about 4-years-old and talking to my mother. I named someone, and I was like, "That person is ugly." And then I was naming every Black person I knew, and saying, "She's ugly, she's ugly, I'm ugly." Because I had already processed at 4-years-old that Black people were not [seen as] pretty. The Barbie doll that they showed in the commercial was the white one. Beauty and how one is perceived in the world is a huge part of this story, to state the obvious, but I think what had kind of slipped under was that I wrote that because I spent a lot of time walking around thinking a thing about myself that I had been taught about myself.

MC: In this new Black myth that you’ve created, how do you hope audiences will react to Anaia and Racine, who seem to represent two different manifestations of Black female rage?

AH: I’ve described them before as opposites, as different reactions to harm, and to trauma. I've also thought to myself that they're aspects of the psyche. One part of the self who's like, No, no, no, I'm going to go scorched earth, and the part that's like, Let me just take a step back. There's an inherent drama having these two people who have different reactions, and I think that’s an important part of the movie.

I hope that people can sit with those questions for themselves, if they're a Racine or an Anaia, and when, and under what circumstances. Even though Is God Is isn't a literal proposition, I do hope that it affirms both kinds of being and anything in between, for everyone, and of course for Black women. To continually suffer because of your identity is a horrible thing. I think the question of my life is, What do I do with that? How do I maintain a sense of joy and peace and stay good and keep making my art when I know it's going to happen? It's all in there.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

After three weeks of intense rehearsals, Megan Thee Stallion officially made her Broadway debut in Moulin Rouge last night. On stage, a bedazzled bodysuit and ring leader-esque tail coat transformed the rapper into Harold Zidler, the cabaret's owner. Once the curtain closed, Megan became herself again the only way she knew how: in a semi-sheer after-party dress.

Steps away from the Moulin Rouge—aka New York City's Al Hirschfeld Theatre—a post-show Megan Thee Stallion signed autographs and accepted flowers like a true theatre veteran. Stylist Isiah Ahmad dressed her in a halter-neck, Retrofête number, which blended the glamour of Broadway with her saucy style.

See-through mesh served as the foundation of Megan's $2,598 "Genovia Dress," before scalloped rows of sequins added just enough coverage. The iridescent sparkles extended from the rhinestone-encrusted neckline, beyond the open back, down to the calf-length hem. Shell-shaped earrings, metallic silver stilettos, and mismatched rings shined just as much as Megan's midi under Broadway lights. Even the liquidized Lucite on her Alexis Bittar clutch followed the Grammy winner's aquatic theme.

As a retired singer-dancer, I can confidently say Broadway performers rarely leave the theatre in anything even remotely naked. But baring it all is to Megan what landing a triple pirouette is to Broadway's best: normal.

In fact, her post-show dress was as modest as the "Savage" rapper's style gets. Last month, she risked it all at Roberto Cavalli's fashion show in a completely transparent maxi. Nothing was left to the imagination, not even her stringy black thong. Believe it or not, the barely-there dress marked her Milan Fashion Week debut. Megan Thee Stallion uses naked dresses as a way to proclaim, "I'm here," as proven by her first Broadway 'fit.

Megan is constantly inspiring fellow fashion girls and fans to take risks with their fashion, whether it be with lace-up midi skirts at the Olympics or sheer slips on Broadway. So, don't be surprised if naked dresses dominate Broadway's post-show circuit by Megan Thee Stallion's final bow on May 17. Her sartorial influence is so powerful, she could influence fellow performers to ditch slouchy sweats for good.

Shop Semi-Sheer Sequin Dresses Inspired by Megan Thee Stallion

In her first book, One Bad Mother: In Praise of Psycho Housewives, Stage Parents, Momfluencers, and Other Women We Love to Hate, The Cut Senior Writer and culture journalist Ej Dickson explores our perceptions of what it means to be "a bad mom." Written through the lens of pop culture—diving into everything from classic sitcoms to Jennifer Coolidge's character in American Pie to the Kardashians—the book, out February 10, examines various archetypes and why they might deserve a reassessment.

The below excerpt from the chapter titled “'Give ’Em Love and What Does It Get Ya?," explores why we're often quick to judge stage moms—and why they hold a special place in Dickson's heart.

I have a soft spot for stage mothers, in part because, if you hew to a strictly technical definition of the term, my own mom (kind of) was one. I was a theater kid in every sense of the word: I did school plays, took acting and tap and voice lessons, and demanded attention wherever I went. When I was eight years old, my mom enrolled me in a kids’ acting workshop run by a former 1960s stage actress who gave lessons out of her Upper West Side studio. At the end of each semester, Monica May held a student showcase, and afterward, my mom told me she had gotten a call from an agent who had been in the audience who wanted to represent me. The agency was called—I shit you not—Lil Angels. Lil Angels was not particularly glamorous or prestigious. Its office was in Yonkers, about an hour from where we lived in New York, and when the agent sent me to a photographer to get headshots, he and my mom ended up styling me like a middle-aged stenographer from Staten Island named Linda. Still, I was excited, and I think my mom was, too. She’d harbored her own performing arts aspirations in her youth, and I think part of her felt like she would be depriving me of a valuable opportunity if I didn’t give it the old college try.

So, for about four to six months of my childhood, Lil Angels became a part of my life. Every two weeks or so, I’d be pulled out of school to schlep to auditions, where I’d be asked to read for things like toothpaste or laundry detergent ads, or, in one case, a production of the all-Black musical The Wiz,
before the casting director, who was always either an older woman with red-rimmed glasses or a young white gay man who smelled really good, politely thanked me for coming in and then I’d never hear from them again. And while I’m not sure exactly how my relationship with Lil Angels ended, I do remember that after a while, they just stopped calling.

My time as an aspiring child actor was relatively uneventful. At worst, it was a waste of time and money on my parents’ part (and hair spray on the part of the headshot photographer who tried to make me look like a woman who wore pantyhose and rode the tram to work). But even though I’m sure some people would sniff at my mom’s decision to sign me to a kiddie talent agency, I completely understand why she did it. I think she correctly assessed that even though there was a very small chance that I would be cast in anything, it was a chance that I would’ve regretted not taking. And yes, I’m sure there was a part of her that thought it was a chance she would’ve regretted not taking, too. For this reason, I’ve always been drawn to stage moms, from Momma Rose [from Gypsy] to “momager” Kris Jenner, long rumored to have leaked her daughter Kim Kardashian’s sex tape to further her career, to the eponymous housewives in Dance Moms, who are regularly depicted guzzling wine and slinging insults at each other while wearing an extraordinary amount of bedazzled denim.

It’s not so much that I relate to these women, or that I understand precisely why they’re so deeply invested in their children’s vaudeville or reality TV careers or, in the case of Dance Moms, whether they take first place in expressive jazz performance at nationals. It’s more that I sympathize with the general impulse to do whatever it takes to carve out the best life for your child, whatever that may look like for them. If one of the primary tenets of good parenting is wanting your child to have more opportunities than you did—and I think we can all agree that this is an admirable, if not always achievable, goal—then it stands to reason that if a parent senses exceptional talent or ability in a child, they will want to foster it.

Excerpted from One Bad Mother: In Praise of Psycho Housewives, Stage Parents, Momfluencers, and Other Women We Love to Hate. Copyright © 2026, Ej Dickson. Reproduced by permission of Simon Element, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.

In Marie Claire's Ones to Watch list, you’ll meet 26 names on the rise in entertainment. The changemakers, tastemakers, and scene-stealers whose careers we’re excited to watch unfold.

There couldn't be a better time to spotlight the next generation of talent. In the two years since MC launched our Ones to Watch list, entertainment has continued to change rapidly—from actors' strikes to discourse surrounding box office numbers and straight-to-streaming releases to the way the algorithm may be affecting art and how we consume it. From actors and filmmakers lighting up the big screen to comedians, musicians, and producers redefining stages and soundtracks, these are the artists set to shape the future of what comes next.

Eva Victor, 31

Title: Actor, writer, and director

Few movies this year tore us open, and mended us back together again, like Sorry, Baby did. Helmed by writer/director/actor Eva Victor in their feature debut, the A24 film (co-produced by Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins) was tender and original in its exploration of a sensitive subject matter—and solidified the filmmaker as a bona fide star with a singular voice. Fans who’ve followed Victor since their days making viral sketch comedy videos know how far they’ve come and that they’ve always had a hilarious, astute perspective (ie, the “straight pride” video, IYKYK); surely Sorry Baby is the first of many compelling stories they have to tell.

The moment we became obsessed: Their sketch video as a mysterious French woman who “definitely didn’t murder [her] husband.”

MC: What movie/show do you quote too often?

EV: “The Silly Rabbit speech (should be taught in schools) that V. Stiviano gives to Barbara Walters about Donald Sterling. It is the most interesting combination of words in a row that exists, in my opinion.”

MC: What fictional character do you irrationally identify with?

EV: “Madame Bovary. No questions on that at this time. Also Violet from The Incredibles. Also Sandra Hüller’s character in Toni Erdmann. Also Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping. Also Cartman. Also Christopher Moltisanti.”

MC: What’s a dream you haven’t told anyone yet?

EV: “This isn't your question, but one time I had a nightmare that my mom's head got chopped off. That fucked me up for like three years.”

MC: Who’s your biggest creative inspiration—and how do they influence your work?

EV: “My best friend. Feeling seen by someone else as the person you wish you were and are becoming is the greatest gift of a long friendship. I feel fully myself with her. That kind of love is very inspiring.”

Alyah Chanelle Scott, 28

Title: Actor, director, and producer

It seems there’s no corner of the entertainment world that Alyah Chanelle Scott can’t thrive in. After three seasons on HBO Max’s cult-favorite The Sex Lives of College Girls, she’s now starring in Cooper Raiff’s Hal & Harper. Directing? She’s already helmed two music videos for former co-star and bestie Reneé Rapp. However, the musical-theater grad’s most impressive impact is on- and Off-Broadway, where she won a Tony for producing the 2023 revival of Parade before returning to the stage in the play All Nighter. With her banner Runyonland Productions, Scott’s had a hand in several of the past few years’ buzziest productions (including John Proctor is the Villain, Parade, and The Wiz), and the 28-year-old’s just getting started on her EGOT.

The moment we became obsessed: Her costars-to-lovers arc with Judy Greer’s character in the short-lived Hulu comedy Reboot.

MC: What’s a dream you haven’t told anyone yet?

ACS: “I have many dreams that I’ve never spoken about, and I’m going to say them all now if that’s okay: Directing a feature film. Meeting Paddington Bear. Finding the best chocolate chip cookie in N.Y.C.—so far it’s The Pastry Box in the East Village, but I’m open to suggestions. Living in a walkable neighborhood close to family and not too far from the city. To finally understand how dry cleaning works, and also the stock market. Going to culinary school. Opening a bakery. Joining a book club (which I know I could easily do, but there are too many to choose from, and I get too nervous to commit without knowing all of the books in advance). For my little brother to call me more. For healthcare to be free. And lastly, for empathy to be hot again.”

Chase Infiniti, 25

Title: Actor

Chase Infiniti was destined to be a film maven since birth—her parents named her as an homage to both Nicole Kidman’s role in Batman Forever and Buzz Lightyear’s iconic catchphrase. The musical-theater grad began her meteoric rise in Hollywood with a pair of roles where she had to hold her own against Hollywood heavyweights: first as Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga’s daughter on Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent and then as Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor’s in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. For the latter—already receiving Oscar buzz—Infiniti beat out countless young actors and trained in mixed martial arts to deliver her impressive performance as a revolutionary heir on the run from a white-supremacist group. So the question isn’t if she’ll be a success but just how far her star will rise. (Next up: She’s playing Elisabeth Moss’s grown daughter in Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale sequel, The Testaments.)

The moment we became obsessed: Her layered reaction when Regina Hall's character in One Battle After Another recites “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” to her.

Elvira Anderfjärd, 26, and Luka Kloser, 27

Title: Producers and songwriters

Considering the statistics regarding female producers in the music industry remain dismal, it’s particularly exciting when a new woman bursts onto the scene, let alone a pair. In mid-2024 and into 2025, pop fiends and underground music fans alike were dying to know what studio wizards were behind Addison Rae’s steady stream of intoxicating singles and, inevitably, what became her stellar full-length album Addison. The answer turned out to be Elvira Anderfjärd, known professionally as Elvira, and Luka Kloser, a Swedish and Angelino BFF duo, backed by Max Martin’s MXM Studios. The two worked closely with the pop star on the entirety of her record, and have also lent their skills to Conan Grey’s latest, and superstars individually (Anderfjärd’s worked with Tove Lo for years, while Kloser is credited on Ariana Grande and Tate McRae hits). Favoring glistening ‘00s-inspired pop flairs, lushness, and feminine quirks, they’re pushing pop in a quixotic direction.

The moment we became obsessed: The first time we put our headphones on to listen to Addison, and the opening track “New York” reached the 1:52 mark; we knew we were in for pop perfection.

MC: When did you know this was the career you wanted—like really know?

EA: “Honestly, the brilliant era of 2015 to 2018 music was a magical and tough time for a high schooler secretly dying to be a part of the shimmery world of writing and producing. I always knew I was gonna do music somehow, but wouldn’t dare admit that obsessing over jazz solos was not my path. I think that was my moment. It felt like a force field I just had to walk closer, too.”

MC: What fictional character do you irrationally identify with?

EA “I admit I’m probably a 60 percent Miranda, 30 percent Carrie…10 percent Charlotte.”

MC: What movie or show do you quote too often?

LK: “School of Rock.”

Mary Beth Barone, 34

Title: Comedian, actor, and writer

When Benito Skinner assembled the team behind his A24-produced Prime Video series Overcompensating, he brought along his besties and, in doing so, crowned the new funny girl to watch. Mary Beth Barone played guarded mean girl Grace on the show—also writing on the co-ed comedy—which became one of the year’s biggest TV debuts. Outside of TV, Barone and Skinner have been hosting the beloved “Ride” podcast for years, and she’s a well-known standup, making us laugh about today’s political hellscape and modern dating. She’s also launched the initiative Politics for Hot People to get more young people involved in organizing. May she continue to flex her talents long past a tight five.

The moment we became obsessed: Her 2024 stand-up set on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

MC: When did you know this was the career you wanted—like really know?

MBB: “After I did my first open mic at the now-shuttered UCB East. RIP. We each had two minutes to tell jokes, and that was all it took. I just knew.”

MC: Who’s your ultimate pop culture icon?

MBB: “Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.”

MC: What does “making it” look like to you?

MBB: “Being able to delete social media.”

MC: Who’s your biggest creative inspiration—and how do they influence your work?

MBB: “My biggest creative inspiration is my best friend and collaborator Benito Skinner. I get really scared sometimes thinking, "What if we never met?" Like, can you imagine? He challenges me, cheers for me, and in those tiny, fleeting moments where I see myself through his eyes, those are the moments where I love myself the most.”

Supriya Ganesh, 27

Title: Actor

As The Pitt grew from a hyper-realistic medical drama to a genuine cultural phenomenon in early 2025, Supriya Ganesh still had a day job as an MCAT tutor. The Tamil-American Columbia grad got a 99th percentile score on the med-school exam but ultimately delayed med school to pursue acting. As third-year resident and patient advocate Samira Mohan, Ganesh was a compassionate anchor, grounding the fast-paced series and showing how empathy can be a doctor’s secret weapon (even if her character was dubbed “Slo-Mo”). While fans wait patiently for season 2, Ganesh has built a passionate cohort of fans with her openness about her queer identity (Ganesh uses she/they pronouns) and her candid thoughts about her growing fame.

The moment we became obsessed: Every scene with sickle-cell patient Joyce on The Pitt. Dr. Mohan is No. 1 in patient satisfaction for a reason!

MC: What movie or show do you quote too often?

SG: “Om Shanti Om, one of the first Bollywood films I really fell in love with. I have acted out the infamous “bhago, bhago!” scene way too many times.”

MC: What fictional character do you irrationally identify with?

SG: “Sid the Sloth from Ice Age. I grew up in India after having spent the first three years of my life in America, and I felt like such a fish out of water. I didn’t even speak the language (Hindi) at the time, so I only had one friend in kindergarten. Missed so many social cues, was really hard to find my people. I remember watching the first installment when his friends and family left him behind and thinking, ‘Yup, that’s me!’”

MC: Who’s your biggest creative inspiration—and how do they influence your work?

SG: “Yorgos Lanthimos. I’ve watched every single one of his films, and think the way he directs actors to be truthful in the most absurd circumstances is so interesting to me. I remember watching The Lobster and knowing that was the kind of art I wanted to make—you know, the kind that might cause you to break up with your significant other and reevaluate your entire life!”

Olivia Dean, 26

Title: Singer-songwriter

Now’s the perfect time to tune into Olivia Dean—one of this year's Grammy nominees for Best New Artist. The 26-year-old pop-soul singer grew up in north-east London and trained at the Brit School, attending with contemporaries like RAYE and under the legacy of alums like Adele. In 2019, her self-released single “Ok Love You Bye” became a viral hit, earning her a deal with EMI Records; her debut album, 2023’s Messy, was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Inspired by Mickalene Thomas’s exhibition All About Love, Dean’s sophomore album The Art of Loving kicked off Lover-Girl Fall, with her honeyed vocals relaying lyrics exploring self-love and modern romance on hits like “Man I Need.” After her short stint opening for Sabrina Carpenter, Dean will kick off her world tour with eight sold-out UK shows (including four nights at the O2) in April 2026.

The moment we became obsessed: Her COLORS performance of “A Couple Minutes” transports us to a candle-lit ‘60s jazz club.

Yerin Ha, 27

Title: Actor and producer

It’s almost time for Yerin Ha to make her global debut as Bridgerton season 4’s leading lady. The Korean-Australian actor was best known for starring in the live-action adaptation of Halo when she landed the role of Sophie Baek, Benedict Bridgerton’s love interest in the Netflix series’s Cinderella-inspired installment. With the Netflix hit’s track record for finding budding superstars—from Phoebe Dynevor and Nicola Coughlan to Simone Ashley and Jonathan Bailey—Ha’s performance is highly anticipated by both passionate Benophie fans and viewers already entranced by Ha’s chemistry with Luke Thompson. Even before season 4’s January premiere, the 27-year-old has spent the past year taking graceful steps into the spotlight, starring in the well-received murder-mystery The Survivors, attending her first Paris Fashion Week with Chanel, and taking to the stage in her West End debut in Kip Williams's The Maids.

The moment we became obsessed: When our FYP filled up with steamy videos of her with her co-star Luke Thompson.

MC: What does “making it” look like to you?

YH: "I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I’ve 'made it’ because you’re always evolving as a human being, and as such, so do your goal posts. But I do feel like once I reach a certain amount of exposure or ‘status,’ I would love to give back and help the next generation of Asian actors that might not have the financial stability or emotional support to study acting. This career is not only expensive, but it can also be lonely sometimes, and you do get a bit lost in the chaos of the industry, so having somewhere or someone to turn to when you need help is important. Maybe that’s what ‘making it’ looks like for me: giving back to my community."

Whitney Peak, 22

Title: Actor

When Sunrise on the Reaping arrives in theaters ahead of Thanksgiving 2026, all eyes will be on Whitney Peak. Born in Uganda and raised in Canada from the age of nine, Peak broke into mainstream fame in 2021, channeling her natural magnetism as It-girl activist Zoya on the short-lived Gossip Girl reboot. Chanel quickly snapped her up to be an ambassador and eventual muse; in 2023, she succeeded Keira Knightley as Miss Coco Mademoiselle and, in doing so, became the first Black face of a Chanel fragrance. This year, she made her horror- and action-star debuts in the films Eye for an Eye and Trap House, honing skills that she’ll bring to her role as Haymitch Abernathy’s lost love, Lenore Dove Baird, in next year’s Hunger Games prequel.

The moment we became obsessed: When she carried on the legacy of Dan and Jenny Humphrey in the Gossip Girl reboot.

MC: Who’s your ultimate pop culture icon?

WP: “Rihanna.”

MC: What has fame taught you about yourself?

WP: “I have terrible stage fright.”

MC: What’s a dream you haven’t told anyone yet?

WP: “To be a writer. I’m very envious of those who can transfer thoughts from the mind onto paper.”

Romy Mars, 18

Title: Actor and singer-songwriter

“I could reach for the stars, but once I get it, I want more,” Romy Mars sings on her single “A-Lister.” You get the sense she’s not exaggerating—especially if you've followed the rising singer and daughter of Sofia Coppola and Phoenix’s Thomas Mars since she went viral with her short film I Tried to Charter a Helicopter to Visit My Camp Friend. Mars is well-attuned to how to wield her “nepo baby” status for good—from her many buzzy TikToks, that sometimes jeer at fame and sometimes steer into it (making internet boyfriends like Jacob Elordi dance). And she’s following in her father’s footsteps, tapping up-and-comers like Claud and Josh Mehling to work with her on indie pop earworms with biting lyricism. And we should all bask in her ascension: We may have the most talented member of the Coppola dynasty on our hands.

The moment we became obsessed: The lo-fi cover art of her EP, featuring her striking a pose in a scuba mask.

Ravyn Lenae, 26

Title: Singer-songwriter

There’s a special joy in seeing an artist who’s been putting in work for years finally rise to the top. It took nearly a decade for Chicago-born R&B star Ravyn Lenae to ascend to chart domination with her infectious pop-soul single “Love Me Not.” The singer-songwriter has spent the past year having her mainstream breakout following the August 2024 release of her second album Bird’s Eye. Her ‘60s-tinged single about the push-and-pull of romantic uncertainty soon became a TikTok staple, eventually debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 the following April. Pair the chart arrival with a jam-packed festival run and opening slots for both Reneé Rapp and Sabrina Carpenter, and it seems her hit-making run is here to stay.

Veronika Slowikowska, 30

Title: Actor, comedian, and content creator

If your FYP features stand-up and sketch comedy videos, it’s possible that you’ve spent the better part of the past year wondering whether Veronika and Kyle are dating or roommates. Comedian/content creator Veronika Slowikowska, aka @veronika_iscool, had already built a following with her offbeat characters and quirky sketches, so when she started pulling her friend-turned-boyfriend Kyle Chase (a.k.a. @kylefornow) into her bits and the two created their own lore full of in-jokes, it was as if she crafted her own online sitcom. But that’s all because the Canadian comedian isn’t afraid of being a little unhinged. It’s no wonder that after years of cutting her teeth in small TV roles, performing stand-up and musical-comedy gigs, and hosting the “nevermind.” podcast, she landed a cast spot on Saturday Night Live’s 51st season. Her zany humor should imbue the late-night series with some freshness.

The moment we became obsessed: The TikTok of her dancing to Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It” in a Tasmanian Devil hat.

MC: What does “making it” look like to you?

VS: “I’m a very impulsive person when it comes to the way I work. There was never a true 'moment' where I knew I wanted to do this. I think making things and performing have always been so natural, a mindless action in a way, doing without thinking (too much). I create something and then think back later, 'Oh, that’s what that was.' So, in a way, my career chose me? Or I had no say? But I’m happy! Oh, and watching the Britney Spears 'Sometimes' music video.”

Maika Monroe, 32

Title: Actor and producer

Maika Monroe has been a certified scream queen since her daring and vulnerable starring role in 2014’s It Follows—an instant cult classic that helped to kick off the “elevated horror” subgenre. And she’s held the title in the years since, leading acclaimed titles like Watcher and Longlegs, the highest-grossing indie film of 2024. An industry veteran at this point, the California-born-and-raised actor (the former professional kiteboarder couldn’t get any more SoCal) is poised to bring her cool and collected presence to buzzy indie movies and blockbusters alike, including 100 Nights of Hero, opposite Emma Corrin and Charli xcx, adaptations of Colleen Hoover’s Reminders of Him and Victorian Psycho, as well as the long-awaited It Follows sequel, They Follow. Final girl is right.

The moment we became obsessed: The tight shots framed around her face in It Follows.

MC: What movie or show do you quote too often?

MM: “Bridesmaids. There are just so many quotable lines.”

Lovie Simone, 26

Title: Actor

Mara Brock Akil’s groundbreaking coming-of-age drama Forever wouldn’t have worked without Lovie Simone. In it, the Gotham-nominated actor bared her soul and brought nuanced cultural specificity to portray Keisha, a golden girl in 2018 L.A., balancing the pressures of coming of age with the vulnerability of a first real love (played by Michael Cooper Jr.). Before Forever, the 26-year-old Bronx native began her career surrounded by Black Hollywood royalty, working with the likes of Regina King, Lynn Whitfield, and Keith David on the Oprah Winfrey-produced drama Greenleaf. With fans counting the days until Forever’s second season arrives on Netflix, Simone’s on her way to joining the ranks of the legends that came before her.

The moment we became obsessed: When Keisha roasts Justin during their adorable New Year’s Eve meet-cute (or reunion-cute) in Forever.

MC: What movie or show do you quote too often?

LS: “Coraline is my weakness!”

MC: What has fame taught you about yourself?

LS: “Fame has taught me that I am more than myself. All of these faces I put on to tell stories is a part of connecting communities, and it’s beautiful.”

MC: Who’s your biggest creative inspiration—and how do they influence your work?

LS: “There are MANY. But if I were to give one, I would say Octavia Butler. Reading her books inspires me to ground myself in a story, in a character. She also has redefined my love for world-building many times. It's depth like hers I hope to recreate in my own way in my own craft.”

Ella Purnell, 29

Title: Actor and producer

Ever since her breakout role in 2018’s Sweetbitter, Ella Purnell has become one of TV’s most exciting young actors. The former child star from London has led three of Hollywood’s most original survival stories as of late. After playing dearly departed team captain Jackie on the cannibal-hit Yellowjackets and voicing Jinx on Netflix’s animated marvel Arcane, she now goes toe-to-toe with Walton Goggins and Kyle MacLachlan as vault-survivor Lucy McLean on the video-game adaptation Fallout. Purnell also became a major player behind the camera with the Starz serial-killer dramedy Sweetpea, taking a hands-on role in everything from the writers’s room to giving input on costumes and set design. With both Sweetpea and Fallout returning for second seasons (and a third greenlit for the latter), Purnell’s next goals include forming a production company and directing her second short film.

The moment we became obsessed: Every one of Lucy's "Okey dokeys" in Fallout.

Ji-young Yoo, 26

Title: Actor

Ji-young Yoo was a cinema and media studies major at the University of Southern California when she landed her breakout role alongside Nicole Kidman in Lulu Wang’s Hong Kong-set drama Expats. Since then, the indie darling and Gotham Awards nominee has flexed her adaptability, from a punk rocker fighting Nazis in Freaky Tales, to a high schooler navigating her parents’s separation in Smoking Tigers, to a psychic teen fighting through a death loop in Until Dawn. This year, the Denver-born daughter of Korean immigrants is part of a global phenomenon, voicing beloved rapper-maknae Zoey in Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters. The rising star will continue to make history with a leading role in Paramount and HYBE America’s untitled K-pop movie, the first major American studio film shot entirely in South Korea.

The moment we became obsessed: Zoey’s excitable, “가자 가자 가자!” (“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”) in KPop Demon Hunters.

MC: Who would you love to play opposite, alive, or dead? Why?

JY: “Robert Redford. His generation of actors was masters of craft, and he helped innovate the medium through the founding of Sundance and his support of independent film. His body of work in film and activism is astounding. It would have been such an honor to work with him—although I might have driven him crazy with questions about his philosophy on life and art between takes. I would have had a lot of fun, though.”

Mckenna Grace, 19

Title: Actor and producer

Mckenna Grace has grown up in front of the world, with the former child actor starring in acclaimed shows and films from Captain Marvel to I, Tonya to The Handmaid’s Tale to Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Now 19 and facing the transition to adult roles, Grace is set to be one of 2026’s most-talked-about actors. She spent the past summer filming The Hunger Games prequel Sunrise on the Reaping; fans heavily lobbied for and celebrated her casting as Maysilee Donner. Ahead of the highly anticipated role, she just made her debut as a romantic lead in the theatrical adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s Regretting You.

The moment we became obsessed: If you Google the definition of “resilience,” the first result should be the montage of young Carol Danvers getting back up in Captain Marvel.

MC: What fictional character do you irrationally identify with?

MG: “WALL-E. Hands down. What an insanely silly, weird little guy.”

MC: Do you feel pressure to represent something bigger than yourself?

MG: “When I was 6, I was on a Disney show and I was doing a hospital visit where I ended up meeting one of my best friends, Faith Rose, who was there fighting cancer. In getting to know her, I remember it was the first time I saw that I could make a positive impact on someone simply because I had the privilege of being on a TV show. Although I think I gained more from knowing her than she ever could from me, that was when I realized that what I do is so much bigger than myself and it's always stuck with me. I've always wanted to try and stay a good influence because I know my life is watched and scrutinized and, although I guess you could say it's technically not my responsibility, I want to be someone cool and good that younger people can have a positive impression of. I do and will make a lot of mistakes, I just try to learn from them. So, yeah, I do feel that pressure, but maybe it’s something I more so put on myself. But I’m really grateful for the opportunity to have even a small amount of influence in that regard."

MC: Who’s your biggest creative inspiration—and how do they influence your work?

MG: “Florence Pugh is my favorite actress right now. She is one of the greats. So natural and effortless, her style, too, and I love how true she seems to stay to herself outside of her jobs. She’s just such a jaw-droppingly good actress I just strive to have an ounce of her talent.”

Robby Hoffman, 35

Title: Comedian and writer

It’s hard to stand out on a show as packed with laugh-out-loud performances as Hacks, but Robby Hoffman was up to the challenge. In season 4, the masc, ex-Hasidic lesbian comedian earned an Emmy nomination for their performance as Jimmy and Kayla’s eccentric assistant Randi; that same TV season, they showed off their dramatic chops as a home-goods clerk dominating Michelle Williams in Dying for Sex. That’s a big year, even before adding on her whirlwind wedding to reality television star Gabby Windey. She’ll follow up the impressive run with a pair of HBO shows: Steve Carell and Bill Lawrence’s upcoming HBO comedy and her own self-inspired series Unentitled.

The moment we became obsessed: On Hacks talking about Speed.

Suzanna Son, 29

Title: Actor and singer-songwriter

Classic Hollywood success stories that begin with fateful discovery on the streets are few and far between nowadays—but Suzanna Son can chalk her breakout up to a chance encounter with Oscar-winner Sean Baker outside of The ArcLight Theater in L.A. He scouted the actor/musician to play the starry-eyed donut shop employee Strawberry in his 2021 film Red Rocket, for which she earned Gotham and Independent Spirit Award nominations. Since then, her killer, cherubic voice, and original songs were among the highlights of The Idol, and she’s held leading roles in Fear Street: Prom Queen and Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story. Her debut album, full of alluring singer-songwriter-style tunes, is on the way soon; she’s already released the beguiling singles “Coraline,” “Pockets Full of Posey,” and “Ana.” Add her music—and her moment in the spotlight—to the queue.

The moment we became obsessed: Covering “Bye Bye Bye” in Red Rocket. Who knew a stripped-down, piano version of an *NSYNC hit could make you cry?

MC: Who’s your ultimate pop culture icon?

SS: “Fiona Apple. She reminds me it’s okay to be complicated.”

MC: What movie or show do you quote too often?

SS: “Twilight, but I’m stopping today.”

MC: What does “making it” look like to you?

SS: “Having a long and varied career and a dog and a cat and a lemon tree.”

MC: What has fame taught you about yourself?

SS: “Fame has taught me that it doesn’t fix anything.”

Havana Rose Liu, 28

Title: Actor

Brooklyn native Havana Rose Liu’s origin story is as cool as she is. Street-cast while studying art, activism, and wellness at NYU, the performance artist became an instant fashion It-girl and embarked on an acting career, eventually finding her breakout role in the 2023 sapphic comedy Bottoms. Now she’s a bona fide film-festival darling, with roles in this year’s Sundance hit Lurker and Cooper Raiff’s series Hall & Harper, as well as the upcoming Leo Woodall/Dustin Hoffman thriller Tuner and John Carney’s next musical comedy, Power Ballad. Even as her career skyrockets, Liu takes time to pursue projects that feed her soul; last spring, she returned to her live-performance roots, describing her run in the coming-of-age Off-Broadway play All-Nighter as “coming home.” The industry’s most introspective star will next appear in a pair of potential blockbusters: Jesse Eisenberg’s A24 musical comedy and Nicholas Winding Refn’s NEON release Her Private Hell.

The moment we became obsessed: The crazed denial in Bottoms when she finds out her character’s boyfriend has been cheating on her.

Odessa Young, 27

Title: Actor

It’s felt as if Odessa Young has been readied for a mainstream leading performance for years—and thankfully, it’s arrived this year with Deliver Me From Nowhere, the Bruce Springsteen biopic co-starring Jeremy Allen White. The Aussie actor has been bringing her deft balance of grit and poise to acclaimed indie films since she was 18, from Assassination Nation, Sam Levinson’s unhinged, pre-Euphoria high school thriller, to auteur Josephine Decker’s inspired Shirley Jackson drama, Shirley. She was also among the top choices in the “Madonna boot camp,” aka the Queen of Pop’s grueling audition process for her in-development biopic. Even without that role, she’s still about to be everywhere: next up, the leading role opposite Elizabeth Olsen in The Iron Claw filmmaker Sean Durkin’s forthcoming FX series Seven Sisters.

The moment we became obsessed: Rolling around in moss and dirt as a young mother rejecting complacent domesticity in Shirley.

MC: When did you know this was the career you wanted—like really know?

OY: “I don’t think I’ve ever really known. I find out more ways to align myself with this career (or maybe align the career with myself) every time I work, but I appreciate a kind of precariousness in how I regard my future in film. If I don’t think about doing it forever I can exhaust myself, which is where the pleasure lies for me.”

MC: What fictional character do you irrationally identify with?

OY: “Oscar the Grouch.”

MC: Who would you love to play opposite, alive or dead? Why?

OY: “Too many to count. I wish I could have shared a stage with Eleonora Duse, just to watch her work. It was said that audiences saw her shape-shift in front of their very eyes.”

Sophia Lillis, 23

Title: Actor

Sophia Lillis made a lasting impression among the child actors who led the It movies. As Beverly, she went toe-to-toe with Pennywise while facing trouble at home and the horror of the death of girlhood—arguably one of the heaviest arcs in the blockbusters. Her screen presence continued to haunt us as the young version of Amy Adams’s character in the Emmy-nominated Sharp Objects and the criminally short-lived but one of Netflix’s all-time best teen series, I Am Not Okay With This, playing a Carrie-esque teen wrestling with her sexuality. In huge TV projects this fall—she plays it straight opposite the off-the-wall Tim Robinson in his HBO comedy The Chair Company, and will join Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning in the mystery All Her Fault—the 23-year-old’s ascension is just beginning.

The moment we became obsessed: She channels Carrie—bloodied, no-holds-barred teen angst and all—in the I Am Not Okay With This finale.

MC: When did you know this was the career you wanted—like really know?

SL: “There was no one big moment, just little ones. I loved watching Giulietta Masina as a kid, and I enjoyed my acting summer programs at Strasburg. I also enjoyed taking time off school to do NYU shorts. I made close friends on IT when I was 14. Every new job comes with its fair share of challenges, but then there’s little moments that remind me why I keep going.”

Ella Beatty, 25

Title: Actor

She may be the daughter of two film icons, Annette Bening and Warren Beatty, but Ella Beatty is forging her own path—trading Hollywood for the Great White Way. After graduating from Juilliard in 2022, she made her Broadway debut in 2024’s Appropriate. Beatty was handpicked for her role by the play’s lead Sarah Paulson, who sat in on the auditions to find a replacement for Elle Fanning. She’s also gone toe-to-toe with Hugh Jackman in the emotionally charged, Off-Broadway hit Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, and among the standouts in the star-studded ensemble (Billy Crudup, Lily Rabe) of the revival of Ghosts at Lincoln Center. She isn’t entirely avoiding getting in front of the camera; she’ll lead Ryan Murphy’s next season of Monster, about Lizzie Borden, reuniting with the showrunner after a small role in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. You get the sense she takes her family’s legacy very seriously.

The moment we became obsessed: When she stormed into the office of Rose Byrne’s therapist character in If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You.

MC: What fictional character do you irrationally identify with?

EB: “I identify heavily with Chessy, played by Lisa Ann Walter, from the 1998 Parent Trap. One of my favorite movies of all time. Now that’s a woman with a good head on her shoulders!”

MC: Who would you love to play opposite, alive or dead? Why?

EB: “I would love to play opposite Frances McDormand or Laurie Metcalf. Two absolute geniuses.”

Joy Sunday, 29

Title: Actor

It’s impossible to look away from Joy Sunday on Wednesday. The 29-year-old is enthralling as queen-bee and literal siren Bianca Barclay, who subverts mean-girl tropes in the Netflix fantasy series. Before Wednesday, Sunday was a Staten Island-born LaGuardia and USC film grad best known for small roles in Justin Simien’s Bad Hair and Dear White People. Three years after her first major TV role became Netflix’s most-watched English-language show ever, the actor spent the past summer building hype for Wednesday season 2, as her bold take on gothic-themed dressing cemented her as a rising fashion star. As fans wait for Wednesday season 3, Sunday has lined up projects that show a new side to her artistry, from directing a video for the national nonprofit YoungArts, to co-starring alongside Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini in the HBO dark comedy DTF St. Louis.

The moment we became obsessed: Her badass fencing battle—and win—against the titular goth girl in Wednesday season 1.

MC: When did you really know this was your career?

JS: “I chose the song ‘Mister Cellophane’ for my high school junior year Musical Theatre final. Partly because I have always been obsessed with all things Chicago, and partly because it spoke to how invisible I felt in the theatre program. I had felt so discouraged from pursuing acting, developing a residual stage fright that made moments like this performance dreadful. But that day, I belted out that last note of ‘Mister Cellophane’—maybe out of desperation to be heard, maybe because I thought it’d be one of the last times I’d get to perform like this–and something shifted in me. I knew then that my heart wanted nothing more than to do this every day of my life. The seed flowered that day and would bloom years later.”

MC: What fictional character do you irrationally identify with?

JS: “Chloe from Totally Spies. I’m just a girl who can kick ass!”

MC: Who is your biggest creative inspiration?

JS: “She has to be tired of hearing it from me at this point…Michaela Coel. I so deeply appreciate everything she has handcrafted(!) and then performed with such mastery. Harvard just published a study: There’s a direct correlation between watching her shows and then getting straight to work.”

Raffi Donatich, 28

Title: Writer and producer

Not every screenwriter can call Lena Dunham a mentor, but Raffi Donatich is a writer on the rise whom the Girls alum sees herself in and already counts as a collaborator. The Brooklyn-based scribe got her start in theater, assisting Jeremy O. Harris on his plays Slave Play and Daddy, and has since brought her witty pen to the screen. She wrote the campus dramedy Poetic License, which marked Maude Apatow’s directorial debut, and you can expect to see—and binge-watch—her work everywhere soon. She, Harris, and Dunham are developing the “intimacy coordinator” comedy Sex Act for Netflix, and she’s set to write/produce on beloved coming-of-age filmmaker Megan Park’s teen series, Sterling Point, for Prime Video. We’re sensing a new voice of her generation, or at least “a voice” we can’t wait to hear from for years to come.

The moment we became obsessed: When Cherry Lane Theater staged a reading of her play Fabulous Pasta Salad.

MC: When did you know this was the career you wanted—like really know?

RD: “I knew I wanted to be a writer when I became obsessed with making up characters and filming myself on my Flip video camera. They seriously need to bring those things back...That or, when I saw Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture at 13 and it changed my life.”

MC: What fictional character do you irrationally identify with?

RD: “Troy Bolton.”

MC: What’s a dream you haven’t told anyone yet?

RD: “To audition for American Idol.”

Nearly 30 years ago, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion introduced the world to two hilarious, stylish BFFs who love each other as much as they love a good outfit. Now, the duo has a new party to get dressed up for, and you don’t need to be in the Sagebrush High School yearbook to attend: The 1997 film has been adapted into an Off-Broadway musical.

Romy & Michele: The Musical stars theater veterans Laura Bell Bundy (Legally Blonde: The Musical) and Kara Lindsay (Newsies) as the titular Valley Girl besties—made famous in the film by Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow—who travel back home to Tucson, Arizona for their 10-year high school reunion with a plan to impress their old classmates by lying about their success. Endlessly quotable and with a wardrobe to die for, the comedy’s been beloved since it was released, with a sequel reportedly now in development. Just like the film, the musical—directed by Kristin Hanggi with original music and lyrics by Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay and a book by the original screenwriter Robin Schiff—is a testament to friendship, being true to yourself, and never claiming to be the inventor of Post-It notes.

It’s also a musical that, by design, has to have great fashion, which is where costume designer Tina McCartney comes in. McCartney, who’s worked across stage, film, and television on projects like the In the Heights movie, the Beetlejuice musical, Fosse/Verdon, and the Tony Awards, aimed to strike a balance between honoring the movie’s source material while also making the costumes work for this new incarnation of the story. “There are those iconic moments that you really, really want to hit, so I wanted to make sure that we nailed those things,” McCartney explains to Maire Claire over Zoom. “But outside of that, there were new scenes that I got to create looks for. And when working in theater, all of a sudden they're singing and dancing, right? It's a musical, so we have to take it to another level.”

That’s no small undertaking, given how famous the film is for its clothes, which were the vision of lauded costume designer Mona May, the woman behind seminal ‘90s movies like Clueless, The Wedding Singer, and Never Been Kissed. She brought the pals’s high-low style to vivid life, filled with anything that was “exuberant, fun, and had colorful patterns.” She’s also a consultant on the musical and gave key insight to McCartney that helped carry the movie’s unforgettable ensembles onto the stage.

That gave her freedom to dress these musical versions of Romy and Michele, and express their unique personalities and iconic bond through their costumes. “They are so different, yet they're still so close, they're such good friends. They each think the other is the coolest person they've ever met.”

With Romy & Michele now officially open to the public at Stage 42, McCartney takes us through some of the musical's biggest fashion moments.

Meeting Romy and Michele

To begin, McCartney filled her mood board with imagery from iconic ‘90s music videos by the Spice Girls and S Club 7, as well as house music of that era. From there, she worked with May to narrow down what made Romy and Michele different, stylistically speaking. She distinguished many of their ‘fits by how Romy’s “a bit more masculine, a little tougher,” while Michele is “fluffy, soft, glittery.”

That dynamic plays out from the start, as the show begins with the pals and roommates getting dressed to go out clubbing. For that number, titled “This Is It (A Look They’ve Never Seen),” the lyrics dictate what clothes they reached for in their well-stocked closets: Romy’s outfit is described as “Barbarella bondage chic,” which fits her metallic blue dress with harness details. (Michele, meanwhile, lands on a fish-patterned minidress with marabou trim.) Their colorful looks helped them stand out against the musical’s ensemble cast, all dressed in silvers and blacks for the night on the town.

McCartney adds that Bundy and Lindsay also had a hand in shaping their characters's signature style. “They would put something on and be like, ‘Oh, this feels so Michelle,’ or ‘This feels so Romy.’ They're just such fantastic comedic actresses, and they bring so much to the characters.”

Prom Night

Though the story takes place in the ‘90s, the action flashes back to Romy and Michele’s high school days, including their prom night. With the titular besties in Madonna-inspired ensembles and their peers in more modest gowns, McCartney again channeled two distinct nostalgic aesthetics to present the leading ladies as a team—and on a different plane, sartorially speaking, than the rest of them.

“I leaned into that Gunne Sax look of the ‘80s for the ensemble. It's really about showing that they're different, they've always been different, and that's sort of their superpower,” McCartney says. “It was really about making sure that the colors were different, playing that up, that no one else really is in that look, they're even more glam. So for me it was about, Okay, how do we show that they’re fashion forward, they're on the cutting edge, and everyone else is sort of doing something very different?”

Road Trip

“I wanted them to be tied together through color, through style, at certain moments,” McCartney explains. That inspired the pink-and-green ensembles for the song “The Lie Will Set Us Free,” where they scheme to head home armed with their fabrication about being successful businesswomen.

“When they're going on their road trip to Tucson, having them look like a team was really important to me, and making sure that they coordinated together,” she adds. “Because in the film they're more individualized, whereas in the show you see them as a unit. You're seeing their whole body, you're seeing them framed by eight other people. So it was important to me that they were set apart in some of those moments, sort of them against the world.”

The Businesswoman's Special

How would a cashier at a Jaguar dealership and her unemployed roommate dress when they want people to believe they’ve invented one of the most famous office supplies on a desk? Romy and Michele’s projection of what they both think exudes status leads to their different takes on the power suit.

For this moment, McCartney wanted to pay homage to the film, but also make it fashion-forward and contemporary. She pulled that through the sleek lines and exaggerated shoulders of Romy’s blazer, and the more feminine, ‘90s-style sweetheart neckline of Michele’s jacket. It’s a look that wouldn’t be out of place today, even if their skirts are a bit shorter than you’d normally see in the office. (After all, this is the concept of “business chic” envisioned by two women who’d walk into a diner asking for a “businesswoman’s special.”)

The Reunion

You know the moment we’re talking about: Romy in galactic blue, Michele in pink, showing their former classmates that they really know how to make an entrance—and hit the dance floor. “That’s one of the big payoffs of the movie; they’re just being their full, quirky, fun, joyful selves. We had to pay direct homage,” McCartney says.

“Mona May did a really great job with capturing both of their personalities. We'd spoken about it, she and I, and there's so much thought about all the details that went into those dresses,” she notes. “So that felt like the right thing.” (One such detail: The symbol on Romy’s futuristic blue dress is a Star Trek emblem, because Sorvino had imagined the character as being “kind of a trekkie” in the original movie.)

It’s something she knew audiences would be looking for—the outfits themselves, and the “joyful” moment where the two besties dance together in the most Romy and Michelle way possible.

Director Hanggi intended for the entire show to capture that exact feeling. “She wanted to make sure that the show was a joy bomb. That was the inspiration for every choice we made: Is this going to tickle people? Are they going to be thrilled? Are we going to tell the story in a way that is uplifting? That was really important to us.”

Equally important was celebrating the movie’s—and now musical’s—true love story: the bond between best friends. “The story is about two friends, and it's showing the value of friendship, and those relationships aren't always as celebrated in our culture,” McCartney says. “I think that’s why it has stayed so iconic and has really touched people.”

Very few people know the real Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez. It’s possible they know Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, the performer who made history as the first trans actress to win a Golden Globe and to be nominated for a lead acting Emmy (both times for her breakout role as Blanca in FX’s hit series Pose); or even Michaela Jaé, the sultry R&B musician who dropped her debut album, 33, last year and is currently gearing up to release her next. But the full, four-name Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez? The woman she describes as the “regular, degular girl from Newark, New Jersey?” Well, as she says on a rainy mid-August afternoon, “You don’t get to see the Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez unless you’re really having an interview like this.”

The actress, singer, and newly-minted Off-Broadway producer tells me this as we’re tucked into a corner booth at the Beekman Hotel’s Temple Court Bar Room. We’re here, ostensibly, to discuss the third season of her Apple TV+ comedy Loot—which premiered October 15—where Rodriguez plays Sofia Salinas, the no-nonsense executive director of a nonprofit charity organization started by recently divorced billionaire Molly Novak (Maya Rudolph). But before we can really dive in, we get sidetracked on a conversation about her hair. You see, the new season opens with a noticeable aesthetic change for Sofia—as Molly gleefully puts it, “You got bangs!” It’s a marked pivot for Rodriguez’s character, whose presentation has always taken a backseat to the work she prizes above all else. So, I wonder, what is this meant to signal for her character’s new arc?

“In the second season, Sofia was in this kind of romantic phase, so she didn’t have a bang. It was very wavy. Still with a middle part, but romantic,” the actress explains to me. Last season, Sofia was forced to let down her guard after meeting Isaac (O-T Fagenble), an impossibly charming architect and part-time jazz saxophonist whose free-spirited ways taught Sofia a new way to find balance between her work and her personal life. “But in the third season,” the actress continues, “they wanted to show a different part of Sofia. She’s discovering more of herself, and with self-discovery, I think, there’s a chop of the bang, a new wardrobe, new shoes.”

There was a realistic reason behind the choice—a blurring of lines between the self and the character, one could say. As Rodriguez recalls, she had already been on a personal “journey” with her hairstylist, Barry Lee Moe, while preparations were underway for the third season. It was the middle of the 2023 actor’s strike, no one was working, and while itching for a switch-up, she told Moe, “I want a fuck-me bang, bitch. I want something that looks like it’s going to just eat it. I want something that’s just a smidge above the eyes where I’m just feeling it.” She posted about the hair on Instagram, and when the Loot team saw it, they felt it could work for Sofia, too.

I understand her thinking. Season 3 is, indeed, a period of self-discovery for Sofia. Much of her new storyline revolves around the arrival of a new character: Destiny (X Mayo), Sofia’s carefree sister and polar opposite. Loot’s writers get a lot of comedic mileage out of their odd-couple dynamic—Sofia describes herself as the Bill Clinton to Destiny’s George—but more importantly, it deepens our understanding of Sofia. As was the case with Isaac in season 2, reuniting with Destiny forces Sofia to consider exactly why she insists on putting so much pressure on herself to succeed. As the sisters work through their differences, they both learn more about themselves from each other and grow as a result. Why not throw a bang in the mix?

Still, Rodriguez needed separation. “Mind you, Michaela is totally different from Sofia,” she stresses. “Michaela Jaé gives, like, blunt straight bang. Sofia will give you a wave and a curtain bang.” To her, these minor aesthetic differences exist in parallel to the real-world differences between the character she plays on screen and the person she is in her day-to-day life. “Sofia is sophisticated and all business, whereas me…” She trails off for a second, considering her words. “Well, I guess I am business and I am sophisticated. But I’m a little more edgy.” I tell her that it’s possible to be both. “Exactly!” she exclaims. “We can be a little banjee when we want to!”

Talking with her, it’s not hard to pinpoint these differences. In person, Rodriguez is quite relaxed, even after a long photoshoot. She likes to joke and has a tendency to riff on silly hypotheticals, like when I bring up Donald Trump and she goes into an extended bit about not knowing who he is before “realizing” that who I’m actually talking about is Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort. (A fitting parallel.)

And yet, the similarities between Sofia and Michaela can’t help but pierce through. This is my third time profiling Rodriguez, and on each occasion, she has referred to herself as a “workaholic.” A textbook Capricorn, she was raised by two parents who instilled in her a sense of duty. It’s what got her through four straight years as the de facto lead of Pose—where she endeared audiences with her sensitive portrayal of a selfless HIV-positive ballroom house mother—and what pushed her immediately into another four years working on Loot.

She very rarely takes breaks. Even when she’s not on a film or TV set, you can probably find her in the studio, working on music, since, as she stresses, “I’ve always wanted to be a pop star.”

Then again, maybe working on music is her way of taking a break. She lights up whenever our conversation pivots to that side of her career, explaining that, “In the music world, I’m free.” She sees music-making as an inherently different creative endeavor than acting; music, for her, feels much more intuitive. “I always say that my body moves before my mind sometimes,” she tells me. “So my body will go to the studio, and my mind will then say, ‘Bitch, you at the studio! Did you know that?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, shit. What am I doing here?’” She lets out a laugh. “I kind of like that. I like that my body can feel the music before my mind catches up to it.”

Much like acting, it took some time to find the separation between who she was as a person and who she was an artist. She says her first music video, for her 2021 debut single “Something to Say,” was when it finally clicked. “After I looked at that video, I was like, ‘Damn. This is Michaela Jaé.’ This is not MJ Rodriguez. This is not Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez. This is the embodiment [of my pop star persona]. This is who you see on stage, dressed up, bionic, new and improved.”

Four years after that, she feels like she’s finally realized her prowess as the pop star she always envisioned herself as. “I don’t see myself any other way now,” she says with full confidence. “At first, I was like, Am I? Now, I’m like, I am one. I might be an underrated one. But I am one.”

It’s always nice to hear an artist talk about the sheer joy that comes from doing the work—and Rodriguez is nothing if not a gracious practitioner. But she’s also not blind to where we are politically, and she doesn’t mince words when it comes to the climate she’s working through.

The last time we spoke, before Loot had even premiered its first season, the actress told me that she was really excited to be playing a character who wasn’t defined by her transness. Pose, the show that made her famous, was notable because of its focus on trans identity. On Loot, however, Sofia’s gender identity was never meant to be a part of her narrative. Rodriguez relished that.

But it’s been three years since then, and while 2022 felt like a breakthrough for the future of trans representation on screen, 2025 feels increasingly bleak—not just for representation, but for trans rights, writ large. It’s left Rodriguez feeling slightly torn. “I feel like our stories, as trans women, are getting muddied with a lot of misinformation, which makes it easier for human beings who are not understanding or are bigoted to create a narrative about us and make it something true when it’s not,” she says, explaining how this has wide-reaching negative implications for trans people trying to find work, housing, or even just general safety from harm. So while she still feels “thankful” that she’s been afforded the opportunity to portray a character whose womanhood is just accepted as is, she does feel that, without trans-specific stories, there is an added responsibility for her, as Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, to raise awareness in other ways.

When I mention how this all feels inextricable from the anti-DEI wave currently plaguing all sectors of society, she snaps her fingers in agreement before responding, “I’m glad we all know. I’m glad I’m hearing it from an interviewer.” She immediately brings up the unceremonious cancellation of The Colbert Show. “That was someone who influences people around the world to have a mind and to think for themselves,” she says. “A lot of people in the world know why that show got shut down, and when you see that, you know what kind of influences, politically, are happening.”

It’s also not lost on her that Loot, a comedy that satirizes the idea of the “good billionaire,” is in direct conversation with some of these cultural shifts as well. She cites that as another key difference between herself and her character. Whereas Sofia tries to see the good in Molly’s efforts to do right by the world while also holding on to her wealth, Rodriguez struggles to see the same. “Sometimes, I want to be like, ‘Sofia, there’s no hope, girl,’” she says with a laugh. “‘You’re holding out the good fight, but there’s no hope. This isn’t going to push the needle forward.’”

Still, Rodriguez sees trans people as being uniquely poised to meet this moment with a certain resilience; after all, the world (and this industry) has never been exactly welcoming to women like her. “I’ve been here for a long time and I’ve worked hard. My sisters have worked hard,” she says resolutely. “And we are in a harsh time right now. It’s scary. But the only way to get people up and to get them going and to continue on is if there are people like me out there saying, ‘Okay, yes, it is scary. And so what? What are you going to do? You’re just going to stop?’”

Rodriguez is certainly doing her part. After our conversation, the actress will be heading to catch a tech rehearsal for Saturday Church, an Off-Broadway musical adaptation of the beloved 2017 indie drama about a young queer boy’s life-affirming experience with the ballroom community.

Though the actress—who played ballroom house mother Ebony in the original film—was initially asked to reprise her role for the stage production, Rodriguez opted to come on board to the new project as a consultant and producer instead, citing two reasons. The first was practical: Though Rodriguez is a proud Afro-Latina woman, she notes that a character literally named “Ebony” should be played by a darker-skinned actress. “The [only] reason why I played Ebony the first time is because there were no chocolate trans girls showing up at that time,” she says.

But the second is more inspirational: She saw this as the perfect opportunity to pass the torch so someone else could have their own star-making moment. Weeks after we meet, when I check back in on the actress to see how she’s been feeling now that the show has officially opened, she tells me of the actress who was cast, “I do feel a tremendous sense of pride because I had already known that B Noel [Thomas] was an outstanding and tremendous talent.” She’s also proud to be working behind-the-scenes for once, calling the experience “eye-opening.” She exclaims, “I feel that the heart each and every last person put into the show has been even more amplified by the audience response. There’s been standing ovations mostly every night!”

In the meantime, she is looking ahead. Rodriguez, who is turning 35 at the top of the new year, feels she has accomplished everything she would have wanted to by this age. She feels fulfilled as the actress Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, as the singer Michaela Jaé, and at home, as the “regular, degular” Michaela Antonia Jaé Rodriguez. “Now, it’s just time to fine-tune them.”

She has plans for how to do so, too. At the top of her list? A romantic comedy. “We need to see all facets of a trans woman’s love and how someone else loves on her,” she says. There’s a personal element to this dream: Rodriguez has been in a loving relationship with her boyfriend, Stephen Gimigliano, for almost six years now, and believes that it’s important for society—and other trans women—to see that it is possible for trans women to find true companionship. “We are done with the stereotypical story of being heartbroken by men that don’t know how to love [us] openly,” she declares. “I’m over that because I’m being loved openly. It’s tangible.”

But she knows there are outside pressures. Leaning over the table to speak directly into my phone, she delivers a message to the “brothers” who might be worried about the implications of playing a trans woman’s romantic interest: “Get off your high horse, get over yourself, and let’s get to fucking work!” She says she’d love to work opposite Michael B. Jordan in a film directed by Ryan Coogler. All it would take is for them to “be courageous and brave enough” to do so.

She assumes a similar posture when it comes to the future of her music career. She has a “whole bunch of songs” recorded for her sophomore album, and would love for one of them to chart in the Billboard Top 40. From what I’ve heard, this dream isn’t so far-fetched. The new music takes the singer’s unique take on R&B in a dancier, more club-ready direction. Her aim was to make songs that “will get your body moving” without sacrificing her ever-present objective to “invoke confidence, tenacity, and audacity.” But as she puts on the final touches, Rodriguez also wants to collaborate with artists who are really willing to share the spotlight with a trans songstress—not just “performative acts where they have the [trans] girls come on stage and just be side-pieces.” Once again leaning into my phone to deliver a message, she says, “All y’all little R&B girlies: stop playing with me, okay? Let’s get in the studio and eat these girls up.”

For Rodriguez, everything circles back around to one key desire: “I want to have fun with my work more,” she says. “I want to have fun in my life and in the relationships I have with people.” It’s an aspiration that feels in line with one of the final things she tells me before heading out to the Saturday Church tech rehearsal—“a message for the youth” that she’d like to impart. “Make sure you know that the sky is limit-less,” she tells me as she begins to pack away her things. “It’s not the limit, because that means you have to stop at the sky. But if the sky is limitless, you can go beyond it into the stars, baby.” She flashes a smile. “So just shoot and don’t stop.”

Photographer: Shane McCauley | Stylist: Mimi Kim | Hair Stylist: Kyrsten Oriol | Makeup Artist: Team Tilbury, using Charlotte Tilbury | Manicurist: Gina Oh | Location: The Beekman, a Thompson Hotel

The critically acclaimed Broadway play John Proctor Is the Villain, which just earned seven Tony nominations, is inspired by The Crucible. But the show, written by Kimberly Belflower, doesn't confine its references to Puritans and midcentury theater. It also features a killer needle drop to Lorde's 2017 banger "Green Light."

The track is just as important to Belflower's story as Miller's classic is—and the result is a perfect and beguiling blend of pop culture old and new.

The Danya Taymor-directed play, which opened in April, follows a group of teenage girls in rural Georgia in 2018. Their tiny hometown is rocked by #MeToo scandals just as they are reading the 1953 play about the Salem Witch Trials, itself an allegory for McCarthyism, in their honors English class. But to Shelby, played by Stranger Things star Sadie Sink in a heartbreaking and ferocious performance, The Crucible's hero John Proctor is not the noble soul her teacher, Mr. Smith (Gabriel Ebert), suggests. Instead, she sees the classic figure of American drama as a grown man who took advantage of a broken teen girl, Abigail Williams, usually framed as the story's villain. Shelby's passion—and a revelation that follows—is a breaking point for her friends, who are all coming to terms with their own understanding of feminism and autonomy.

In the show's final moments, "Green Light" envelopes N.Y.C.’s Booth Theatre as Shelby and her friend Raelynn (Amalia Yoo) turn their presentation on the play into a cathartic, ecstatic dance. Their bodies throb with the music, and lines like "Those rumors they have big teeth" take on new meaning. Lorde, however, is not the only pop star referenced in the play, which was performed in Washington, D.C. and Boston before reaching Broadway.

"I think that our relationship to pop music and to dance as teenagers is so specific," Belflower tells Marie Claire.

While the Melodrama hit is the powerful closing song, the listening habits of Belflower's characters provide insight into how they view the world. A discussion of Taylor Swift leads one girl (Maggie Kuntz) to proclaim how she liked Swift before her music became too sexual, and culminates in a sing-along to "Dear John." Later, the class know-it-all (Fina Strazza) references Lizzo in a rant about body positivity.

With John Proctor Is the Villain running now until July 6, Bellflower opens up about the significance behind her song choices for the play, the letter she wrote to Lorde, and whether she’s talked to Swift with All Too Well: The Short Film star Sink.

Marie Claire: The play references The Crucible, which is not the most modern pop culture, but the characters are also constantly drawing from the art they consume, whether that’s Glee or American Horror Story. How did you know that had to be part of the play?

Kimberly Belflower: That is how I experienced my own adolescence. I am from a very small town in rural Georgia, much like the one in the play. I feel like [pop culture was the] way that I figured out that other lives were possible. I'm the only person in my family who doesn't farm. Entertainment Weekly was my Bible. I wrote Gilmore Girls fan-fiction in high school, and I used to write down all of the books they were reading and all of the pop culture references they made, and then make that my education. But I think that that is such a common teenage thing: You read something in school and then you're like, Wait, that reminds me of this other thing. It becomes so enmeshed in the way that you're forming your identity and yourself and making sense of your place in the world.

The impetus of the play is, What would it be like to be coming of age in a moment like #MeToo? I think that if you were reading The Crucible and you hear in an interview that Woody Allen calls #MeToo a "witch hunt," then I imagine you would make some parallels. But then you're also listening to Lorde and thinking about how our pop culture references reflect who we are.

MC: When did you know Lorde's "Green Light" would be so important to the play?

KB: From the first days of writing the play. Extremely early on, I was like, "This ends in a dance to 'Green Light.'" As a teenage girl, making up dances in your room and with your friends is such a shortcut to embodiment in a time when you feel either that you're being overly sexualized or you're being ignored or you aren't able to exist in your body without commentary on your body. In The Crucible, the inciting incident is that these girls go out dancing in the woods. Knowing that, Oh, that is an ancient thing, it's not just a modern phenomenon with pop music. It is as old as we are as a culture. Knowing that and wanting to play with that relationship, I think the play is so much about how cycles repeat themselves, like cycles of power, cycles of hierarchy, but also cycles of abuse and of pop music and of dancing. Over and over again, these things happen. And then, when the song "Green Light" came out, it did something to me.

MC: Tell me about that.

KB: I've loved Lorde since day one. The day "Green Light" came out, I put it on repeat. It hit me on many levels. It is a pop song that defies the rules of how pop music moves and what the structural norms are. That pre-chorus, the shift from minor to major key, and when she says, "I hear sounds in my mind, brand new sounds in my mind," to me, was the most perfect encapsulation of what it is to move through trauma, move through pain, and come out on the other side. It's not like, Oh, I made it through that, I'm done. It's like, Oh, this has changed me forever, but it has given me access to new sounds, to new feelings that I'm going to make into something. That is what Shelby and Raelynn are doing at the end of the play.

MC: Were there any questions about whether you could get the rights to use it?

KB: I was very worried about it. We had to cross that bridge once we had a publication agreement [for the script] in place because when it was being done at colleges or even regional theaters, it's a different process. But once it moves into publication, the song is written into the stage directions of the play. That was when we had to be like, "Okay, we have to find a way to get these rights permanently." That was a multi-step process: my publisher approached her publisher, and my agent approached her manager.

I had written her a letter that I gave to my agent and my publishers, as, I don't know if this will even get to her, I don't know if it'll even matter, but just wanted to know that if by chance it did. I was able to put into my own words, "This is why this has to be this song, and this is what your song means to me. This is what your song means to my characters. This is what's happening in the play." Her manager told my agent that she read the letter, and that was a part of her saying yes.

MC: Has there been an invitation for her to see it?

KB: Our press team invited her to the opening. She was not there. But I also know that she's in New York City right now, so I'm like, "Come on, please."

[Ed note: Lorde has since reposted a TikTok from the official John Proctor account featuring Sink lip syncing to her new single "What Was That."]

MC: Taylor Swift’s music is also heavily featured in the play. Why was it so important to reference Swift?

KB: I am in my mid-30s, so Taylor's first album came out when I was a freshman in college. My whole adulthood has been defined by her music. But the characters in this play, they've never known a world where Taylor Swift wasn't a massive star in it.That's the fabric of pop culture and the world that they grew up in.

Also, being in the moment in 2017 through 2019, [that was] when you see her start to make some shifts leading up to [her documentary] Miss Americana and her #MeToo moment. In Miss Americana she says, "Oh, I always tried to be very good, and I tried to be very quiet, and I tried to be very agreeable and be who people wanted me to be and then at some point I had to speak my truth, and then this thing happened to me, and if it happened to me, who else does it happen to?" Knowing how formative that could have been for me as a teenager to see. It was formative for me as an adult to see.

MC: Sadie Sink was in Swift’s music video, "All Too Well: The Short Film." Have you talked to her about Swift’s music in the play? Do you know if she’s talked to Taylor about it?

KB: I don't know. I feel like we're close enough now that I could ask, but early on, because I know that so many people ask Sadie for so many things, and I [was] like, "I am just not going to bring it up." She knows what it means to me because it's in the play that she's starring in. And I will talk about her in rehearsals, but I've been very restrained. I know that she also is a Swiftie, and that will come up in organic ways.

MC: One thing I love about the play is that the girls don't all rally behind the #MeToo movement. How did you also see that reflected in how they talk about Swift?

KB: Even outside of rural Georgia, when our politics intersect with our own lives in a very direct way, it can be surprising what comes up for us. That was such a question I wanted to explore. It can be easier to look at someone like Harvey Weinstein and be like, "Oh, he's a monster, full stop." But then it's like, Well, what if it's my favorite teacher who has opened my brain into new possibilities to the world? What if it's my dad or my friend's dad who has been like a second father to me? What happens when it's someone that we love? And what is it to hold multiple truths at the same time? I think that's just our work as humans, and it feels like, especially in this moment in time, everything is good or bad, black or white, and trying to put things into very neat boxes, and it's like, that's not what anything is.

MC: The dance at the end feels true to how teen girls dance, but also how Lorde dances. What were the discussions around that in rehearsal with director Danya Taymor?

KB: We have an amazing movement director, Tilly Evans-Krueger. The three of us talked a lot. It's also laid out in the stage directions. There is a moment where it starts to look less like a dance and more like an exorcism, and that is so much how I feel like watching Lorde dance. There's not the presentation of, "Look at me, look at my body," you just feel it like it is purging something, it is expressing something so deep and primal. We talked about that. We talked about, “What can their bodies do? What would they have been able to make up in their rooms?”

MC: Why was it important that the final scene reflect how Shelby acknowledges that she’ll be traumatized by this experience, but also give the audience a sense of hope?

KB: For me, that whole final presentation, starting with the scene that they perform as Abigail and Elizabeth from The Crucible, is so much about these two girls reclaiming their voices and reclaiming their bodies. [With Shelby] just being able to be in her body, which I imagine she has felt so outside of. So to have this moment where it's like her movements are ugly and feral and primal, and for her to not be using her body for anyone else's pleasure but her own, just expressing what she needs to express without thinking about how anyone is going to receive it and breaking free of the choreography and purging something, channeling something. So it's like, yeah, she's still going to be unpacking this trauma for the rest of her life, but also this moment changes something for her and for everyone witnessing it.

Havana Rose Liu didn’t set out to be an actress; she wanted to pursue performance art. At New York University, she built on her background as a dancer by developing her own major that explored the intersection of art, activism, and wellness. Before graduating in 2019, she created cookbooks and audio tours about the fetishization of minority cultures. One particularly moving live piece she created examined relationships and proximity by having her and an ex stare at each other through plexiglass for an extended period of time.

But being scouted by a modeling agent on the street just outside campus put Liu on a different trajectory. She then began doing background work for film, TV, and music videos, eventually landing her breakout roles in cult-loved movies like 2022’s No Exit and 2023's Bottoms. But when I met her, on a sunny Monday in April, it seemed the 27-year-old New York native had been able to reconnect with her performance art rooms for the first time in years—and reveled in it.

Every night for the past two months, Liu has been using her body, making improvisational choices, and interacting with a live audience in the new Off-Broadway play All Nighter. Starring in the all-women production written by Natalie Margolin and directed by Jaki Bradley was an experience Liu now realizes she “needed.”

“I feel like all of it has been this big recentering,” Liu tells Marie Claire the week before her final shows, seated in the lobby of The Newman Mills Theatre. She looks comfortable and ready for her show in two hours, wearing her long, wavy hair down and dressed in a sheeny pair of navy slacks and a white blouse. She spent most of her time there this spring, performing eight shows per week of the one-act about five seniors on their last all-nighter of their college careers.

Before the project came her way, the actress felt a bit “adrift.” She had been taking on role after role—while they were buzzy projects and amazing opportunities, like the recent Sundance hits Lurker and Hal & Harper, and the undated but soon-to-be blockbusters Power Ballad, opposite Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, and Leo Woodell-led thriller Tuner—they still left her feeling isolated away from her home in New York. All Nighter was like “a coming home in a lot of different ways,” Liu says, referring to being back in her city, her body, and how it “reinvigorated [her] appreciation for acting.”

Since it opened to previews on February 25 and the public on March 9, All Nighter has more or less become the “it girl” show in the N.Y.C. theater scene. Its relatable subject matter and cast of beloved up-and-comers have inspired Gen Z to turn out in droves. Liu notes how much it’s touched her to talk to young people after every performance, especially fans who have told her that All Nighter was their first play. “To bring young people to the theater, to introduce them to theater, is a huge honor,” she says.

The show marked Liu and fellow rising film/TV ingénue Kristine Froseth’s first-ever plays, but they had mentors in their costars, Broadway favorites like Sex Lives of College Girls alum Alyah Chanelle Scott and Tony-nominees Kathryn Gallagher and Julia Lester. (The team behind All Nighter confirms Liu and Froseth will not be able to complete the entire 12-week run of the show, as planned, due to scheduling conflicts with a film they were both cast in in late April.)

The coming-of-age play found its way to Liu after a theater agent at her agency encouraged her to try out a few workshops. “I had the best fucking time ever,” she says. “Most of my process has been so alone or with a director one-on-one. This felt like we were all agreeing on some of the group choices, and I felt really un-alone in that moment. I felt such a companionship and community with everyone.”

She also connected to the complexities of female friendship in the story, and how, despite being set in 2014, the issues it raises remain prescient. “The writing is so smart and truthful in terms of how it tackles the way that young women speak to each other, especially in small liberal arts environments. I feel like I chewed on the material in a way that made me hungry for more.” After first reading for Scott’s character, Tessa, and feeling hesitant to try out another part, she read for Lizzy. Her gentleness immediately struck her: “She bore a little home in my heart.”

Lizzy is the peacekeeper in the show’s central friend group and, as is later revealed, is dealing with trauma from earlier in her college experience. Liu shares, “Lizzy has helped me look at what clarity can do for anxiety and how much buying into a group truth versus a singular truth can cost someone.”

The tone of All Nighter shifts entirely when Lizzy faces what she’s been repressing and how she’s coped with what happened to her. “Some nights, I feel sad to bring [the audience] there,” the performer says. “I feel like, Everyone is having such a good time. I don’t want to burst the bubble, but then I’m like, How beautiful that we get to hold this together. It changes with the performance, too, because you can hear people reverberating with it or responding. It makes me feel like I’m not performing it; I am holding it with everyone.”

Liu has held a special experience with her castmates, too. “[All Nighter] surprised me in all the ways that I didn’t even know that I needed,” she says, noting how she now understands how much she was looking for a source of community after spending a lot of downtime on film sets alone. “Part of my job is to put myself in a lack of safety, the unknown, all the time. Part of what's cool about this project has been that I'm allowed to feel safe and also unsafe in all the craziness of doing a play every night, and all the crazy things can happen—but ultimately really, really safe.”

The fivesome's bond extended past the stage. They spent every Sunday night at Gallagher’s, where she cooked for them. Liu and Scott had dressing room dance parties to Fred again.. before every curtain call. Hell's Kitchen margaritas were a post-stage door must.

“It's been quite healing to be feeling so understood and like I really have their back and they have mine,” says Liu. “I hope they stay my friends for a very long time.”

All Nighter has also made Liu discover quite a bit about herself. When I ask her what she’s learned from the experience, she starts to get emotional. “Every night we tap like, I have your back, to each other. But I think I didn't realize how much I had my own back,” she admits, leaning forward and softening her voice. “I've been proud of the days when something starts to go awry, or I start to feel scared or self-doubt, and then I choose a different choice. I hold myself and love myself through it, and make the next decision that can release that.”

“I also really have learned about how many ways one moment can play…a scene can be 35+ different things and they can all be amazing,” she continues. “That has made me also feel really differently about being alive. Every situation can be re-narrativized in a new way. In my own way, life has felt like I can bring myself to it in the way I do my play, where I know that I just have to make the next right choice and do the next right thing to get back on track in some way.” Liu laughs and says she’s unsure if I expected her to give such a “pyscho-spiritual answer.”

Liu will take her final bow as Lizzy on Friday. The show will continue its limited engagement through mid-May, with The Pitt’s Isa Briones taking over the role. (Froseth’s Darcie will now be played by AnnaSophia Robb.) In the coming months, Liu has a bounty of projects to begin production on—like a star-studded musical written/directed by Jesse Eisenberg for A24, and a NEON-helmed Nicolas Winding Refn film, in which she’ll reteam with Froseth and star opposite fellow film Twitter faves Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton. It seems likely that the creative buzz she caught from All Nighter will carry with her, not unlike what she felt in her own years in undergrad.

“I was really on a steep learning curve of what it meant to switch from film and TV to theater...I think it's rare that this happens, but in all the ways that I hoped this would push me to grow, it really has,” she says. “It's really broadened my understanding of the craft and even my passions.”

Liu adds, “I'm still actively processing aloud what this experience is and how fruitful it's been and why. I find myself lying in bed, being like, Wow, this was an incredible moment.”

Like most college seniors, she notes, “I feel already nostalgic.”

In 2021, Kandi Burruss overheard a comment that she says crystallized her mission as a theater producer. She was listening in on a post-show talkback for the first play she had produced for Broadway, Thoughts of Colored Man, when an older white woman asked a question. “At the time, there were a couple other shows that were starring African-American talent on stage,” Burruss recalls to me on a mid-March afternoon in Manhattan, twirling her fork around a strand of Maine lobster spaghetti. “And [the woman] said, ‘Well, I think it’s great that we have these shows that are starring African-American talent. But don’t you think you guys shouldn’t put so many up at once so it doesn’t pull the ticket sales away from each other?’” At the time, Burruss was speechless. With a look of performative confusion, she lets out a sigh. “It was as if we could only do one at a time, like only one could make it.”

Today, as she sits across from me at the Italian hotspot Cecconi’s, enviably fashionable in a handprint-covered suit fresh off Area’s FW24 runway (matching top hat included), the multi-hyphenate finds the whole situation rather funny. Aside from the obvious issues—why should there only be one Black anything—she also thinks the woman’s question demonstrated a limited imagination about the possible paths to success. Sure, the usually white, usually wealthy, New York residents who regularly shell out for expensive Broadway tickets might be reluctant to support multiple Black-led shows at once. But Burruss—an actor; a celebrated singer and Grammy-winning songwriter; the owner of several businesses, including two restaurants; and perhaps most famously, the longest-running cast member on Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta—doesn’t come from that world. She isn’t approaching her job in the same way.

“I’m a music industry person,” announces Burruss, 48, who has gone on to produce three more Broadway shows in the five years since that incident. (All four have centered Black talent.) “I believe that you go into every market, every city, you do radio across the country, you go in all the small markets and push, push, push.” Burruss has found a useful way to apply this skillset in her new position. As her producing partner, Brian Moreland, tells me over email, “Kandi’s values are rooted in honesty, truth, respect, and the belief in a hard day’s work done with dignity and grace. Those qualities aren’t exclusive to any one field—they’re universally transferable.”

And it’s already paid dividends for the reality star. It’s because of that nontraditional marketing strategy that “ticket buyers fly in from other cities to come support [her] shows.” It’s what turned Thoughts, the first Broadway play to be written, directed, starring, and lead-produced by a team of all-Black artists, into a surprising success, despite being one of the first shows to open after the pandemic-induced closure of Broadway. It’s what pushed her 2022 revival of The Piano Lesson to conclude its run as the highest-grossing August Wilson Broadway play in history.

It’s also what inspires me to make a toast to the Broadway producer as we make our way through a 90-minute lunch today. We’re just two days out from opening night for her latest endeavor: a modern-day update of Othello, Shakespeare’s searing play about racism, jealousy, lies, and deceit, which stars Oscar-winner Denzel Washington in the titular role and Oscar-nominee Jake Gyllenhaal as his two-faced nemesis, Iago. While many producers might be nervous in anticipation, Burruss already has cause to celebrate. Less than a week before our shared meal, it was reported that the revival grossed $2.8 million over a single week, the most any nonmusical has ever made in that timespan. “You know, I’m very competitive,” Burruss beams as she raises her “Italian Ice” mocktail into the sky for a congratulatory cheers. “It wasn’t a thing that I was trying to do. But…you know…anytime you can break records or are making history, it’s like, Woohoo, I must be doing something right.”

Producing Broadway shows may not have been the expected next endeavor for the already quite busy Burruss, who left RHOA in February 2024 after a record 14-season run. But after participating in musical theater at Georgia’s Tri-Cities High School and taking the stage for an eight-week run as Matron “Mama” Morton in Chicago almost two-and-a-half decades later, Burruss sees it as a natural pivot. She’s quick to credit Moreland for showing her the ropes, though, if you ask him, “Kandi has been such a natural.” According to Moreland, it’s Burruss’ “willingness to be a vessel for the story and the team” and her innate “transparent, honest, fiercely dedicated, and endlessly generous” nature that has made her such a quick study.

Not that she’s ever been intimidated in unfamiliar spaces. After all, this is the same woman who, in 2011, launched a sex-focused web series and accompanying line of adult sex toys, much to the dismay of family and friends. “I was just talking, not really realizing that I was kind of changing the stigma [around female sexuality],” she says about the talk show. “I don’t have shame. I used to always dream about being on the cover of certain magazines, and people would say, ‘Bigger brands are not going to want you if you have a sexual thing.’ But then I realized that it was only three or four Black women who were ever shown in the mainstream anyway.” She shrugs. “I was just like, I’m sitting here waiting to be picked, for what? I’m going to start my own brand and let the people support me. It ended up working for me, and it inspired other people, too.”

When I point out the parallels between those early boundary-breaking ventures and what she’s doing now on Broadway, she initially seems surprised, like she hadn’t considered the thought. But her entire career has been a nonstop cycle of making room for people who look like her in spaces where they wouldn’t normally be, whether she’s taking the reins as a songwriter for other artists or stepping into her own as an entrepreneur. She eventually comes around to what I’m saying. “I do feel like you can’t really make moves or make a real change unless you’re in the rooms with the people who are making decisions,” she says. “I just like having a say.”

These latest moves are coming at an interesting time for Burruss. Though stepping down from RHOA has definitely opened up her schedule, it’s quickly been re-filled thanks to bigger career goals, such as becoming a “successful, established actress”—something her “first position” status at Bravo had impeded in the past. “I’ve had situations where I couldn’t accept a role, or couldn’t even audition, because of my obligations to Bravo,” she shares. She’s still in business with the network—she has a development deal for a few new reality programs she’s hoping get picked up—and though she doesn’t foresee a return to the franchise, she swears there’s no bad blood. “I didn’t leave mad. I didn’t leave bitter. I’m not telling people to not watch the show.”

She’s also diving headfirst back into music. After her girl group Xscape embarked on the 30-city “Queens of R&B Tour” with SWV last summer, she’s excited to do even more live shows. And don’t forget her development work with rising trio Psiryn; their debut single “Sober” recently became the first girl group-led song to top Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart in 23 years.

With everything on her plate, she’d be forgiven for wanting to slow down. Instead, she’s already in the process of mounting her next Broadway show. (“You always have to work on your next move while you’re in your current move,” she casually lets off.) And that’s to say nothing of Kandi & Todd Vision, the fledgling film production studio she runs alongside her husband of over a decade, Todd Tucker; the pair recently wrapped filming on a new indie that is currently in negotiations for distribution. (“I hope that one day we can be one of those huge production companies,” she wishes aloud.) Her acting goals are being fulfilled by her recurring roles on The Chi and Reasonable Doubt, and she’s even considering a return to Broadway…on stage.

Ultimately, Burruss envisions herself as one of those people receiving Lifetime Achievement awards in their old age. “It’s my dream to be one of the few people to have an EGOT,” she declares plainly at one point. “I say it to anyone who will listen, and I’ll keep speaking it until it comes true.” Is she looking to replicate the success of last year’s Wicked by producing a big-budget film adaptation of a popular stage show? Maybe. “But the way I look at it, I’m not just going to go at my goal one way. I could write music for movies. I can act.” With a hearty laugh, she adds, “Believe me. I’m over here looking at the list, like, Okay, so where do I qualify?”

But more than anything, Burruss is committed to proving people like that older white woman from the Thoughts talkback wrong by continuing to increase opportunities for Black people. “Overall, there’s definitely been more diversity in the way these shows are looking, and I think it’s making it easier for people to feel comfortable investing in shows that have people of color in them,” she responds when asked whether she’s seen any change in the industry since she started producing. (She’s careful to clarify that it isn’t because of her, specifically.) This, she insists, is what drives her to do what she does, to keep breaking down barriers in new industries. “Especially with women, especially with people of color, I’m always trying to see what I can do to help move the bar up a little bit, to push it to the next level.” She adds, “Until there is no conversation about being ‘the first [minority] to do’ something, we haven’t made it yet.”

“Everybody has their thing, right,” she later tells me, both of our entrée plates now clean. “Some people do things for the money. Some do it for family or whatever. But something that makes me tick is accomplishment.” She then takes a pause, considering her words. “I know that sounds crazy, but I’ve got dreams and goals. I want to be remembered later, and you’re not going to be remembered for just making money. You’re going to be remembered for making a difference.”

Stylist Daniel Hawkins | Hair Stylist Janel Sealy | Makeup Artist Latasha Wright

Krysta Rodriguez gets out from the back seat of her car service and enters through the stage door of the Imperial Theatre. She signs her name on the call board and walks up three flights of stairs with a landing offering a quick glimpse of backstage—before settling in her dressing room. She places her phone on her makeup table and takes her black and white peacoat with a yellow collar off to reveal a muted gray T-shirt.

Her dressing room is mostly bare, with white walls not yet decorated. The passion for interior decor turned into a side hustle for the actress in the pandemic. “My dressing room business has taken off in such a way, I haven't even been able to focus on mine,” the actress tells Marie Claire.

Rodriguez is a week into previews of SMASH, a new Broadway musical based on the NBC TV series, opening April 10.

Created by Theresa Rebeck and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, the musical drama—featuring songs by the Tony Award-winning team behind Hairspray, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman—debuted in 2012 to promising reviews and immediately earned cult status among Broadway fanatics. While the show about the making of a Broadway musical—starring Katharine McPhee as newcomer Karen from Iowa and Megan Hilty as ensemble vet Ivy vying for the role of Marilyn Monroe in the new show Bombshell—went off air in 2013, it has remained in the theater zeitgeist. (Consider Bowen Yang opening the 2025 SAG Awards quoting the show's original song "Let Me Be Your Star.”)

Rodriguez, 40, is the only actor from the series to jump from screen to stage. The actress, most recently seen as Liza Minnelli in Ryan Murphy’s Halston on Netflix, was a season 2 regular as Ana Vargas. In the stage adaptation, she’ll take on the role of Tracy, half of the song-writing team putting on Bombshell. The role was originated by Debra Messing for the NBC show (though the character’s name was Julia Houston). “The minute that we started the process, it was like, This is absolutely 100 percent a different thing,” Rodriguez says of the production, directed by Susan Stroman with a brand new plot co-written by Rick Elice and Bob Martin. Because of that, the performer says she didn’t feel the need to rewatch the source material to get into character.

But Smash fans will be glad to hear that the show’s catchy showstopping songs and original choreography by Josh Bergasse largely remains the same. The story, now a comedy, centers around established Broadway actress Ivy Lynn (Robyn Hurder) as she’s cast as Marilyn Monroe in a biographical musical about her life. But Ivy Lynn’s role of a lifetime comes in jeopardy when she gets too deep into method acting as Marilyn, popping pills and being difficult during rehearsals.

Rodriguez has worked on the SMASH musical on and off for three years through various readings and workshops. Before the show finally made it to the Great White Way, in the interim, she designed nine celebrity Broadway dressing rooms last season, including Jeremy Jordan’s, who starred in The Great Gatsby and was also in the Smash series ensemble. "Eventually, the photos will come out. I'm putting them all together," she says, casually listing one of them as Megan Hilty’s current Death Becomes Her dressing room at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. It’s right across the road on 46th Street from Rodriguez at the Imperial. "We can basically see each other—Megan and I," she says with a laugh. The two have gabbed about Smash, the musical.

Before Rodriguez headed to the stage for notes with the company, Marie Claire spoke with her about the cultural phenomenon of Smash, Debra Messing’s scarves, and her character’s nod to Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail.

Marie Claire: What is it about the lore of Smash?

Krysta Rodriguez: That first pilot episode really scratched an itch in people's brains. It felt adult. It felt dangerous, but it felt kind of campy. Airing [the song] “Let Me Be Your Star” on TV for the first time felt like something opened up in the world. It was this weird convergence with social media, starting. I joined Twitter so that I could live-tweet season 2 as part of the job; that was the era of time.

MC: What were you doing during season 1?

KR: I was living in L.A., auditioning, trying to make my way in the world, and went through two pilot seasons. I had a bunch of friends on the show, and it was fun watching it. I watched every episode. I ended up having to move back to New York because my co-op found out I was subletting. Three days later, I got the audition for season 2 and was cast on the show.

MC: I know you sang Joe Iconis's “Broadway, Here I Come!” before it aired on Smash. Is that how you booked the role of Ana Vargas?

KR: We used to do concerts at the Beechman [Theatre] every month. Joe was part of my community, as far as championing new artists. Actually, when I auditioned for the part, Josh Safran, the showrunner for season 2, was in the room and said he’d seen me in a lot of things and also wrote my episode of Gossip Girl. My very first television appearance was on Gossip Girl during season 2 when [Nate and Dan] visit Yale and run into a TA—me. I had this great arch with Chace Crawford and got to make out with him. So I was like, ‘Thanks for writing that make-out scene for me.’ We had a laugh about that. I had that one audition, and a few days later, I had the part.

MC: What do you remember about filming season 2?

KR: It felt like a nice transition to something that I had never done: be a regular on a series. We put on a full musical every week. It's a lot of work. To be able to do it with talents that I already know that I possessed put me more at ease. There are huge moments [on the show] of things I'd never gotten to do before, like the silk number that I did from the ceiling and having a few days to prep that.

MC: Smash ran its course and was canceled after the second season. When did you start to hear mumblings of a Broadway musical, and where are you involved in that?

KR: They did that big Bombshell concert for the Entertainment Community Fund, which Andy [Mientus] and I couldn't be involved in because we were doing Spring Awakening in L.A., the Deaf West revival. Plus, Bombshell wasn't our show. I never really considered myself part of that side of the show. We've always felt very much like there was Hit List and Bombshell. It never, ever dawned on me that I would be involved in it at all.

I got an email offer for the part for the first reading that we did. Then it was a shock to get the—what's formerly named Julia—role. I was sitting with Josh [Safran] when I got the email, and thought, This is so crazy. He said it sounded like a great opportunity and I should definitely do it. I didn't even know if Julia would be right for me and what I would bring to it. I just went into the first reading with an open heart, and they kept asking me back. I still don't really know how I ended up here, but I'm grateful.

MC: Was it Julia then, or was it always Tracy?

KR: It was Julia. Then, it became Tracy after that first reading.

MC: [Co-book writer] Rick Elice told me it was your idea to add the scarves as a nod to Debra Messing’s portrayal on the show!

KR: You can't play anything that resembles Julia Houston without a scarf! We introduce them, then we phase them out so it doesn't get too jokey. But then, even at the end, I have one.

MC: How did that conversation come up to add the scarves?

KR: When I assembled my own clothes that I was going to be wearing when we did the workshop last year, I put the scarf on. When we were doing the [costume] fittings for this, everything looked better with the scarf. No wonder Debra [Messing] was wearing so many scarves! It's such a perfect accessory. It’s also realistic when you're in rehearsal. It's freezing in those rooms. It's hot in those rooms. It's the perfect thing to throw on. [Director Susan Stroman] wears them all the time. When you're sitting behind that [creative rehearsal] table, that's actually what you want to wear. So it's become meta upon meta, as everything on Smash has become.

MC: Did you speak to Debra Messing about the role?

KR: I did not. She did see the workshop, though, and was very supportive and thrilled that I was going to be the one doing it.

MC: Tell me about the character, Tracy.

KR: She stands on the shoulders of all the women who played Julia, who are also [the original TV show’s creator] Theresa Rebeck. She’s the sort of sole woman in the room that would like to get her point across, who's passionate about the work, who wants to make sure there is no stone left unturned, who is not going to be satisfied with putting your first idea out there. It has to be the second, third, fourth tested tried-and-true idea.

In this version, she's married to the composer, which is a bit of a mash-up of a few characters on Smash, the series. What John [Behlmann, who plays her husband Jerry] and I have had a great time doing is how quickly we can fight and make up. What does it feel like to still have to go home with each other every night and love each other? How far do you go with your passion in the work and when does it separate at home? That’s been really fun for us to play around with.

MC: What was your mood board inspiration for Tracy?

KR: It's Nancy Meyers, Nora Ephron, Upper West Side. She moved to New York when she was able to get a really cheap, but huge Upper West Side apartment with pre-war details, and she can never move. Jerry has now moved in with her. They should have been priced out, but they are still going to the shop around the corner, getting daffodils in the morning. They probably have a landline. There's a vestige of New York that doesn't exist anymore. She’s also a raging feminist. Meg Ryan was all over my board, Diane Keaton—the sort of self-sufficient women who made their way on the Upper West Side in the early ‘90s.

MC: That’s where we get the pant suits you wear in the show!

KR: Costumes are a big thing for me. They're such a jumping-off point. I have 13 costume changes alone! Every time I'm off stage, I'm changing my clothes. It also had to be something where we could make things look different and unique with four seconds to change. We did a first fitting [with costume designer Alejo Vietti], where I remember everything was fine, but I knew it could be more specific and a little more utilitarian to who she was. After the first fitting, I had told them my hyper-specific, Meg Ryan sort of fantasy. When I came back, they had put a whole mood board of late ‘90s, Upper West Side women—analog girls that weren’t on their phones all the time. That’s what I wanted.

MC: How would you describe the costumes?

KR: If anyone's ever been in a Broadway rehearsal process, after day three, it's what is on the ground of my bedroom. You're working outside of work, as well as all night long, especially if you live with your co-writer. It really was about comfortable pieces that felt elevated. And I really wanted her to feel like a woman. We’ve established that they've written some really successful pieces. I think they have a little bit of money, and I think she has quality pieces, but not that many of them. She's “quiet luxury” a little bit.

MC: To get into character, did you sit with songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman at all to learn about being on the writing team of a new musical?

KR: Frankly, a lot of the music in this show was already written. So the actual process of creating the new musical was mostly watching [book-writers] Bob [Martin] and Rick [Elice]. I'm the book writer, as well, [in the show] so I really got to look at Bob and Rick and what they're like about script changes, seeing if it works or not, and the faces that they're making. [They’re holding] a laptop and a pencil and a coffee and extra script pages.

There’s a number line on the stage when you’re in rehearsal. They rarely step out from behind their table. [Stroman] is in charge. Any time [Stroman] would be talking and she'd turn [to see] the writers migrated their way up to the front to number six say something. We have that moment in the show when things start to kind of go wrong, I slowly drift my way up to six. I know I'm not supposed to say something, but I really need [the director, Nigel, played by Brooks Ashmanskas] to know I'm here to say something.

MC: Are there any Easter Eggs in the musical as a nod to the series?

KR: Besides the scarves, which I feel like the people need, there's still #TeamKaren and #TeamIvy, but that gets twisted on its head as well. The music is still the same but in different contexts. Oh, there is a really sweet thing, actually. I don't know if this necessarily pertains to the series. We have a large rehearsal room and we have a small rehearsal room as a set. For the small rehearsal room, it's named the [Craig] Zadan [rehearsal room]. That's an homage to [the late Smash series producer] Craig and honoring him.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

In the new Broadway production of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Sarah Snook, best known for dishing out barbs as Shiv Roy on Succession, plays the title character, the vain Victorian fuckboy who wishes that only his portrait would grow old while he remains forever young. That, in itself, is a feat: a woman taking on a canonically male role. But Snook doesn't stop there. She also plays 25 other roles, male and female, over the course of two hours (with no intermission), acting entirely opposite herself.

What unfolds is a mindblowing theatrical experience that updates Dorian for the 21st century, while making Oscar Wilde’s classic story feel more relevant than ever. It is, after all, about self-obsession, and we live in a self-obsessed age.

"I think for audience members, whether they identify as female or male or nonbinary, there is a sense in which everybody can see themselves within Dorian and the kind of moral compromise that Dorian finds themselves tangled up within becomes this universal compromise that we are all capable of finding ourselves within," director Kip Williams tells Marie Claire.

So how does Snook do it? In part by sheer acting talent, of course. (Snook won an Olivier in London for her performance; prior to that the show played in Australia and New Zealand with other leads.) The 37-year-old, who is the third actress to appear in the production, modulates her voice depending on whether she's playing the initially bright-eyed Dorian or his tragic love interest, Sibyl Vane. She changes her body language to match whatever persona she’s inhabiting. But to fully transform, she also relies on 19 costume changes, a host of wigs, six LED screens, and 15 total crew members, some of whom are wielding cameras on stage to capture her at different angles.

Take, for instance, a bravura dinner party sequence. We watch as stagehands, dressed in nondescript black clothing, turn her from Dorian into the haughty Lord Henry, deftly applying a mustache and a brown wig. Then Snook is seated at a table with five other people whom she also plays: the elderly Lady Agatha dressed in pearls; a duchess holding a pug; and a "rotund" member of parliament. The characters who are not Lord Henry have been pre-recorded. But still the conversation between a live Snook/Lord Henry and her digital counterparts flows almost unnervingly freely. In other moments of the play, Snook is on stage while the screens show every facet of her face in tight close up, a metaphor for the fracturing of self.

The task of figuring out how Dorian would evolve from innocent naif into soulless party boy—as well as everyone else—fell to scenic and costume designer Marg Horwell. With the show now in previews in New York, Horwell, whose award-winning work also includes a production of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, walked us through her complicated process.

Marie Claire: How did you think about gender when creating Dorian's look?

Marg Howell: We spent a long time [with Sarah and each performer that has played Dorian] trying to find how they looked best as a man, but without denying something inherent about themselves. So it didn't kind of turn into something that was overly costumey.

There's fun kind of camp things that are happening as well. But to find a version of Dorian that is so obsessed with aesthetics and also doesn't deny [the actors'] inherent femininity or their inherent kind of physical mannerisms is the great thing. And the weird thing is you find that they feel more masculine wearing heels than they did flats. Actually we've cinched waists in quite a bit…that very feminine shape that was in fashion at the time. Then mixing it with contemporary versions of gender-fluid fashion. So it really does feel like something that spanned a century.

MC: How did you figure out Dorian's hair?

MH: So the first Dorian is quite cherubic with curls and is more innocent, but he also has that kind of classic, romantic heartthrob look with sideburns as well. But then as he becomes more invested in aesthetics or as he kind of becomes more enamored with his own image, it becomes more styled and more fashion-y. I got obsessed with the model Lucky Blue Smith. So lots of people say, "Oh, it's very Elvis." But actually, all of it is that Lucky Blue kind of tall, dirty, greasy blonde, great style.

MC: There is a floral motif running through the show. Why was that important to you?

MH: In the book, he goes into the garden and describes flowers just in great detail for a long time. And [there is] the mythology around Oscar Wilde that he carried a carnation. But the great thing I think about flowers on stage is that they're not real. So there's something about artifice or the kind of saccharine falseness of them that I think is really important. We started with something that felt a bit more real or felt a little more honest. And then throughout the show it evolves. Then it becomes a very sickly motif by the end.

MC: How did you think about how the costumes and sets were going to be captured by the videographers?

MH: Theater wigs are so different to film wigs in terms of how closely you can interrogate them and how quickly they can go on. Because we're doing wig changes live for her, which are two seconds or something, it's like a dance. You have to be really careful about what you can see or how that's styled to be able to make sure that we don't expose too much. It's going to be a 360-degree set because a lot of stuff is seen from the back. You are aware of how exposed everything is. There's a joy in that as well because all of our fabrics are kind of gorgeous, textured slightly, quite subtle. Sometimes [on camera] you can see the texture between silk and wool really close up and see Sarah's face so close up. It's about delighting in the detail of it rather than making sure that we're not found out.

[For wigs] you throw it off and then have to get it on matching an on-screen image, which is prerecorded. So we've had to design it in a way that is forgiving or precise so that it doesn't look so disheveled live. And because we had to shoot it before, obviously, we got into the theater, you have to make sure that we can make the costume changes in time because often they're over text. So she'll be speaking whilst people are changing her shoes, whilst people are changing things, and there's a camera circling her. And then the word will happen, wig, sideburns. So it has to kind of finish on a line.

And so to make sure that we go, "Well, can we do it in 20 seconds total or can we do it in 12 seconds total?" We've got to make sure that it can happen before we put it on film. Otherwise, we don't know that we can replicate exactly what we've done. So the early days, [it was] just terrifying. Because when we first put something on film, [we were] so scared of everything just to make sure it's possible to make sure that we're not committing to something that we can't fulfill live.

MC: What is the training process for the crew in terms of doing these costume changes?

MH: It's something that I think is a really specific skill that we've found it difficult to find the right people. It's so in front of everybody. It is like choreography, but it also has to be about a relationship with a performer where they trust you completely that you can be holding their shoe open and while they're talking, they know that you're going to be there when they put their foot down. And there's some changes that you don't see on stage because she's speaking to us and you can't see parts of her body that people are changing while she's speaking. So our wig person, [Nick Eynaud], who we're lucky to have in New York, who's done Australia and has done London has a great rapport with Sarah. There's a code, kind of like, "If I'm not ready..." She has to know that she's ready and then he's ready and go, “we're good.”

MC: Beyond Dorian, was there another character that was particularly difficult to crack aesthetically?

MH: There's a couple of characters who age. Lord Henry, we see him young and old, and we see the duchess a couple of times young and old. But they were pretty exciting to make because, again, by the time we're in that artificial, sickly country house, everybody's getting Botox and feels like they're denying their age. Sybil is a tricky character because I think that she can be two-dimensional and facile. But in the end, I leaned into the artifice of her as well, because we get to see her performing Juliet. I leaned into her looking like a Victorian doll with perfect ringlets and too much hair and all smiles. And then we see her backstage where she starts to take off her wig, and she's more of a real person. She was tricky to know how to pitch, and I guess that's a bit of a disappointing thing to have to admit that the women are harder.

But [as Sibyl] we've got her in a costume that's like a cupcake, and it's all tulle. It's her Juliet costume, so she's got a stab wound in her stomach that's all beaded red beads. And she's got red gloves that's all red beads like it's the beads of her blood when she's killed herself. It's actually one of my favorite costumes now because it's tiny, you only catch it for a little moment, but I think it's a silly kind of theatrical gesture that is making light or making ornament out of her death. It's so bedazzled. She looks so fabulous.

MC: How are social media filters used in the show?

MH: One of the scenes that a lot of people have asked if it's pre-recorded is actually live manipulation. It’s when Sarah takes a photo live. And then while she is talking to us in a monologue, augments her face. I think one of the filters is called "baby." It's one of those things where you just look so perfect. [Also] in the opium den, she plays many people in a kind of hedonistic, loud environment. There [are multiple] people with iPhones, and if she's looking at this one, she looks like someone else.

MC: Were there any other key reference points for you in terms of designing and the aesthetic?

MH: The earlier [Dorian] looks I got really inspired by Ann Demeulemeester and the way that she made tops that had kind of lacings and things that were left undone or that trailed behind. Then I got quite obsessed with seeing suspender clips that you could see sticking out or underneath her jacket. It felt like there were layers or the underwear was kind of peeking out. There was some great Maison Margiela stuff that really felt like it was about cutting things up and putting them back together or that you would see the underlayer of things.

Actually, I was so inspired by the most recent collection where it was those shorts over those sheer skirts, but obviously, we made the show before that. But it felt exciting. It was looking at corsetry over the top of suiting.

MC: What did you find thematically relevant about designing for someone who was a woman playing a canonically male character?

MH: What we've done with Sarah, especially, is embrace her more traditionally feminine shape. And I don't know whether it's about bravado or if it's about posture—but physically, she's incredibly nuanced in terms of how she'll shift from one to the other. We have really changed how we approach those characters. In a photograph, I think she looks more feminine than masculine if you got rid of the context, but on stage it is very convincing as a very kind of masculine thing.

I think something that I learned is that all of those elements are very unexpected as to what denotes feminine, masculine or what can kind of tread that middle line. But I think there's something amazing about a character who is investigating excess or looking at how they are perceived in the world, if that is actually not who they inherently are. So it isn't actually about finding your true self, it is about finding something that you have manufactured or finding something that is other than yourself. There's something inherently great about that premise, I think.

Having created a long-running, hit series like The Chi, earned an Emmy for her work writing on Master of None, and written/produced buzzy blockbusters like Queen & Slim, among many other projects, Lena Waithe has just about conquered Hollywood. Now, she has her sights set on Broadway.

On this week's episode of the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk," Waithe speaks candidly about how the shifting entertainment industry landscape can make creators feel "powerless" and how she's trying to take control of that by turning her talents to theater.

"I think a lot of us feel powerless right now in our industry," says the writer, producer, and actor who recently launched the "Legacy Talk" podcast with Lemonada Media. "I feel so bad for a lot of creatives who are trying to sell projects...with these streamers and these mergers, no one can get anything across the finish line."

"What I'm doing is trying to take my power back," Waithe continues, noting that she's doing so by writing a play.

The star explains on "Nice Talk" what a positive experience she's had in the theater world thus far, having previously produced Ain't No Mo', for which she received a Tony nomination for Best Play in 2023. She says, "What has brought me back to life is talking to these folks in theater and working with them. They will embrace anyone with open arms, like, 'Come on. This is for all of us.'"

"[Theater] is always exciting, but it's even more exciting now," Waithe adds. "You don't need a studio exec to say yes. There's playhouses all over the country, actors wanting to be challenged, and audiences looking for something that they can feel."

The writer/producer also shares that what she loves about theater is that, while there isn't as much money as film and TV, it's "such a gift" because the performers and audience can experience something together in real time. "I think if you put something on stage that gets enough buzz, you could write the next Hamilton," says the founder of the production company Hillman Grad.

"I'm not running away from Hollywood," Waithe says. "I'm still very much making TV shows and working on movies and things like that, but the theater world has brought me back to life in a way that has been so amazing."

On this week's installment of "Nice Talk," Waithe also opens up about what it was like creating her first TV series, The Chi, speaking to icons from Black TV shows and cinema on her new podcast "Legacy Talk," uplifting others in her field, and more. The episode is out now wherever you listen to podcasts.

Tommy Dorfman is in the middle of a two-show day.

The actress had recently completed a matinee when we meet at a bright and bustling coffee and tea shop across the street from the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City where she's playing the dual roles of both the Nurse and Tybalt in the buzzy Broadway revival of Romeo + Juliet. The spot—which sells elaborate drinks and Chinese-French fusion pastries, some in the shape of Powerpuff Girls—is a favorite of the cast; so much so that Dorfman bought her colleagues gift cards from there as an opening night present, which she is picking up when we visit that Wednesday afternoon.

Just after we chat, the 32-year-old, wearing a Yankees cap and an artfully ripped burgundy sweater, will head back to her dressing room to prepare for the evening performance. She has never done an interview in this interim period between shows before. "So if my show is terrible…" she jokes, before adding, "No, I'm kidding. To me, it feels fine because I have enough time after this interview to go home—go home? Go to my dressing room—and sort of reground and recenter myself."

It's a time of firsts for Dorfman, who rose to recognition in 2016 playing Ryan Shaver in the Netflix teen soap opera 13 Reasons Why. This edgy Romeo + Juliet, which stars Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler in the titular roles and features music from Jack Antonoff, marks her Broadway debut as well as her return to acting in a major way. She took a break from being in front of the camera when she started her transition, which she announced publicly in Time magazine in 2021. Since then, she has directed her first feature film I Wish You All The Best, which premiered at SXSW earlier this year. She also wrote a memoir Maybe This Will Save Me (due out next year) and is working on her second movie as a director, an adaptation of the graphic novel Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me. Earlier this morning she was watching actors do chemistry reads for that project.

Still, Broadway remains her primary focus right now.

"It's been so cool sharing this story with people and also sharing my art with people in this way because I haven't in so long," she says. "Art sometimes is just for yourself, sometimes it's meant to be shared, sometimes it's not meant to be shared. Acting on stage is meant to be shared. It's an offering for the audience."

Sipping an iced dirty rose chai latte with almond milk and playing with an extra straw, Dorfman explains how director Sam Gold recruited her to play two of the most crucial characters in Juliet's life: the Nurse who cares for the teen and who has fallen madly in love with a boy from an opposing family, and the cousin who that boy is later responsible for killing. Dorfman initially auditioned for a completely different character, and then Tybalt. Playing the Nurse was a surprising last-minute suggestion that Gold brought to Dorfman.

"I never would have thought anybody would let me do that," she says. "Not thinking about age or anything like that, because obviously our show is different in that way, but more just as a trans woman playing the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, it just felt like a sort of self-limiting thing. I could have read the script 4,000 times, and I could have been asked what I wanted to audition for 4,000 times, and the thought of the Nurse would have come to my brain, but I would have never probably said it."

But Dorfman also had to consider what these parts would require of her emotionally night after night; what it would be like to die on stage for six months and experience the kind of immense sorrow the Nurse does. Ultimately, Dorman felt ready for the opportunity the play provided. "They're both very different than me and yet I really relate to them in a lot of ways."

Not to mention, there are also practical aspects that Dorfman must contend with when it comes to executing the play’s intense fight sequences several times a week. She recently sprained her ankle falling off the stage right before Tybalt's death scene in the middle of a performance.

"I took a few deep breaths, and I stood up as I started to say my next line, and I was like, oh, I can't really walk," she says. "Everyone knew that I had fallen so the whole cast kind of helped me."

But there are also more internal ways she moves between the two personas—one arguably the most maternal character in the play and the other the most violent—from scene to screen. Tybalt, she explains, comes from the lower half of her body, while the Nurse exists in her heart and throat. As the Nurse, Dorfman wears a tiny black miniskirt and chatters away breathlessly; when she's bomber-jacket-wearing Tybalt, Dorfman's face drops into a solemn look of menace. The switching gives Dorfman the opportunity to try something she had always admired ever since she was a teen watching Toni Collette play a woman with dissociative identity disorder on the Showtime series The United States of Tara. "Those types of performances always really stood out to me as the most visceral and exciting," she says.

When Dorfman publicly came out as trans in an interview with the author Torrey Peters, she said, "I’m no longer interested in playing 'male' characters—except for maybe in a 'Cate Blanchett playing Bob Dylan' way."

But when asked what she thinks about that now: "I think I'm living maybe what I manifested in 2021. I mean, I'm not Cate Blanchett, and I'm not playing Bob Dylan, but I'm a woman playing an iconic male character in the canon of the history of theater. And Shakespeare is genderplay anyway."

Dorfman, however, is also conscious of how her presence might make an audience feel, in part because she's been talking with fans who throng at the stage door after curtain call waiting for selfies and signatures. (The best preparation for that element of Broadway was her time on a teen soap opera, she quips.)

"There are going to be trans people who see me playing Tybalt who feel a certain way," she says. "There are going to be transphobic people in this audience who see me playing Tybalt and the Nurse and feel a certain way. There are going to be people who are incredibly triggered by a six-plus foot man killing a trans woman on stage even though she's playing Tybalt in the context of this play." Part of the job, at times, means having "conservative eyes landing on a trans body."

Due to the nature of Gold's staging the actors are extremely close to the audience, especially in the pre-show where they mingle on stage. When I saw it a week prior, Dorfman was nearly in my lap as she flopped onto an inflatable couch. She was afraid of those moments at the beginning of the run, but now, as she approaches opening night, she appreciates the routine, finding it ritualistic to take in what's happening around her. One night, she spotted Rosie O'Donnell in the crowd. "I was like, oh shit, okay, right, I'm on Broadway."

As the hour nears Dorfman's call time we move outside so she can have a cigarette and multitask. In addition to Romeo + Juliet, a classic tale of youth in revolt, her return to Hollywood has focused on a lot of coming of age stories. (Her film I Wish You All The Best centers on a nonbinary teen struggling with anxiety and coming out.) "I think part of transitioning in adulthood is going through a sort of second puberty," she says, lighting up.

To her, these works feel like they are in conversation with each other, but she'll probably be "rounding out in the next couple of years my coming of age mentality." She adds: "I'm more interested in the stories that I'm telling and then figuring out how I can participate in telling them, which is why I was okay not acting for so long. Because I was like, well, there are other ways I can tell stories," she says. "And I really didn't want to act until I felt ready to come back."

She's ready now. As we depart she says, "I'm going to go be on Broadway right now, which is the coolest thing I get to say every day. So cool."

It’s pretty difficult not to love this anecdote about one of the most famous couples in the world: on the heels of her own musical film experience This Is Me…Now (and its accompanying documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, both streaming on Amazon Prime), Jennifer Lopez, alongside husband Ben Affleck, took in a recent screening of Dune 2 in an L.A. theater—and stuck around after the film was over to pick up trash left behind.

The high-profile couple went to the movies just like any other couple might on Monday night, “and after the movie ended, they were spotted cleaning up after themselves,” Page Six reports. 

An X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) user posted a video, commenting alongside it that “Dune 2 was AMAZING,” adding “Post credits scene was realizing JLo & Ben Affleck were sitting right in front of us lol.” In the short clip you can see the casually dressed couple “tidying up their seats,” Page Six writes. “It did appear, however, that Lopez didn’t have much to clean up, as she was holding a very full soda and popcorn bucket.”

One commenter wrote of the couple—who married in 2022—“Respect for taking their things and cleaning the sofa,” alongside a laughing emoji. Another added “So many people just leave their food & drinks behind in public places like this, it’s disgusting. Shoutout them.”

This week, Princess Kate and Prince William were on hand to ensure a warm British welcome for the President and First Lady of the Republic of South Korea.

For the welcome ceremony on Tuesday, the Princess of Wales said a whole lot through her outfit choice, as she opted for an all-red ensemble with pieces from some of her all-time favorite designers.

"The visit certainly started with a sartorial splash, as the Prince and Princess of Wales officially welcomed their guests into the U.K., with Kate wearing a striking crimson ensemble that has generated quite a stir among her fashionista followers," comments celebrity stylist and royal commentator Miranda Holder.

"Kate’s elaborate look consisted of three separate pieces, a Catherine Walker coat dress featuring an oversized bow at the neckline, worn over a simple red slip and topped with (during key points of the welcoming ceremony) a coordinating new Catherine Walker cape.

"The outfit was designed so that the bow feature of the coat dress could be pulled through and worn on top of the cape, which, when paired with a simple Miu Miu shoulder bag, her trusty Gianvito Rossi 105 matching court shoes and a new bespoke wide-brimmed JT Millinery hat, contributed to a head turning monochrome ensemble which ensured that all eyes were on the princess, reinforcing her position as the U.K.’s favourite royal fashion icon and the Royal Family’s poster girl."

But obviously attracting attention wasn't Kate's primary goal; rather, she was dressed to honor King Charles' guests properly, Holder observes.

"The color choice, like every other outfit detail, was of course a diplomatic decision, and when Kate stood next to her husband in his navy coat, showing sartorial solidarity with a coordinating red tie, they made up the colors of the South Korean flag, a welcoming gesture synonymous with such occasions," the expert explains.

"The look, was pure theater," Holder says, adding that this was an iconic outfit that will live on in royal fans' memory and in the fashion pages for years.

However, the expert feels that the overall ensemble felt a little "stark and austere" and could have used a few contrasting accents instead of the all-red vibe. She would also have liked to see more accessories this time around—but the princess more than made up for that on Tuesday evening, when she brought out a century-old royal tiara for the state banquet.

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Musical theater has long had its “Black shows”: Motown, Dreamgirls, Porgy and Bess, The Color Purple, Ain’t Too Proud. It’s also long had its share of racism. For years, Les Misérables has been one of a few shows that employs color-conscious casting, with a revolving door of Asian, Latina, and Black leading women. But when it comes to coveted parts like Elphaba and Glinda in Wicked, Johanna in Sweeney Todd, and Cinderella in, well, Cinderella, for example, Black female leads are few and far between. Even when Black actresses have landed those roles and created firsts, it has often gone underreported.

But theater fans are hungry for the voice of the underrepresented. Consider that from July 3 to July 5, Disney+ was downloaded 458,796 times in the U.S., 74 percent higher than the average for previous weekends. Why? We’d venture to guess it had something to do with the fact that Hamilton—the Tony-winning show about America’s founding that features a cast of predominantly BIPOC in perceived “white roles”—hit the streaming service. (Of note: The musical itself is not free from criticism. It’s been denounced for glorifying slave owners, and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda was called out for not being a vocal proponent of Black Lives Matter—something he later apologized for.)

The industry is ripe for change. In early June, prompted by a nationwide reckoning with systemic racism and faced with the reality that COVID-19 could shutter several productions for good, the stage community came together on social media to share their experiences of feeling silenced, marginalized, and tokenized as they have pursued their Broadway dreams. Soon after, more than 300 people of color in the industry—including Viola Davis, Billy Porter, and Issa Rae—signed an open letter addressed to “White American Theater” demanding changes necessary to bring about a more inclusive environment. “We have watched you promote anti-Blackness again and again. We see you,” the letter read.

To spotlight the current challenges of being Black in theater, in July we held a virtual roundtable with Brittney Johnson, the first Black actress to play Glinda in Wicked; Alexia Khadime from London’s West End, the only Black actress to play Elphaba full-time in any production of Wicked; and Kim Exum, who currently plays Nabulungi in The Book of Mormon and cohosts Off Book: The Black Theatre Podcast.

The women shared their thoughts on discrimination on stage and behind the scenes, the wage disparity plaguing the industry, and the dream roles that have thus far been kept out of their grasp.

Marie Claire: Do you remember the first time somebody told you that you couldn’t perform because of your race?

Kim Exum: I did theater with Black kids in the inner city in Baltimore, so my first exposure to theater was with Black people doing white shows. My mind didn’t go, Oh, this is a white thing until I got to college. [The reaction to me as a Black performer] was more like “You’re not going to go far with this attitude, by speaking this way,” and trying to mold me into what they thought was industry appropriate.

Brittney Johnson: Like Kim, it wasn’t really until I got to college at NYU, where I would go and see shows and just never saw myself onstage. I would maybe, maybe see one person who looked like me. Usually in the back. Especially in school, when we would do scene studies in acting class...I played Tuptim [a Burmese character in The King and I]. This was my third year, and they still had no idea what to do with me. It didn’t even have to be my race, because there aren’t a lot of Black shows. But why can’t I play a made-up character?

Alexia Khadime: [claps]

BJ: After that experience, I got so discouraged. Then In the Heights came out. That was one of the only reasons why I felt like I could keep going, because every single person on that stage pretty much looked like me. I saw that show 10 times on Broadway.

KE: In regards to not being able to do something because of how I look, I remember being in school. I’d shaved my head for the very first time, [and] peers and teachers told me, “You’re not going to be able to work with that. You need to have long hair.” Then, when I had a fro, [it was] “Why don’t you straighten your hair? You should get a wig.” And I said, “I’m not doing any of that.” I know a lot of Black women wear wigs to auditions to make casting see them as such, but I don’t see lots of white girls walking around with different wigs in their audition bags. Casting imagines them as that character. So if I walk in with pink hair, I would hope that you’d be able to do your job and use your imagination.

AK: It’s saying that we’re not good enough. Your skin and who you are is not good enough. And that is what has been preached for a very long time.

KE: Do I need to come in like a 17th-century costume for you to imagine me in the past? If it’s a slave or a civil-rights thing, then you have no problem imagining modern-ass me in that time.

AK: Sometimes [for auditions] they specifically want a Black girl, and [the call sheet] would say to come in your neutral accent. Then I would prepare for the audition and do it in my neutral accent. And it would be “Oh, um, could you...could you do it a bit more urban?” Because they have an idea of what a Black girl sounds like.

BJ: If you’re asking for a Black person who sounds Black, I am a Black person.

AK: Right here.

BJ: This is how Black sounds.

MC: Have you ever turned down a job because of the lack of diversity?

KE: I’ve said no to things because I don’t like them or don’t think they represent me well, but I always say no at the gate, [when] I read the breakdown. I’m also never the token, because I’m light skinned. When they hire a token, they want you to be able to see the token from the back row where they put you. A lot of my work thankfully has been with other Black people. Even at Mormon, we’re half and half.

AK: I’ve never turned down work because of a lack of diversity. I’ve done Mormon, I’ve done Wicked. I’ve done Les Mis. I’ve done Lion King. So I’ve been in situations where there has been a mix of different ethnicities. But I’ve also been in a show where there’s only about two of us, and I was painted green. A lot of racism came with that because I was a Black girl playing the role that was predominantly played by a white girl. There were definitely people who made comments that I was taking away the white roles. At the time I played Elphaba, Obama was president. Then the comments were “Just because we’ve got a Black president doesn’t mean we have to have a Back Elphaba.” There was a point when Noma [Dumezweni] was going to play Hermione in the Harry Potter play, and that became a massive thing. It’s silly and ridiculous. In the book, she was never described as white.

BJ: And if we’re being really honest, Hermione is Black in the books. Big, curly hair. She was intelligent, and she was a born leader. All the things that I was told that I am. Hermione was Black.

AK: It’s a role. Let’s make believe. Let’s get some diversity. Representation is very important for the young.

KE: Elphaba is Black. If you’ve read the books, she’s an activist. She to me is a metaphor for Black women. So when I went to see Wicked, I felt like it was very watered down from what I saw in my imagination. I feel like those writers diluted her so that she would be more palatable and white.

AK: It’s a show that can and should have people from everywhere.

When they announced The Little Mermaid was going to be Black, were you shocked that some people on the Internet couldn’t accept that?

AK: Yeah. Using the hashtag #NotMyAriel. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

KE: Mermaids aren’t real.

BJ: People were trying to be like, “When I grew up, Ariel was the only one with red hair and she made me feel X, Y, and Z. And now you’re taking that from me.”

AK: There are Black people with red hair naturally too.

BJ: A huge part of why people get so taken aback when they see a Black person specifically, but any person of color, playing a leading role is because they haven’t seen it before. They need to be taught that we can be leads and at the center of the story. We don’t have to be a supporting character in a white person’s life.

AK: I don’t know what it’s like out there in the U.S., but when I go into an audition room, I know I’m going to see just white faces. It’s beyond being on the stage or in an advert or on a poster. It needs to change behind the scenes.

KE: A lot of times it’s producers working in tandem with casting. Casting’s not going to waste their time seeing someone—as fabulous as they could be—if they know the producers [don’t want it]. If they don’t want a Black Christine [in Phantom of the Opera], they’ll never watch your video.

AK: I was lucky when it came to going up for Elphaba. I was going up for something else at the time, and the casting director who was casting Wicked in the U.K. said to me, “Have you looked at material for Wicked?” And I was like, “What for?” Because why would I even think on that level? But she pushed and she didn’t stop. So I have to applaud that casting director.

MC: Is that the difference between—in the musical-theater sense—performative activism and true allyship?

BJ: Someone actually pushing and fighting for your hire is being an active ally. You bringing me in is wonderful. But you bringing me in and being taken through all of the rounds only to be told that “We went in another direction” over and over and over—and that direction is always white—you have wasted my time.

AK: Don’t call me in to tick a box, right?

BJ: And I think a lot of that is happening so that they can say that they looked and they tried, but they couldn’t find anyone. Which just isn’t true.

MC: Is there something you wish that people knew about your industry that isn’t talked about?

KE: The wage gap between women and men and Black people and white people [for] principal salaries. It’s something I’ve discussed with other Black women. It’s something that I recently brought to the attention of my producers as well. I feel like we could justify the wage gap by saying that [playing] Nabulungi [in The Book of Mormon in 2016] was my first Broadway show—I’m green and don’t have many credits. But at the same time, there should be no world in which I’ve been doing a show for three years and possibly the principal white men, specifically, are making five...four or five times more than I am per week.

AK: Mm-hmm.

KE: I bow third [from last], I bow third. I may as well bow with the ensemble. I told the producers, “When I was pregnant, I saved up money to be unemployed because there’s no maternity leave.” So I was accepting unemployment, which was $450 a week [at the time]. I had some savings. I had to go on WIC. I had to get food stamps. I’m technically a “Broadway star.” I highly doubt that the white guys would have to do that. It’s a hard thing to prove because you feel like it’s your fault. It may be my fault for accepting the low wage, but I didn’t know that it was low until I got there.

BJ: And that goes back to your earlier question, Have you ever turned down a job because of the lack of representation? And the fact is, there’s so few opportunities that I’m not able to just turn down things. I will say that recently, I turned down an audition specifically because I thought they needed to be seeing people of that race for that role. Even though I knew that white people were going to audition. But I said no because if the shoe was on the other foot, I would want someone to do that for me.

MC: That’s very gracious of you. But what if a white woman doesn’t forfeit this audition for someone of color, as the role was intended?

AK: That’s that privilege [laughs].

BJ: Well, you’ve never suffered as a result of being white. You’ve never been excluded from anything because of what you look like or for something that you have no control over. When Hamilton was casting for mostly people of color, people were up in arms. “This is discrimination!” No. You’ve just never not been the first one that they’re looking for.

AK: In The Lion King, some people in our industry said, “Why can’t there be a white Nala?” It’s one show you’re talking about.

KE: They will just replace you. For the guys, they’ll be like, “We need you, and we’re going to give you as much money as possible to stay.” They’ll just get another one of me. I don’t need to be paid like Audra [McDonald], I don’t need to be paid like Nikki Renée Daniels. But don’t offer Black girls $400 above minimum for doing a principal role.

BJ: The only power that you have is to say no. And sometimes you are in a position where you can say it, but most often you’re not. You’re made to feel like you have no power and you just have to take whatever they give you. Although I do think that is changing. I do hope that it becomes a collaborative offer, so that we don’t have to feel like we are fighting for our worth. I do think that’s part of the reason why, when this movement started—especially in our entertainment community—a lot of my white colleagues were quiet, because they were nervous that it’s going to affect their current job. I have no interest in you losing your job. What I’m asking for is to be on an equal playing field when we’re auditioning for the same job.

AK: 100 percent.

MC: The clip of Viola Davis talking about how people called her “a Black Meryl Streep…there is no one like you,” and she responds with, “If there’s no one like me... you pay me what I’m worth.” Thoughts on that?

BJ: We’re labeled, like, Black Glinda and Black Elphaba. I’m just flat out Glinda.

KE: I’m going to start saying things like, “Oh my God, white Glinda, white Elphaba.” Start putting “white” in front of all of the roles.

AK: The beauty of our work is that different people are able to step into the role, and we see a new interpretation. Your background and who you are is what makes the role you step into slightly different, and that’s the future of it. That show is able to stay alive and never be stale. And that’s often forgotten.

BJ: I would almost rather you say, “We are looking for a very specific look.” And you can’t say that because then you’d have to hear yourself [being] racist. But then, when they see you [for a part] and your white colleagues don’t get it and they say, “Well, Black’s in right now, so of course you’re gonna get it…”

KE: It’s such an entitlement. Your time will pass. What you’re saying is people who look like us are trendy, and you’re just waiting for us to go out of style so you can get more jobs.

MC: And you’re saying, “I’m not like high-waisted jeans. I’m not going away.”

BJ: It also discredits the fact that I’m qualified. Ethnic is in. No. I worked hard and studied just like you did. So every time you get a role, would you like me to say, “Oh, it’s cause you’re white?” There’s a double standard. There’s already a double standard for life being Black; there’s a double standard in life being a woman. When do we get to win?

AK: Black women are for some reason at the bottom of the totem pole.

KE: I highly doubt that Audra McDonald is the highest paid performer on Broadway. But if she were a white man, Audra would be the highest paid. Hands down. But I don’t know, I mean, Audra, if you’re [reading this]…let us know.

MC: I saw Sweet Charity on Broadway and remember the Black costar outsang the white lead by a mile. I was so young and conditioned to see just white leads that I didn’t even think, Oh, it could have been switched. Moreover, I’d never seen two Black leads together.

AK: One at a time, per title.

BJ: Try to imagine the last time on Broadway or in a movie you saw two Black leads who were counterparts in a show that was not a Black show. Or where the entire cast wasn’t Black. Try to name one.

MC: Let’s say you could do whatever you wanted. What would your next dream role be?

BJ: I mean, we’ve been saying it a lot... I want to play Christine in Phantom. I’ve wanted to for so long. I sing those songs in the shower.

KE: Now that I know that it’s possible, I think that I would love to have a stab at Glinda, even though I’m not super, super trained. I would also like to play one of the men in Hamilton, like Hercules Mulligan or [laughs] Aaron Burr.

BJ: I’d love to do Eliza in Hamilton too, if we’re wishing!

KE: We could be the Schuyler sisters.

AK: It could happen! Ultimately, [my dream is] to do a role where I’m just a person, as opposed to “the Black girl.” I don’t want to just be your maid or the prostitute, thank you. I want to be an everyday person. Can I just be a woman? Not saying that I’m taking away from being a Black woman, but rather than the stereotypical roles, you know? It’s not that you have to be the maid in order to make it or win an award. No discredit to anybody who has in the past. The problem is that these are amazing actresses and actors who’ve done these roles. Why did they only get recognized when they were playing the drug dealer or the maid? So yes. That’s the dream of mine: to just play a person. A woman.

BJ: That would be a beautiful, beautiful thing.

This post has been updated.

Welcome to MarieClaire.com's Q&A; author series—the spot where we ask the #ReadWithMC author-of-the-month five burning questions about her latest book. In July, we're reading City of Girls by New York Times bestselling author Liz Gilbert. If you're interested in the novel and looking for some friends to talk about it with, find out how to participate in MarieClaire.com's interactive monthly book club here.

It would be a disservice to solely recognize Elizabeth Gilbert for her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. Since its release, the New York Times bestselling author has written several other brilliant books including Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage (2011), The Signature of All Things (2013), and Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear (2015). Now, with her latest novel, City of Girls, she hopes her writing "goes down like a tray of champagne cocktails."

Set in the NYC theater world during the 1940s, the book explores main character Vivian's path to living her truth after she's kicked out of boarding school at 19 and forced to live with her aunt, who owns a theater called the Lily Playhouse. From there, she's able to fully explore her sexuality and promiscuity—unapologetically—and later reflect on how those events altered the course of her life.

In true Liz Gilbert form, she did research for five (!) years on the book, which included "hiring a historian to walk me through Times Square and help me understand that lost era of New York’s theater district, talking to women in their 90s (and even 100s!) about their lives as showgirls, dancers, and actresses, reading heaps of novels written in the 1930s and 1940s in order to get the slang and the intonations right, and studying papers at the New York Public Library’s Theater History Wing." She says it was a lot of work, but "I love this kind of stuff, so it was fun for me."

Here, Gilbert explains why it's so important to show that women still desire sex during the #MeToo era, and how she's applying the lessons she's given to her City of Girls characters to her own life.

Marie Claire: What inspired you to write City of Girls?

Elizabeth Gilbert: For years, I have longed to write a book about promiscuous girls who are not ruined by their sexual adventures, and I’ve also wanted to write about the tricky question of female sexual shame. I wanted to take the clichéd old story of "the ruined woman" and turn it around—to write a novel about a sort of female who I think is far more common in the real world, but scarcely ever mentioned in classical literature, which is "the sensual, interesting, and resilient woman." So that idea has been bouncing around in my head for a long time. But it wasn’t until I stumbled upon an out-of-print book from the 1940s, which was a collection of profiles about famous stage actresses, that I decided to set my novel in the New York theater world of 1940. That world just seemed so impossibly glamorous to me that I couldn’t resist wanting to dive into it.

MC: City of Girls is a far departure from your last book, Big Magic. How was the writing process different going from advising readers on living their most creative life to developing a story about sex, adventure, all of that good stuff?

EG: I think Big Magic is the biggest departure I have ever taken as a writer, because it was purely a self-help book. All my other books (whether fiction or non-fiction) have been about storytelling. Big Magic was about me sitting down and pondering all the questions that people have asked me over the years about my own creative process, and simply trying to figure out how I could be of service. I loved writing it, and I’m delighted that it has helped people...but it’s been really fun to get back to my real love, which is telling great stories in order to keep myself and my readers entertained!

MC: What makes your book timely? Why should people read it now?

EG: Women are still taught that there is a very, very narrow path that they have to walk in order to be considered responsible, respectable, reasonable, and "good." I have never been able to walk that path. Now, I don’t even try. There are people who don’t approve. But as Vivian says in my novel, "At some point, a woman just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. Then she can finally become who she truly is." I also want to make sure that—during all the conversation about sexual consent that has risen up around the #MeToo movement—we don’t forget that there is also such a thing as female desire. I love the #MeToo movement, and I think it’s a long overdue expression of very justifiable female rage, but I don’t want the conversation about women’s bodies to begin and end with the question of consent. There are also times in a woman’s life when she is on the hunt for sex, when she is the instigator, when she is more predator than prey, when her desires push her to take risks because she wants to have heightened experiences. I wanted in my book to celebrate that messy, muscular, powerful force of female lust.

MC: If you could be one character in the book, who would you be and why?

EG: Vivian. In a way, I feel like Vivian was showing me a pathway for my own life—toward becoming the kind of woman who, when she is in her 90s, can look back on her life with ruefulness, but also fondness and contentment. I would love to be Vivian when I grow up. It’s kind of my plan, actually.

MC: What's currently on your nightstand?

EG: The best two books of the year, in my opinion, are Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo, and Flash Count Diary, by Darcey Steinke. Both are also about female sexual desire, and women’s bodies and lives. Three Women is an incredible non-fiction exploration of three women whom Lisa Taddeo shadowed for years (with their permission) as they were having passionate sexual and romantic (and sometimes desperate) affairs, outside the norms of society. And Flash Count Diary is a brilliant and fierce memoir and study of menopause, examining how the end of mensuration can be the beginning of a new level of power and command in a woman’s life. Both books are absolutely incredible, and I think they go nicely with City of Girls.

Listen to an exclusive excerpt of the book available on Audible, below.

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2019 Elizabeth Gilbert (P)2019 Penguin Audio

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With Prince William and Kate Middleton and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle being dubbed the inseparable Royal Fab Four these days, the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex have become increasingly close. They’ve provided each other with support and friendship since Meghan and Harry first began dating and, let’s face it, they're the only two people in the world who can really understand what the other must go through in their new, whirlwind lives as part of the royal family.

But, while the Duchesses undoubtedly have a lot in common, their individual sense of style has always been quite different. It’s never more apparent than when the two are side by side, but you can also spot the contrast when comparing what Kate and Meghan both chose to wear for similar appearances on their Duchess timeline. For example, their choices for theater-ready fashion could really not be more different, as illustrated when Meghan and Prince Harry attended last night’s Hamilton gala performance together.

The Duchess of Sussex opted for a black tuxedo dress from Judith and Charles with long-sleeves and a fitted silhouette. Her dress hit above the knee (quel horreur!) and was one of her most daring outfits to date. She looked modern and superbly on trend in the sleek ensemble, which she paired with Paul Andrew black heels and a golden metallic box clutch to provide a cool edge.

But, back in April 2017, Kate chose a completely contrasting aesthetic for her attendance at another London West End performance. Last year she appeared at a royal gala performance of 42nd Street, wearing an endlessly elegant, demure, and feminine crimson midi dress by Marchesa. It had capped sleeves and a flared fit that any Disney princess would be envious of, and the romantic, ladylike dress was styled with matching statement earrings and her signature, shining blow out.

Either way, they both look consistently stunning in their own, unique styles of dress. Plus, we all know that opposites attract when it comes to any kind of friendship—how many times as your friend looked amazing in an outfit that you'd never even consider?

My meeting with Melanie Hamrick is set for the terrace of a midtown hotel perched 16 floors above Broadway. Wouldn't it be funny, I think, if she just pirouettes up in here? She is, after all, a dancer with American Ballet Theatre, one of the most storied and well-known companies in the world. She could nail all variation of dramatic entrance. But when she walks in, I'm surprised to find that everything about her is understated: Hamrick's long chocolate hair is styled in soft waves and she's wearing crisp, grey pants and a sensible floral shirt she's been photographed in on other occasions.

But her grace is unmistakable as she takes a seat next to me, settling in to unpack the life of a mid-career ballerina. "I never took a day off," says the doe-eyed 30-year-old. "I've been training since I was five." But recently, she's been grappling with a seven-month hiatus—an unnatural break for someone who's spent more days than not rehearsing from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then taking the stage for an evening performance. But the reason for the time away is a more mysterious frontier: new motherhood. Hamrick is the proud mom of six-month-old Devereaux Octavian Basil Jagger.

Yes, Jagger. We'll get to that, but it's far from the crux of Hamrick's story. When you're soaking bloody blisters, nursing torn ligaments, dancing on a fractured heel bone, or, I don't know, giving birth, your partner's profession kind of recedes into the background. Our culture may still fixate on the success women's partners enjoy (the obsession more intense, perhaps, if said career involves being the second-most influential figure in Rock 'n' Roll), but Melanie Hamrick doesn't.

The pregnancy caught her off-guard. "A lot of dancers miss their period. You are working insane, intense amounts, so it's not necessarily a red flag," she explains. "I was like, 'Okay, I'm tired, I need to eat better, get more sleep.' And then after a couple of weeks, I was like, 'Wait when was the last time…?'" So she took a pregnancy test. "I was like, 'How did that happen?' I wasn't planning on that. I was doing eight shows a week. I was just like, 'I have to get on stage! I don't have time for this right now.'"

Hamrick says she never really put much thought into having children. Her older sister Rachel was pregnant at the time, and her brother and his wife have since had a baby—all boys under the age of one—but there weren't cousins growing up or other babies to speak of. "I never held children. Everyone laughed at me if I did. Now, all of a sudden, there are babies everywhere! " Before last spring, with a dog as her only charge, she lived "a really simple life."

"You don't become a ballet dancer thinking about having children," Hamrick says, "because it's so hard. It's rare."

Jagger meanwhile has seven children from previous relationships, the oldest of which is 46, the youngest 18. He and Hamrick had been seeing each other for about two years when Hamrick realized she was pregnant, but the couple's start was tabloid fodder: They reportedly met backstage at a Rolling Stones concert in Tokyo in March 2014. Jagger's longtime love L'Wren Scott committed suicide barely two weeks later. Hamrick had only just called off her engagement to fellow dancer Jose Manuel Carreño. A few months later, Jagger and Hamrick coupled up. She introduced him to her family; they were spotted in Switzerland and out and about in NYC.

Hamrick prefers to keep Jagger out of the conversation, though, except for phantom mentions. Running down her Pandora stations—Jimmy Buffet, Drake, lots of classical—she lists an artist that she's particularly enamored with, French-born Latin musician Manu Chao. How did you discover him, I ask. "From my boyfriend," she goofily deadpans. When she scrolls through cute pictures of Dev on her iPhone, I catch a glimpse of Mick's famously cavernous mug, lips spread wide in a smile as he holds up his son who has an almost identical but nascent maw.

"I think my sister was like 'Oh, that'd be so much fun!'" Hamrick remembers of her family's response to the news that they'd have another baby in the brood. "But then they all gave me space. No one told me any opinion. They all were just, 'We are here, whatever you need to talk about, whatever you need to do. We are going to back you up.'" She says she needed time to digest, figure out what it all meant. And once it sunk in, the anticipation started. She kept dancing, hoping to make it through the end of her season. But her "pretty conservative" doctor encouraged her to dial back the intensity and she stopped performing last summer, just short of the season's end. Not long after, the tabloids snapped her barely recognizable bump. One fellow dancer texted her and said, "Don't worry, I told everybody it wasn't true and tabloids are gross and annoying." She laughs as she recalls it.

But it was true, and the dance hiatus began. "It was really difficult," Hamrick admits. "I mean, I wouldn't want to do anything else. This"—she means motherhood—"is number one but…when I was pregnant, everyone was like, 'Oh my god, aren't you going to love doing nothing?!' Everyone was like, 'Just watch TV, Mel!' It kind of drove me nuts."

She took a vacation with her family to the beach. She decorated her Upper West Side apartment ("It was nice to nest"). Instead of maternity gear, she shopped for large blouses from Rag & Bone and leggings from The Row to accommodate the growing swell. Her sister made her a pair of maternity jeans. And besides getting "mooooody," everything went like clockwork.

Hamrick has been perfecting her craft as a member of ABT's corps de ballet since the early aughts. A 2005 New York Times spotlight on corps standouts marveled, "It's hard to pinpoint exactly when Melanie Hamrick...emerged from such a potent group to become an individual." Corps members are often cast as the yeoman of ballet: "When people find out I'm a corps member," Hamrick explains, "I'll get these looks, like, 'Oh, well, that's okay. You could still make principal.' It's like they are suggesting my career is shabby. My career is not shabby."

Born and raised in Virginia, Hamrick "tried everything—swimming, gymnastics, piano...but there was always ballet," she says, drawing a breath. "Ballet, ballet." Perhaps it's genetic: "It didn't hurt that my sister was a dancer," she says with a laugh. (Her sister Rachel worked in Hungary, Amsterdam, and Korea, where they treat ballerinas "like rockstars.") At age 11, Hamrick started at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, D.C. "There were about 30 kids. And it's all Russian teachers. You wake up at 7, do a couple school classes, go to ballet from 9:30 'til 1, have lunch, do some more school classes then have another ballet class."

And so it went for the next five years until she moved to New York City to join ABT's Studio Company. "I was a senior in high school and I moved in with four other girls. I can't believe my parents let me do that," Hamrick admits. "No one looked after us." But it wasn't difficult for her, exercising the discipline she'd gained from dance. No drunken screaming matches with roommates or wanton drug use. She refuses to answer the question "have you ever smoked pot?" with feigned indignation, which makes me pause. Is it possible Mick Jagger's baby mama has never smoked pot?

We take a few moments to consider the term "baby momma"—its cultural import and the economic assumptions implied. She noticed when the press started using the term; thought it was curious. "I definitely don't think of myself as a 'baby mama,'" she says. "Yes, in the technical sense, I'm not married to the father of my child. But I am in a great, wonderful relationship with him. So I don't see myself like that." I mention the lyrics of Kanye West's "Golddigger." She doesn't know the song and says that she's not familiar with his music, but loves his sneakers—she's annoyed because she can't find Yeezys anywhere. "I have a career. I work hard. Since I was 18, I've supported myself. I've put my whole life into my work. I dance with one of the most well-known ballet companies in the world. To be put in that category is a little insulting. And," she widens her eyes, head cocked in a defensive stance, "it's insulting to my boyfriend."

I hadn't planned to go back to work until September," Hamrick says as she readjusts her shirt on her shoulders. "I didn't know how my body was going to feel, how I was going to recover. And thankfully, it's been okay. My boss called me in February and was like, 'We need you.'" So she headed back, dancing the flower girl in this spring's ABT production of Don Quixote at the Met.

Plus, she couldn't wait to get moving again. The doctor told her she wasn't allowed to start exercising until six weeks after she gave birth, but after about three weeks, the itch was too much not to scratch. She wanted the feeling of being in the studio again, so she slipped into a beginner's class at Steps on Broadway and tried a slow, careful tendu. "It was awful. There were people who had never danced and I was struggling and the teacher was like, 'Are you okay, sweetie?' because I had tears in my eyes from the pain but also the happiness of feeling the music and my body. But I was really struggling to keep up. I was like, 'I'm never going to get back on stage.' I cried all the way home."

She started working out with her trainer at six weeks on the dot. The baby cushion melted away in a month but she's still not at what she calls her "performance weight." "My numbers aren't there yet," she says with a grimace. "My trainer was like, 'Stop thinking about those numbers.' He doesn't believe in scales but I think every ballet dancer goes off of weight. They weigh you in school like every other week."

Pre-baby, she tried to eat well—snacking throughout the day on peanut butter and toast or small portions of pasta and veggies—but, honestly, there were times when she'd snag a bag of chips and that was lunch. "I definitely struggled in my teenage years with weight and even a couple of times in my career at ABT because when you're working really hard and the weight is coming off and they are rewarding you…" she trails off and restarts. "You're feeling thin, therefore you are dancing better because in a ballerina's mind you are like, 'I want to be thin, I want to be thin.' You get more roles. It's a cycle. I did go through a phase where they said to me, 'Hey, we aren't going to lie, you are too thin.' Eventually it will affect your shows. You need to be able to be athletic."

But Hamrick doesn't want to feel like she's fighting with her own body. And now that she has the baby, she's refocused on nutrition. "I want to give him the best, so therefore I want to take care of myself better," she says. She's rejiggering her ideas about her body and how it works best. "I would never have thought I would feel this great at this weight. Now, I am like, 'I had a baby and I feel really great and I look hot.' I am more proud of my body." It's reassuring that her director told her he sees a lot of dancers who come back dancing better than ever after they have babies because they're more confident.

Like most new moms returning from maternity leave, she's not without her career anxieties. "You worry about 'Are they are going to treat me differently? Are they going to put me in the mom's role?' When you're a principal, you come back and you still do your principal role; you play the 16-year-old Juliet, no problem. But sometimes when a corps de ballet woman comes back, they do try to give her a nurse or a queen roll. A lot of the women that have had babies, they're happy taking a step back," says Hamrick, who has no plans to step anywhere but forward. "I want to be doing my solo work. I want to get that new part."

In the meantime, she's made the most of her time with Dev. He started sleeping through the night at three months, was a gem on his first flight, loves his cousins, and listens to Mozart every morning. And, yes, he perks up whenever she plays the Rolling Stones. She doesn't think Dev will be negatively impacted at all by her going back to work—Hamrick says Dev's generally a laid back guy, just like his dad. And dancing helps her be a better mom. "I can give him better care because I'm happy and I feel good." She knows she's lucky to have both: work and motherhood. "I still think I'm at the height of my career."

Opening photo by Rachel Hamrick

Hamilton is one of the most diverse musicals in Broadway history, with creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda casting people of color in virtually every role. And now, it seems like the production is going to be even more groundbreaking.

Entertainment Weekly reports that a casting call in Philadelphia is open to both men and women for two main characters: Aaron Burr and George Washington. Here's how the listings read on Backstage.com: 

Aaron Burr, Seeking: ages 20-39, African American, Hispanic, Asian, South Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian / Pacific Islander, Ethnically Ambiguous / Mixed Race, African Descent. Non-white, tenor/baritone, sings and raps in equal measure. Our narrator. A cool, steely reserve. An orphan raised in wealth, plays his cards and opinions close to the vest. Slow to anger, but when he gets there, look out. Javert meets Mos Def.

George Washington, Seeking: ages 30-49, African American, Hispanic, Asian, South Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian / Pacific Islander, Ethnically Ambiguous / Mixed Race, African Descent. Authoritative, regal, aloof, aware of his place in history at all times. John Legend meets Mufasa; tenor/baritone, sings and raps in equal measure.

It would be incredible to see a woman play America's first president, and it's been done before. Check out the women of Hamilton performing all-male parts during a "Ham4Ham" preshow:

Follow Marie Claire on Instagram for the latest celeb news, pretty pics, funny stuff, and an insider POV.

Update, 6/24: Responsible adult Lindsay Lohan has heard living abroad makes one a well-rounded person, so although she has been doing that since winning a part in David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, she would now like to reside in London forever, please.

Speaking with Hello! magazine (via Digital Spy), the suddenly low-key actress says that if the UK will have her, she will apply for citizenship. "I'm in a really good place. I'm blessed to have been able to do a play in London and start a different way of life. New York is very fast-paced, and it's not like that over here for me. You grow up and change, and I'm really happy about that, as overall I feel a lot better. Moving here was a new start for me, and my outlook on life is different now."

Last month, she finally completed her 125 hours of community service, so SHE'S FREE AT LAST the timing's right too.

Original post, 12/15: Lindsay Lohan credits two things for her current streak of sobriety: Oprah (naturally), and London.

In an interview with the Guardian, the actress thanks Oprah for intervening in her life, giving her self-help books, and producing her OWN docu-series. But London is what sealed the deal.

Lohan had a three-month run on the West End in David Mamet's play Speed-the-Plow, in which she performed eight times a week. Defying expectations, she didn't miss a single show, and says she can't wait to do more theater. In fact, Lohan plans to make London her permanent residence.

"In L.A. I didn't know what to do apart from go out every night," the 28-year-old said. "That's when my friends were free. And I would go out and there would be all these cameras there and that's when it became difficult."

But London has given the admittedly troubled star a new lease on life. "I won't live in L.A. again, hell no," she said. "You turn on the news in L.A. and it is all gossip about people. [...] I haven't heard myself mentioned on TV since I've been here. That has been really weird for me—and great."

Overall, Lohan said living in London has turned her into a real-life adult, letting her grow into her late twenties in peace without photographers knocking down her door. "I needed to grow up," she said, "and London is a better place for me to do that than anywhere else."

Marie Claire: You joined Alvin Alley in 2011 and grew up in Baltimore. How did you fall in love with dance?

Jacqueline Green: My mother is the reason I started dancing and the reason I kept dancing. I went to the Baltimore School for the Arts. People know it as the school that Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur went to. I had another choice in mind but my mother said, 'This art school has a really good academics, but you just have to get in with an art.' I said, 'Really? An art school? What would I audition for? I'm really just regular.' She said, 'Well, you're flexible. So go ahead and try out for dance.' I auditioned for the school with no training. I found a leotard and picked up some tights from the store and got some regular ballet slippers from a Payless or something.

MC: Did anyone inspire you?

JG: Once I was in school, I remember my second year dancing, one of the alumni came back. Her name is Linda Denise Fisher Harrell. She was a former principle dancer with Alvin Ailey, the company. She was a woman of color doing ballet. She was really one of the first people to influence me and inspire me. Then I came to New York for college and completed the B.F.A. program with Ailey and Fordham so I could have my college experience and continue to dance.

MC: What is it like being a professional dancer at such a young age?

JG: My high school was a performing arts school. When they accept you, they train you to be a professional from the day you walk in. They teach you everything you should expect in the dance world. They kind of instilled that professionalism in us. I came here to New York and I did what I had to do as far as my schoolwork and learning what I could from dance. I felt like a professional as a student. When you get into a company, it's really on you. You develop different muscles. That performance quality, I really learned my first year dancing as a professional dancer. I think I am still the youngest girl in the company. Everyone has a little more experience than I do and some have a lot more. I can really learn from them as well.

MC: I understand that costumes are a huge part of the performance for every dancer. Have you adopted anything from your stage costumes into your daily life?

JG: I like to spice up my wardrobe—I have my signature pieces. I'm always the girl on the first day of rehearsal on tour, I'll bring out my 80s tights they are red and blue and yellow. Everyone is like, 'Oh my gosh. There she goes with the tights again.' But I like it because it distracts everyone from being complacent in the rehearsal setting. It's always during Christmas time. We'll have class on Christmas day and I'll have Christmas ornaments hanging from my ears or reindeer antlers on my head with bells.

Alvin Ailey's tours around the country. The company's New York City Center 2013-2014 season begins on Dec. 4. To purchase tickets, click here.