Elle USA 11.2021

C U L T U R E | Susan Orlean ON SELLING THE FARM Author Susan Orlean says goodbye for now to her upstate menagerie. On a humid night in July of 2020, in the midst of a ORLEAN’S ON ANIMALS ORLEAN TENDS TO HER FLOCK. global pandemic and a seemingly endless stream (AVID READER PRESS) of bad news, Susan Orlean visited a newborn colt cattle, and so forth) in the hands of neighbors and near her farm in New York’s Hudson Valley, and IS OUT NOW. friends. Because our move to Los Angeles was then tweeted a one-word missive: “drunk.” For a intended to be temporary, the animal arrange- certain segment of the Twitterverse, it was as if ments were temporary, too. I fully expected to she’d opened a relief valve, the collective pressure reclaim my creatures when we headed back to of a terrible time dissipating a little more with each New York in the spring. humorous, relatable, rambling-yet-lucid reply. Excerpted here, from Orlean’s new book of essays, In L.A., I discovered that we were contending On Animals, is a love letter to her farm, which she with a whole new animal experience. Our house sold in March of this year. was well within the urban envelope, and yet an- imals abounded. Hawks and owls eyeballed us assumed I would spend the rest of during the day. In the evening, gangs of coyotes my life on our farm in upstate New skulked around our mailbox with the sullen at- titude of juvenile delinquents. One day, at dusk, I I York, surrounded by animals. But took a walk down our block and spied the unmis- in 2011, quite unexpectedly, we takable silhouette of a bobcat. There were moun- pulled up our stakes and headed tain lions afoot. That first winter, the lion known west. We brought a limited repre- as P-22 set up camp under a house not far from sentation of our menagerie—a mere dog and two us. A mountain lion, for heaven’s sake. We were in cats. We left the rest (the ducks, the chickens, the the second-largest city in America, and yet it felt like we’d moved into a natural history diorama. When spring rolled around, we prepared

to head back to the Hudson Valley. A night be- ORLEAN AND HER COWS IN UPSTATE NEW YORK. fore we left L.A., our house sitters in New York called with grim news. A murderous raccoon naming my chickens. This flock came pre-named, and I just let them be, giv- had broken into the chicken coop and killed all ing myself a little more emotional runway for when the inevitable farewell of the poultry. I was knocked sideways. Over my took place. years as a chicken keeper, I’d learned to live with the fact that chickens are, at best, provisional One day, the young woman who cleaned our house mentioned that she holdings, because every single thing in the uni- was about to have a baby. I was astonished—she was as slight as a twig. Any verse conspires to eat them. The first time I lost day now, she explained, the eggs would crack. Aha. I didn’t know she had a chicken to a predator, I cried for hours; the fifth chickens, thus the confusion. She wanted more babies, she added, but her time, I sighed deeply and went out and bought a rooster was getting very old. new chicken. But this was an annihilation, and I began to feel like maybe I couldn’t handle having “I have a rooster,” I said, “and he’s going to need a home.” chickens anymore. And thus, a deal was struck. Maria would welcome my three hens and my fertile rooster to her home at the end of the summer, relieving me of the worry I spent that summer without them. I tore about where I would dispatch them when we headed west. I made some noise down the raccoon-breached poultry pen and sold about maybe borrowing them back the next summer, but I didn’t want to com- my coop to a neighbor who declared, with delight, plicate things too much. As it turned out, that was a good thing. We loved our that it looked like a spaceship for chickens. This house in the Hudson Valley more than anything. But getting there from Los purging was a bit of overkill, maybe, but because Angeles was starting to feel exhausting, especially because we didn’t like to we had decided to return to L.A. for another eight put our pets on a plane, so every summer my husband had to drive the dog and months, restocking on poultry made no sense. Eventually, we fell into a rhythm: eight months in L.A. and then back to the Hudson Valley for the summer. Years passed. I spent summers in the verdant bosom of our farm, but because I was a short-timer I couldn’t justify get- ting chickens. It drove me crazy, knowing how delightful it would be to have a flock following me as I weeded the garden; how my breakfasts would be made with eggs so warm they could have almost cooked themselves. ORLEAN WITH FLOCK: COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT; ORLEAN WITH COWS: TONY CENICOLA/NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX. OVER MY YEARS AS A CHICKEN KEEPER, I’D LEARNED TO LIVE WITH THE FACT THAT CHICKENS ARE, AT BEST, PROVISIONAL HOLDINGS. Then, wouldn’t you know it, kismet. An old the cat to New York. COVID was the final straw. We listed the Hudson Valley friend called one June day asking if I might be house and sold it to the first people who saw it. Our chapter there was done. interested in three hens and an affable rooster. They belonged to her daughter, who was moving We went to the farm one last time to clear it out for the new owners. It was to the city. How could I say no? I pushed all mis- a hard goodbye. I’d always dreamed that I would live with animals all around givings out of my mind and bought another coop. me, in the house, in the yard, watching me in the garden, dotting the landscape, The new chickens were a lively, lovely bunch. The crowing in the morning, lowing in the moonlight, barking at the wind, and rooster was a cheerful little bantam, about as big I had had that there. I had reveled in their friendship and their strangeness; as your hand, busy all day long attending to his the way they are so obvious and still so mysterious; their colors and textures, three red hens. Oh, I was so happy! I fell back their fur and feathers; the sounds and smells of their presence. I liked the way into chicken husbandry easily, even knowing I their needs set the rhythm of every day, and how caring for them felt elemental would have to figure something out in August, and essential. Living among them, as I had on the farm, was just as satisfying when we headed back to L.A. again. I floated the as I imagined it would be. idea of bringing the chickens with us even though I knew it was a cracked idea. Those coyotes that When the house was emptied, I took one last walk around. As I made my held their club meetings at our mailbox would way across the fields and down to where the coop had been, I collected a few have rejoiced had we brought the chickens to things that could remind me of the farm forever and perhaps betoken some L.A., and not in a good way. place in my future that would feel the way it had: a piece of quartz, a pine cone, a knob of moss, and one perfect chicken feather. ▪ I didn’t let myself bond as intensely with this flock, probably because I knew their tenure Excerpted from On Animals by Susan Orlean (Avid Reader Press). Reprinted with permission of was limited. I had always taken great delight in the author. Copyright © 2021 by Susan Orlean. 89

ELLE X DISNEY PRINCESS | MODERN HEROINES THE CREATIVE DREAMER PHOTOGRAPHED BY CELESTE SLOMAN (STYLED BY CHRISTOPHER CAMPBELL; HAIR BY AARON LIG H T FOR R + CO ; MA KEU P BY KEL LY SH EW FO R M .A .C CO S ME T ICS; S ET D ESI G N BY JULIE N BORNO; JENNIFER LEE PRO DU C ED BY A ARO N ZU MBACK AT CA MP P RO DU C T IO N S) . WHEN JENNIFER LEE was young, watching Cinderella Lee, the chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation helped her cope with the severe bullying she was experiencing. Studios, joined Disney for what was initially a short gig on the Years later, she was able to offer a new generation of children a writingteamforWreck-ItRalph.Sincethen,theOscarwinnerhas similar sense of hope as the writer of Frozen, which she directed written and directed Frozen 2 and executive produced Raya and with Chris Buck. “Cinderella gave me something I could hold on the Last Dragon and Encanto. “Animation is so collaborative. I can to,” she says. “When we started hearing about what Frozen has look at every shot and know the layers it took to get there and the meant to people and how it’s affected their lives, I related because number of people who were a part of every idea,” Lee says. After of Cinderella. It means a lot to be a part of something that can several years in the business, she’s still “just as much in awe of the be there for people if they need it and speak to true emotions.” process, and excited that I get to be a part of it.”—Adrienne Gaffney DRESS, $2,650, BELT, $1,090, ALEXANDER MCQUEEN. EARRINGS, RING, FERNANDO JORGE. RING, CARBON & HYDE. STYLIST’S OWN BRACELET. SANDALS, GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI, $1,396.





Natasha Aposhian | P E R S P E C T I V E S AP O S HIA N : CO U RT E SY O F T H E FAM ILY; W O R KER I N FAC TO RY: H ULTO N A RC HI V E/ G ET T Y IMAGE S; MARINE S IN THE G CAMOUFLAGE: STEPHEN MORTON/GETTY IMAGES; REMAINING IMAGES: BETTMAN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES. BILLION- DOLLAR rand Forks, North Dakota, has some of the harshest winters in the country. In QUESTION: the summer, mosquitoes swarm so densely that the Air Force base there con- ducts operations to kill them. Airman Natasha Aposhian arrived in the spring WHY of 2020 having hoped she’d be deployed somewhere, basically anywhere, else. CAN’T THE MILITARY FIX One of the first things Aposhian noticed was the flatness. “It’s just like ITS VIOLENCE Show Low,” she told her mother, Megan Aposhian, comparing Grand Forks AGAINST to the tiny Arizona town where she spent part of her childhood. The similar- ity wouldn’t have been a comfort. In 2018, as a college freshman, Aposhian WOMEN tweeted, “Show Low, AZ: hands down the worst thing that has ever happened PROBLEM? to me.” She’d hoped to land somewhere close to home, somewhere warm. Upon learning she was going to Grand Forks, she tried to switch with an air- Congress is on the brink man heading to Las Vegas, but their schedules didn’t align. When her father, of ushering in the Brian Murray, mentions this now, his voice tightens, as if he were choking. biggest shift in military policy Maybe Aposhian would have come around to Grand Forks. She was an un- since the repeal of Don’t usual mix of goofy and preternaturally self-possessed—her mother describes her as an “old soul”—who through her 21 years had almost always achieved Ask, Don’t Tell. But would it her goals. Besides, her dad had drilled into her the importance of making the have saved 21-year-old best of things. Instead, around 4 a.m. on June 1, two weeks into a tumultuous relationship with another airman, Julian Torres, he shot her in the back five airman Natasha Aposhian? times. She was running down the barracks hallway when he opened fire. One bullet pierced her heart, likely killing her before she hit the ground. Torres BY MOLLY LANGMUIR then shot himself in the head. COLLAGE BY MARK HARRIS THE PANDEMIC WAS RAGING, and George Floyd had just been killed. At first, Aposhian’s murder was subsumed into the howling swell of other news. But in the weeks that followed, female veterans and military members started shar- ing stories of harassment and assault using the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen, a reference to the army specialist killed in April after telling her mother she was being sexually harassed. Aposhian’s story became wrapped into this broader reckoning. As an August Yahoo News story declared, “After Two Women Were Killed on Different U.S. Bases, the Military Reluctantly Faces Its Own #MeToo Moment.” The details were different. What they shared was that neither woman trusted her chain of command enough to report the harassment and threats they experienced before their deaths. Over more than a decade, Congress has provided the military with $1 bil- lion to address the issues servicewomen disproportionately face. Per a 2018 Department of Defense survey, 63 percent of the estimated 20,500 service members who experienced sexual assault were women, despite being only 16.5 percent of the service. But while sexual assault in the military is often called an “epidemic,” and the movement to combat military violence against women has focused on it for years, intimate partner violence, by contrast, has been overlooked. During a 2019 subcommittee hearing, California congress- woman Jackie Speier described it as a “forgotten crisis.” Reformers have long pushed to change a central aspect of the military justice system: that commanding officers, who are themselves sometimes the perpetrators, are granted vast leeway in punishing the people they oversee. 93

P E R S P E C T I V E S | Natasha Aposhian The military, however, has insisted commander sounded ghetto.… Finding my in-between became a constant struggle.” authority is inviolable. And Congress, which has When Aposhian began to consider joining the Air Force, almost everyone the power to structure the military, has proven re- ceptive to this argument. “The military has always she knew discouraged her. She had a partial scholarship to the University of avoided real accountability by outwaiting the Arizona in Tucson. Plus, “her personality didn’t scream military,” says Juan news cycle,” says Don Christensen, president of Cardenas, a high school friend. But she’d started working full time at a Lexus the nonprofit Protect Our Defenders and former dealership to not accrue more debt, which led her to take all online classes, Air Force chief prosecutor. “That’s their policy.” which meant college didn’t feel like an experience worth accruing debt for in the first place. The Air Force offered solutions to a lot of issues she didn’t other- With the #IAmVanessaGuillen hashtag, wise know how to resolve—about money, about her direction, about having a though, the story metastasized. “We’re seeing a place to belong. And once she enlisted, she excelled. She graduated from basic seismic shift,” Speier says. As of late spring, the training with honors. From there, she went to technical school—she studied Senate had the votes to pass a bill that would materials management—and grew close with fellow recruit Alanna Rodrigues; take the power to prosecute sexual assault and they made TikToks and ate Domino’s pizza while studying. Aposhian was domestic violence out of the chain of command homesick—Rodrigues was with her once when she called her dad crying— and transfer it to independent military prose- but she still finished second in her class. She told Rodrigues being in the Air cutors. In late July, it was incorporated into the Force had helped her feel more at ease, as a woman and as a person who was annual defense bill, which will be taken up by biracial. Her parents and Paczesny, who’d all traveled to Lackland Air Force the Senate this fall. Base in San Antonio, Texas, for her graduation, noticed Aposhian seemed more self-assured, as if she’d discovered, at some bedrock level, she was more ca- If adopted, it would, per the New York Times, pable than she’d known. It even extended to her appearance. “Obviously she usher in the biggest shift in military policy since the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. But would FROM LEFT: APOSHIAN AS A CHEERLEADER DURING HER FRESHMAN YEAR AT it have been enough to avert what occurred in CHANDLER HIGH SCHOOL; APOSHIAN WITH HER DAD, BRIAN MURRAY, DURING A Grand Forks? Not even those closest to Aposhian TRIP TO HIS HOMETOWN OF VALLEJO, CALIFORNIA, IN 2009. agreed on whom to hold responsible. Was it the military’s issue? Was it about gun violence? was gorgeous, but getting bullied for being Black took a toll,” Paczesny says. Domestic violence? Misogyny? The specifics “Her skin color and hair—these were things she was always insecure about. lead toward ever-larger questions; trying to an- I don’t think she really gained her confidence until she joined the military.” swer them could be like chasing a cloud. Aposhian was only ever obliquely political. As for whether she consid- hile Megan was in labor with ered the challenges women can face in the military, none of her friends believe she did. A number of them seem thrown off by this line of thought. W Aposhian, her daughter’s heart “Girls have to be cautious of everything; it’s the way we live,” says her child- briefly stopped beating—there hood friend Jasmine Gallardo. Erynn Williams, another childhood friend, was a knot in the umbilical cord. says that hearing about a similar murder-suicide wouldn’t have kept her from enlisting. “There was just a terrible shooting at a grocery store in After she arrived, healthy, nurs- Colorado,” Williams says. “It doesn’t mean you won’t go grocery shopping.” They don’t see the circumstances of her death as related to the military be- es called her a miracle baby. Her cause they consider these issues to be the same ones faced by all women in America. Which may well be right. Military rates of sexual assault are parents split when she was still a toddler. As a roughly in line with those of similar demographic groups in the general child, Aposhian loved princesses, idolized her older half sister, Parris, and was so obviously intelligent that Megan scrounged together the money to send her, briefly, to private school. Megan and her daughters relocated from Scottsdale to the Show Low area when Aposhian was around 10. The move was a culture shock for her: Show Low is less than 1 percent African American, and Aposhian, who’s biracial (Megan is white and Murray is Black), was often stared at. The racism could be more explicit, too. In ju- nior high, some boys drew her with fried chick- en, watermelon, and Kool-Aid. As a teenager, she moved back to the Phoenix suburbs to live with her mom’s parents, then her dad. Aposhian got a job at a trampoline park, made the varsity cheer team, and earned straight As. She and her best friend, Rachel Paczesny, were so close they described each other as soul mates. They were both cheerleaders, they had the same sarcastic sense of humor, and they’d both ex- perienced depression. “You couldn’t pull them apart,” Megan says. But Aposhian still struggled to know where she fit. As she wrote in a college essay, “Around my Black family I was too white, and around my white family I was too Black. To some of my friends I talked white and to others I

COURTESY OF THE FAMILIES. public; some experts suggest the same is true of intimate partner violence. “THE MILITARY HAS This doesn’t mean the military shouldn’t be held to a higher standard. ALWAYS AVOIDED REAL “Certain institutions make promises,” says Mark Folse, a historian at the U.S. ACCOUNTABILITY Army Center of Military History and a former marine. What’s undeniable is BY OUTWAITING THE that for many, these promises have not been upheld. Intimate partner vio- lence is rarely thoroughly investigated, and successful prosecutions are rare. NEWS CYCLE.” (One change Christensen suggests is enabling military courts to mandate treatment programs.) A 2019 Pentagon report found that of 219 domestic she says). She says he punched a door behind her violence investigations, 209 hadn’t complied with Defense Department pol- hard enough to break his hand. icy. A 2020 investigation found that 1,904 recent rape allegations resulted in only 91 convictions. The incident that ended things permanently between Torres and Tabitha occurred that spring. JULIAN TORRES GREW UP in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida, and Dallas–Fort They’d broken up, but he convinced her to go Worth, and was raised mostly by his mom. When he was in elementary to his house. In his room, “he grabbed me and school, she began dating a woman whose mother, Deborah Delarosa, de- started trying to have sex with me,” she says. “It scribed Torres as a loving and empathetic kid. (Torres’s mother and her was hurting, so I tried to push him off. Then he ex—they’ve since broken up—declined to be interviewed.) But Delarosa ul- grabbed me again, to the point where I’m lying timately came to see Torres as charming only insofar as it served his interests. there like I’m dead.” She didn’t tell anyone for “He’d say, ‘Yes ma’am, no sir. Okay, I’ll help you,’ ” she says. “Then when he years. “To this day, I cry that he died,” she says. “It needed something, he’d look for you.” In high school, some saw Torres as a comes into my dreams. But he did the most harm- ful things to me.” Another woman, who asked APOSHIAN WITH HER MOM, MEGAN APOSHIAN, AT THE PARTY not to be named, described a similar experience. CELEBRATING HER ENLISTMENT INTO THE AIR FORCE. She’d agreed to braid his hair, but when she got to his house, he brought her to his room and turned caring guy who looked after his little sister and was into his “shoe game—he off the lights. “I was trying to laugh it off,” she says. had so many freaking shoes,” says a female acquaintance. Others described “But things eventually happened.” When she got him as obsessive and controlling, and someone who threatened murder so home, she says, her arms were bruised. She didn’t frequently people stopped taking it seriously. His family, per various ac- tell anyone for a long time, either. “He’d seemed counts, was also enmeshed in intersecting cycles of trauma. “Some people like such a nice guy,” she says. “It confuses you.” knew Julian as sweet,” says his ex-girlfriend, Tabitha, who asked to go by her first name only. “Some people knew him as angry. I knew both sides. He When Delarosa learned Torres planned to had a split personality.” enlist, she told her daughter, “The Air Force doesn’t take people like Juju.” In Florida, Torres He was popular—people called him “Juju the Kidd”—and around 6'3\", with had been arrested in 2015 and charged with two a penchant for flashy gestures. On Valentine’s Day, other girls got chocolate and felonies, for burglary and grand larceny. (It’s roses; he had Tabitha carrying around a huge bear. He’d confide in her about unclear how this was resolved since as a minor, feeling unloved, and sometimes she’d find him waiting in the school hallway his records are otherwise sealed.) People with to carry her bags. Other times, she’d get texts from him saying she was “only certain juvenile records can be recruited into good for being a ho.” One of their worst fights occurred because Tabitha was the military but require a waiver. Delarosa said dancing at a pep rally (“He was like, ‘You know you got me looking stupid,’ ” the tworecruiters Torresvisited in Texasturned him away (the Air Force Recruiting Service says the two recruiters “were not able to make effec- tive contact or contact at all”), but per Delarosa, Torres then got his juvenile record expunged. When he enlisted in Oklahoma in June 2019, he received no waiver, suggesting he didn’t disclose his felonies, as required. The military does screen for people who’ve received mental health treatment, but in prac- tice this has mostly just meant anyone who’s sought help experiences additional barriers, says Emma Moore, a research associate at the Center for a New American Security. As for misogyny, “I don’t think they have the bandwidth to inter- view ex-girlfriends, which would actually be the best way,” Moore says. One idea Speier pushes is for recruiters to be able to consider recruits’ social media accounts. Torres’s final Twitter header photo depicted a woman’s naked torso CONTINUED ON PAGE 149 95

GABRIEL BUJUKAN™

November began again. ELLE’s 2021 Women in Hol- 2021 lywood honorees are the definition of resilient: They channel trauma into art Angelina Jolie, (Jennifer Hudson) and speak truth to Gemma Chan, power (Jodie Comer). They’re barrier Lauren Ridloff,Salma breakers, from Rita Moreno, the first Hayek,Jodie Comer, Latina to win an Oscar (for Best Sup- Halle Berry,GalGadot, porting Actress), to Halle Berry, the first Rita Moreno,and (and still only) Black woman to win the Jennifer Hudson Best Actress Oscar, to Lauren Ridloff, who, like her Eternals character Mak- Photographed by kari, is deaf, a first for Marvel films. Rid- GregWilliams. loff’s costars are tireless advocates for refugees (Angelina Jolie) and domestic Styled by violence survivors (Salma Hayek), and ElizabethStewart. have spoken out against AAPI violence (Gemma Chan). Likewise, while Gal Gad- There were moments over the past 20 ot’s art thief character in Red Notice is months when it felt like we might never no superhero, offscreen she has bravely be able to safely step foot inside a movie stood up to on-set mistreatment, protect- theater again. Near the start of the pan- ing her colleagues in the process: “My demic, Hollywood stars, like all nones- sense of justice is very strong,” she says. sential workers, were sidelined, left to Meanwhile, Berry, who directs and stars cheer on health care workers and ponder in this month’s mixed martial arts film their own purpose in a changed world. Bruised, is used to “fighting for the right Some jumped into action, protesting po- to be,” she says. “I’m grateful that I’m still lice brutality or lending their platforms here, and I’m a part of this awakening. to activists on the front lines. And then, Because I really feel inspired by what’s slowly, COVID protocols in place, filming happening now.” ▪ 97

FROM HERE TO ETERNALS The secrecy that shrouds Marvel releases after a long absence. Eternals boasts lush Phastos (Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry), is so well established that in the moments shooting sites, including cliffs at the edge Kingo (Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjiani), before a Zoom call even Angelina Jolie of the Canary Islands, and more substan- and Ikaris (Bodyguard’s Richard Madden). seems unnerved at the prospect of dis- tial diversity. But it’s the leadership of (“There are so many of us that wrangling cussing Eternals. The threat of disclosing director Chloé Zhao, the Oscar-winning us is going to be like [rounding up the kids too much and exasperating studio execs director of Nomadland, that gives a new in] my house,” Jolie joked about future is enough to drive fear into the heart of shimmer of possibility to the entire press conferences.) Zhao also made up- even the most polished Hollywood vet- genre. Her independent film pedigree, dates for 2021: Ridloff and Hayek’s charac- eran. As she reviews her notes before her artistic approach to cinematography, ters were both men in the comics, and the a long and chatty call with her costars, and her track record for capturing ordi- film features Marvel’s first LGBTQ hero. she wonders, Is there anything I can say? nary people with beautiful depth and un- In another first for Marvel films, Makkari, derstanding just might make Eternals the like Ridloff, is deaf. “I have to say, it was The burden of maintaining the mys- film that gets atheists into the church of something that I didn’t even think about. tery, as tremendous as it may have been the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I just knew it was the right thing for me to over the year that the film’s release was do, for somebody like myself, a woman, a delayed, was well worth it for Jolie and Each of the actresses arrived at Eter- person of color who is deaf,” Ridloff says of castmates Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, nals from a very different place. Jolie and getting the offer. “And the fact that I would and Lauren Ridloff. While being in a Hayek, despite their lengthy and varied be appearing as a superhero, obviously, I Marvel project is a coveted gig for al- careers, are both playing superheroes for felt like this was my duty and I was called most any actor, Eternals brings a whole the first time. Hayek is Ajak, a healer who to action.”—ADRIENNE GAFFNEY new level of prestige. The film introduces leads the Eternals and connects them to the Eternals, a band of heroes who have their creators, the Celestials, while Jolie This movie has been hugely anticipat- protected Earth for thousands of years plays Thena, a legendary fighter with an ed.What do you think it willoffertopeople and reunite to fight off the Deviants, array of weapons at her disposal. Chan is emerging from a very difficult period? monstrous figures who have resurfaced making her return to the MCU fold after Lauren Ridloff: I feel like we are experi- 2019’s Captain Marvel. As Sersi, she plays encing so many climate dooms right now. an empathetic Eternal posing on Earth The timing of this movie really responds as a museum curator. Ridloff, who stars to that. I feel that Chloé just had that in- in The Walking Dead and was nominated tuition. She knows the importance of for a Tony for her performance in the 2018 showing our love for the planet. production of Children of a Lesser God, is Gemma Chan: I definitely feel that theme a relative newcomer to Hollywood, and of connection. Connection to each other, is making her debut on the global stage as connection to the planet. Makkari, a master of speed. Salma Hayek: It’s magical. There’s some- thing extremely special about it. I felt Thefilm,mostofwhichwasshotonlo- there was something different about this cation—contrary to the tradition of studio- world—about the people that were cast shot superhero flicks—has a more epic in this movie, about the tone, the sensa- physical scale and covers a much wider tion of the images. span of time, giving it the feel of one of Angelina Jolie: I remember Chloé was the grandest films we’ve ever seen from describing it as a love letter to humanity. Marvel. It introduces a slate of Marvel When we were all together on set, we characters yet to be seen on film, including felt something. AngelinaJolie,Gemma Chan, With such a big cast, what were the Lauren Ridloff,and Salma Hayek on making connections like on set? LR: I feel like people think that we’ve Marvel’s most ambitious film yet. just come out of an AA meeting because we’re all so different and have nothing in common. You really care about those moments of connection that you have with the other actors, as colleagues. In the makeup trailer, I was sitting next to Gemma and having a conversation, 98

ANGELINA JOLIE Dress, Wolk Morais, $6,250. Earrings, Chopard.



Vest, $990, pants, $990, Ralph Lauren Collection. Earrings, $7,800, bracelet, $9,600, Pomellato.

GEMMA CHAN Bralette, skirt, Louis Vuitton. Necklace, ring, $7,100, Pomellato.

J O LI E: HA IR BY R E N ATO CA MP O R A FO R F EKK AI ; M AK EUP BY M AT I N FO R T R ACE Y M AT TINGLY; MANIC URE BY E MI KU DO FOR OPI. C HAN: HAIR BY NE IL MOODIE AT BRYANT ARTISTS; MAK EU P BY A LEX waiting for the next take. Just having a LR: Do you remember the very first time LR: The first time I had a one-on-one BAB SKY FO R P R EM IE R HA IR A N D MA KE - UP ; MA N IC U R E BY M IC HE LLE C L ASS AT LM C W ORLDW IDE ; PHOTOGRAPH E D ON LOCATION AT TH E RITZ LONDON. RIDLOFF: HAIR BY VE RNON FRA NÇ OIS FOR chat with Angie. Salma was so loving, that all of us actually had all of our super meeting with Chloé, she invited me into R ED KEN ; MA KEU P BY AU T U MN M OU LT R IE AT T HE WA LL G RO UP ; MA N IC U R E BY EM I KU DO FOR OPI. HAYE K: HAIR BY PE TE R SAVIC FOR NAV Y HAIR CARE ; MAKE U P BY GE NE VIE VE H E RR FOR L A N C ÔM E; the way that she was welcoming us into suits on and we saw each other for the her office and said, “Come on, let’s just MA N IC U R E BY AS HLI E J O H N SO N AT T HE WA LL G RO UP. C HAN PRO DU C ED BY BO B FOR D; ALL OTHE RS PRODUC E D BY JONATHAN BOS S LE AT TIGHTROPE PRODUC TION. her home even during the holidays. All of first time? We spent a good amount of sit down on the floor.” She didn’t have those moments are so precious and nice time just checking each other out: “You any shoes on. I loved that about her. She and warm and felt supportive. have this” and “Look at mine.” has that unicorn mug that she always SH: No, it was emotional. Like, “Damn, walks around with, and she’s always with Chloé really took care of bringing us Angie, how did you come up with that?” her peanut butter sandwiches. Those into the story line with the sense of fem- “Oh my God, Gemma! I don’t have those little things about Chloé informed me ininity. It’s that underlying tone. I don’t legs, it wouldn’t look like that on me.” It how much she cares about individual- know if it was intentional on Chloé’s part, was this thing of relation and wanting to ity—screw the universality of it all, you but it is definitely there in this story. have that other part of the suit. don’t have to be stereotypical. You can SH: I felt that we had the freedom to be GC: Salma, you had that amazing be yourself. strong on the set. I don’t always feel that. headpiece! SH: I had some problems with the script AJ: You’d come out and everybody was so and we got into a serious fight at my house. How did that happen? Was that be- supportive of each other. You’d think that We were both passionate. And she was cause of Chloé? you’d walk out and say, “Oh, well, yes, I’m like, “No, but that’s not how I designed it.” AJ: Yes, but I’d also give credit to the male in my suit, it looks crazy.” But everybody The people outside my house were calling actors and the crew who were so sup- had a different feeling of, Look at our it a fight, because we were kind of scream- portive. They were encouraging of our new family, look at all of us together. ing. We continued to talk and talk, and it strengthand partnerstous.And wewere went on for a long time. The people out- able to just be ourselves. Normally you “I thought, side were so nervous that I was going to come with all you are as a woman and Okay, I’m going get fired. I came out and I said, “Wow, I’m then the environment you walk into kind in love with her brain!” That was the best of shuts you down. And we just didn’t get to play the creative conversation I’ve ever had with a shut down on this one. grandmother.I never director in my life, and she felt the same. SH: There was one scene where I was thought I was going She told me, “Wow! That was amazing.” It saying something and I looked at Gem- was just complete freedom. We found our ma. For one moment, there was a con- to be one of the middle ground. While finding it, we came nection that gave me the permission to Eternals.It doesn’t up with other ideas. It was super exciting. see so much more in her. I really felt for happen.It’s never AJ: It’s true what she’s saying. There was that moment, there was a window to her no ego. There was no time for it, no room soul. This kind of thing happened a lot happened to for it with everyone. That’s part of who with Lauren, because of course you have me like that before Chloé is. I was very drawn to the idea of to talk with the eyes. Something about her taking on Marvel because it didn’t that made me feel so close to her. Angie without a fight.” seem obvious. Then you meet her and was different. I discovered a soul sister you understand her personal connection who is similar to me in so many ways. I —Salma Hayek to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and felt like I’d known her for my entire life. her love for these types of films—how she I got to know her a little better than ev- What did the prospect of working with grew up, what they mean to her, then it eryone else, and it’s very precious to me. Chloé Zhao mean to you? makes a lot of sense. I knew whatever it SH: One day I got the call and I’m like, was going to be, she was going to bring How did the four of you come together? “What?” And I thought, Okay, I’m going something unique. AJ: A lot of times as an actress, you’re that to play the grandmother. I never thought SH: What happened there is that I real- individual strong woman, or you have I was going to be one of the Eternals. It ized, she’s super strong. She knows what one sister; you don’t often have this fam- doesn’t happen. It’s never happened to she wants. She had a clear vision of the ily where you really get to know women me like that before without a fight and field. She’s open to hearing, but you have and see all the different strengths. Gem- like, “I can do this, please hire me!” When to really make a smart point. ma’s grace and elegance and the way she she told me I was one of them, I was like, walks through the world. Salma’s moth- “Me, Mexican, Middle Eastern? Me, in Was it difficult maintaining the secre- erhood and power, and Lauren’s connec- my fifties? I’m going to be a superhero in cy, and having to keep things from your tion and intelligence. Everybody came as a Marvel movie?” family and your friends and reporters? themselves. Maybe there’s something to AJ: I think, in part, there were things we that, that the characters weren’t as far Sometimes as a woman, as a wom- still didn’t understand, so that helped. off [from ourselves]. I think there’s a se- an of color and with the age, you feel so SH: It freaked me out and I hated it and cret that we don’t know that our director overlooked. It was one of those moments I was angry about it. They didn’t want knows, because if you look at her films, where you think, Okay, I held on in this me to keep the script. I’d make my notes she casts a lot of real people as their roles industry, survived for this long. I just felt and they’d take it away. They give you and it shapes her films. acknowledged by somebody I admire another one, but they take the [old] one. SH: Even the suits kind of bonded us. and didn’t know she was watching me. I like to keep my stuff. You say, “Oh my I’m like, “Let me see your suit. What is I kept feeling like, Shit, this one is cool. God, what if I go to jail?” I couldn’t write it?” And the creation of it: “How is yours She’s got balls, she’s interesting. my notes there. That’s my whole process. going?” It was a big deal already, we like They would take away the script, and I fashion and stuff, but it was becoming was offended. an alien, something else. This suit rep- LR: They had a man in a trench coat—I’m resented that. We were all very excited not making this up, I’m not kidding—a about it, our suits, and very nervous. 103

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man in a trench coat who’d come over to my house at 11 at night with new script pages, in a manila envelope. You had to trade them off with the old script pages. Then he’d just walk off into the night. It was very undercover, covert. SH: There were [plot details] that even if you tried to tell, nobody would under- stand. One time when we walked into one part of the ship, I was blown away by the set design, the world, how they did it. I came home and tried to describe it to my husband. I said, “It was like everything in the ocean—like inside the ocean, the plants.” He’s like, “What? This spaceship comesfromunderneath the ocean?”Igo, “No, the decoration.” “You mean there are fish?” But there are no fish. See, I can’t even explain it to you. He kept asking me for days and I kept telling him the best that I could, but it’s impossible. AJ: It’s hard. I thought my kids were go- ing to press me, but they haven’t. I think my kids were still getting over the shock of me walking out in that outfit. “A lot of times as an actress, you’re that individual strong woman,or you have one sister; you don’t have this family.” —Angelina Jolie There have been some arguments that Marvel films aren’t real cinema. What do you think they bring to society? LR: The MCU has such a huge impact on our culture. It instills a sense of hope in us. The value of humanity is one consistent theme we see in all the films. That’s some- thing that we need to be reminded of, from time to time. For this film, what re- ally makes it unique is that we go through several millennia and it makes us rethink our history—where we come from, who we are. The MCU offers that safe space to explore, to question, to dream. SH: I mean, how many movies really bring a contribution to humanity? To what degree? [People] go and watch them and like them. It’s doing something for them, otherwise they wouldn’t go. What is interesting for me is there are so many of them and people cannot get enough. That says something. The way they reinvent each of them, how do they make it so that people are still interested? I had a different image at the beginning. I 105



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Dress, Salvatore Ferragamo, $4,100. Earrings, Pomellato. really loved working with them. They’re what message that’s going to send to all AJ: Yes,Iagree.Thatjustfeltrightandbal- brilliant in the way they keep it going. The corners of the globe. I love independent anced. It was about how unique each per- choice of Chloé, even the choice of mak- film, but the reality is that maybe a smaller son was—their soul and their unique force. ing this movie. I think this is a different indie film is not going to have that reach. And what we brought to the table to solve sensation. Even though it’s a superhero There is something about the potential problems together, to work together, was movie, there’s a lot of humanity in it. and the impact that these films can have, then all the other aspects of who we were. GC: There’s a place for different kinds of which is amazing. SH: There was no cliché.... films and different kinds of storytelling. SH: I also want to say something about LR: With this film though, Salma, I think For me, one of the most powerful things diversity, because of course we all come it’s an opportunity for us to show repre- about Marvel films is that they are seen from different cultural and ethnic back- sentation on the screen. It’s clear, it’s not globally—the reach of them. That’s an in- grounds. We’re all very unique people. I hidden.Obviously our differencesareap- credibly powerful thing. I love the fact that cannot say that what I’m bringing to it is parent: our race, our culture, our values, Marvel has been bringing in directors from only based on my ethnicity. What Ang- our abilities. But I think our representa- the independent film world who have a ie’s bringing to it, it’s not her ethnicity. I tion, it doesn’t carry the story. It’s not the unique point of view on the world. You cannotsay Gemma, everythingthat she is point of the story, but it’s still refreshing. think about the diversity of this cast and has to do with her ethnic background.... It’s new. ▪ 108

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JODIE is simply that I don’t blink.” She encour- so effortless is the most impressive feat HAIR BY HALLEY BRISKER FOR COLOR WOW; MAKEUP BY ALEX BABSKY FOR NOBLE PANACEA; MANICURE BY MICHELLE ages me to try the look out on my hus- of acting I’ve seen in a long, long time.” C L AS S FO R D IO R V ER N IS; P RO DU CE D BY BO B FOR D ; P HOTO GR A PH ED O N LOCAT IO N AT THE RITZ LONDON. Jodie Comer is in a London apartment band, before moving on to what she calls (“I’m just proud to be a footnote in the showing me the expression she makes a “classic Villanelle”—immense boredom. Wikipedia page of her career,” he adds.) after she’s killed someone and is “sucking “Eyes up to one side, eyebrows up a little,” in their soul.” I’m excited because my fa- she instructs. I call it her “unimpressed” Holofcener, who wrote Marguerite’s vorite thing about Comer is her face. Not face, and Comer agrees. “Yes, now we’re point of view, says the film is “the story of just because it looks like it could be in the workshopping, I’m enjoying this,” she a hero.” “It’s not about the rape, it’s about Louvre, but because of what she manages laughs. “She has a lot of disdain for things, what she did about it,” she says. And to do with that beautiful thing. The con- so that’s a great Villanelle face.” while the film may be set in 14th-century tortions she pulls off as the Gucci-clad France, its themes are as applicable today assassin Villanelle on the BBC’s Killing But now as Comer prepares to say as ever. “People keep saying, ‘Oh, it’s just Eve seemingly defy the pliability of skin, goodbye to Villanelle (“she feels cement- so relevant,’ and I’m like, That’s so sad, as if she were crafted from Silly Putty. ed in me, and it’s really sad to let her go”), because we could say that for every peri- In one frame, she’s an innocent porce- she’s putting on a new face—that of a od in history,” Comer says. “There’s nev- lain doll; the next, she cracks a Cheshire big-time Hollywood movie star. Comer er been a decade when a woman hasn’t Cat–esque grin; seconds later, she de- is currently playing Marguerite in The spoken her truth and been shamed for it.” livers a look of fearsome terror, before Last Duel, a historical drama directed by giving you a smile so disarming you don’t Ridley Scott that tells the story of the last It was important to Comer to do jus- see her jab a hairpin in your eye. “I don’t legallysanctioned duelin Frenchhistory. tice to Marguerite’s story. “A great actor is even know what my face is doing half the The screenplay, written by Ben Affleck like that,” Damon says. “She’d say, ‘I don’t time,” Comer says. “Sometimes I watch and Matt Damon—their first since Good feel like I should say this’ and we’d make things back and I’m mortified because I Will Hunting—and Nicole Holofcener, the change. We took every one of her feel like I’m doing something subtle, but the Oscar-nominated co-screenwriter of notes.” Damon says he left feeling indebt- my face is doing the opposite.” Can You Ever Forgive Me?, follows Mar- ed to Comer. “As a writer, the gratitude guerite as she accuses her husband’s best you have for an actor who makes your So when I’m given the opportunity to friend, played by Adam Driver, of rape; in stuff that much better is this indescrib- stare at Comer’s face for an hour, I ask her turn, her husband, played by Matt Da- able, wonderful feeling,” he says. “I can’t to show me how it’s done. She’s the one mon, challenges her attacker to a duel. be hyperbolic enough in talking about who decides to start with the soul-suck- Jodie. She’s truly incredible. Directors ing; she’s not sure why she went there— What makes the screenplay unique, are going to be beating down her door she’s filming the fourth and final season and Comer’s performance spectacular, because she’s a generational talent.” of Killing Eve, so perhaps Villanelle has is that the film is divided into three parts, seeped in. “You’ve killed someone and with each part told from a different char- Her role in The Last Duel, as well as you’re like, ‘Yes!’—you’ve got the crazy acter’s perspective: her husband’s, her her performance opposite Ryan Reyn- eyes,” Comer explains, “which I think attacker’s, and the truth. “The whole olds in last summer’s Free Guy,marksthe movie hinged on Jodie’s ability to play beginning of a new chapter in Comer’s her part in a way that was genuine, and career. “I’ve grown so much on this job, also true to the perspective that the especially in regard to finding my own other characters had,” Affleck tells me. voice,” she says of Killing Eve. “Now as “That dance was so delicate, the line so I’m stepping into this new world, I feel fine, and the fact that she made it look more ready and aware, and like all my ideas aren’t complete and utter rubbish. COMER It’s really given me confidence in myself.” When she thinks about how far she’s come from her childhood in Liverpool (where she learned accents by mimick- ing TV commercials as a child and still stays with her parents when she’s not filming), Comer remembers being 17 and meeting with a potential agent, who asked her what she wanted to do. “I was obsessed with Keira Knightley and I was like, ‘I want to be in period films. I want to be in costume dramas.’ Then I had this moment on set last year when I thought, I’m here.”—KAYLA WEBLEY ADLER With a star-making role in The Last Duel,the Killing Eveassassin is about to slay the box office. 112

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When Halle Berry first read the script of Bruised shows when the father of her child dies and her HA IR BY SA R A SE WA R D; M AKEU P BY J O RG E M O N ROY; MA N IC U R E BY KAYO H IG U CH I FOR her most recent film,Bruised—which she Berry doing son is left on her doorstep that she is mo- C HA N EL LE S V ER N IS; P RO DU CE D BY JO N AT HAN BO SS LE AT T I G HT RO P E PROD UC T I ON . directs and stars in—she knew it wasn’t tivated to return to competition. going to work for her. The Netflix movie, what she does about a troubled mixed martial arts fight- best: portraying a “It was one of the hardest things that er who tries to get back into the sport I have ever done, and that I’ll probably when she regains custody of her son, complicated ever do,” Berry says. “I don’t really think was clearly written for an actress who Black woman in I will ever direct and act in a film in quite could play an Irish Catholic woman in a new way. But this this way again; it was a monster role. I her early twenties. Berry was drawn to had a lot of pressure.” She trained for the intensely physical and emotional sto- time around, nearly two years while simultaneously ry, and identified with the motherhood she’s also behind revising the script. Berry had done some subplot, but she recognized that the lead boxing and capoeira, but learning mixed role would have to be reworked if a Black the camera. martial arts was “pretty intense.” woman in her fifties was going to play her—even if it was a Black woman who Berry has seemed to be everywhere Berry had to learn new skills as has looked ageless for her entire career. lately—posting photos of her boyfriend, a first-time director, too. She had met the musician Van Hunt, on Twitter; up- with around 12 filmmakers when search- Another actress was considering the loading her workout videos on Insta- ing for an outside director, but none of project, and Berry’sagenttold hertowait gram; tweeting with fans about her older them seemed to understand the story to see if the film came to her instead. “I films, like the Black comedies B.A.P.S and she wanted to tell, the Black female per- couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I be- Boomerang, that get new waves of online spective she wanted the film to have. “As came obsessed,” Berry says. When the praise. It’s fitting joy for an actress who I’ve gotten older and as I’ve grown in the other actress eventually passed, Berry has consistently pushed boundaries— business, I’ve been feeling like storytell- was ready. “I was then able to make my from being the only Black woman who’s ing is what I would probably do in my pitch for how I could reimagine it for ever won a Best Actress Oscar to produc- second act,” Berry says. And so she de- someonelikeme,”Berry says.She helped ing and starring in a film about pioneer- cided to ask the producers whether she rework the screenplay, and after meeting ing film star Dorothy Dandridge. “Some could direct the movie herself. with several potential directors, she real- of these movies were way before their ized that she might be the best person for time, and it’s nice to go back and have the The professional mixed martial arts that job, too. The resulting film is harrow- conversation with people who appreciate fighter who played her rival, Valentina ing and deeply affecting, with Berry again them for what they were,” Berry tells me. Shevchenko, tells me that filming was doing what she does best: showing us a one of the highlights of her year. She and complicated Black woman in a way we She grew up watching boxing mov- Berry trained for five hours every day haven’t seen before onscreen. ies like Raging Bull; she loved the idea over two months—“She’s in incredible of a “strong, noble man” who triumphs physical shape,” Shevchenko says—for HALLE in the end. “Fighting for the right to be their fight scene. “From the direction is something that I know,” she says. “I side, it was very easy to work with Halle started my career 30 years ago when because she can explain what she has Black women didn’t really have a prom- in mind and what she wants from you,” inent place in the industry, so I under- Shevchenko says. “She’s trying to find an stand what it is to fight for what you approach to everyone in a unique way.” believe in. I love stories that are about redemption, allowing people second Berry wants to direct again, but she’s chances—and in our case, last chances. I prioritizing staying well in the meantime. love knowing that we can all make mis- She considers herself spiritual, and takes takes and be forgiven.” Being a mother, the time to meditate and read self-help she adds, has also given her insight into books to be a better mother and per- the kinds of sacrifices a mother is will- son. During the lockdown, she started ing to make, and how a child can moti- rē•spin, a wellness website, to help peo- vate a person to be her best self. In the ple be healthy at home. And she is happy film, Berry’s character gives up her son to see her industry finally evolving in the and then, “full of fear and self-loathing wake of last year’s racial uprising. “For so and doubt,”soon leavesfighting.It is only many years, it felt like making a way out of no way. When I was starting out, the landscape was very, very different than it is now,” Berry says. “I’m grateful that I’m still here, and I’m a part of this awakening. Because I really feel inspired by what’s happening now.”—ALEXIS OKEOWO B ERRY 116

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GAL movie would be a watershed moment. GADOT HAIR BY RENATO CAMPORA FOR FEKKAI; MAKEUP BY SABRINA BEDRANI FOR DIOR BEAUT Y; MANICURE BY A blockbuster centered on the character S HIG EKO TAY LO R FO R DIO R V E R N IS; PRO DU C ED BY JO N AT HAN BOS S LE AT T I G HT RO PE PRODUC TION. Gal Gadot insists she doesn’t like conflict. was “overdue,” she says. “People were In Red Notice, she takes a break from Hates it,in fact. While she onceharbored craving her story.” For the first film, her the heroine template to play an art thief fantasies of becoming a “full-blown Ally salary was a mere (by Hollywood stan- who is “not a goody two-shoes. Her agen- McBeal type,” she left law school after dards) $300,000. At the time, “I was ex- da is not pure like some other charac- only a year. “The thought now of me be- tremelygrateful.Thatwasmy big break.” ters I play.” The part required her to face ing a lawyer,” she says, her head filled Then the movie made over $800 million. off with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. with visions of courtroom soliloquies and When the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, (“He’s a gigantic rock with the softest, miniskirt suits, “dealing with conflict all came along, “if you look at it like a card sweet heart,” she coos. “It’s like butter the time, it’s not for me.” game, my hand got better. I was willing from within.”) Their costar Ryan Reyn- to drop the ball and not do it if I wasn’t olds confirms, “She can go toe to toe It’s hard to square that with her im- paid fairly.” She made a reported 30-plus with pretty much anybody, even a skin- age as Hollywood’s go-to action heroine. times that salary for the follow-up. Given covered mountain like Dwayne John- Whether she’slassoing bad guys as Won- her aversion to conflict, was she scared son.” The role affords her some comedic der Woman or, in her new movie Red about playing hardball? “No, because moments, too. “Gal is incredibly adept Notice, wielding an electrocution device when I’m righteous, I’m also right.” at comedy,” Reynolds says. “She can go as casually as a Jacquemus minibag, she big when she needs to; she can reel it in doesn’t exactly seem to dread onscreen Another instance of her righteous- when she needs to.” She’s also stretching contretemps. (Stunt-wise, she says, “I ness, and rightness: speaking up about her period-drama muscles with Kenneth do whatever the insurance allows me mistreatment by Joss Whedon on the set Branagh’s latest Agatha Christie adapta- to do.”) But offscreen, Gadot does come of Justice League. (A Hollywood Report- tion, Death on the Nile. (Fun Gal Gadot across as almost preternaturally low-key, er story alleged that Whedon verbally data point: She’s a huge Christie fan.) mimicking her wide-eyed observation in abused Gadot when she shared concerns her early acting days: “ ‘And you get paid about her character and dialogue. Whe- Now that she’s lassoed Hollywood, for it? Ooh, I’m in. Sign me up.’ ” don declined to comment for that story. Gadot is focused on her passion projects. While his on-set remarks haven’t been Through her production company, Pilot If only it were all that easy. After be- made public, Gadot said on Israeli TV in Wave (which she cofounded with her ing cast in 2009’s Fast & Furious, she May that Whedon “kind of threatened husband, Jaron Varsano), she’s develop- kept auditioning until “I got tired of try- my career and said if I did something, he ing a Cleopatra film. The famed ruler was ing,” she says. Just when she’d almost would make my career miserable.”) Asked an “icon” for her when she was a child given up, she landed the part of Wonder about her initial reaction to those com- growing up in the Middle East. While Woman. As a kid in Israel, Gadot was too ments, she says, “Oh, I was shaking trees it’s hardly Hollywood’s first attempt at young to watch the Lynda Carter TV as soon as it happened. And I must say depicting Cleopatra, “her story needs version; she describes her young self as that the heads of Warner Brothers, they to be told in a different way, in the real “[not] a big fan of comic books.” But she took care of it.... Going back to the sense way, where it celebrates who she was.” knew that a female-fronted superhero of righteousnessthat Ihave...you’redizzy She’s also producing and starring in a because you can’t believe this was just Hedy Lamarr limited series for Apple said to you. And if he says it to me, then TV+ that willexplorethe OldHollywood obviously he says it to many other people. star’s lesser-known role as an inventor. I just did what I felt like I had to do. And it In an era when “women weren’t real- was to tell people that it’s not okay. ly allowed to wear pants...she not only wore pants, but she invented things.” “I would’ve done the same thing, I Beautiful, brilliant, underestimated at think, if I was a man. Would he tell me one’s peril? Sounds like the ultimate Gal what he told me had I been a man? I don’t Gadot heroine.—VÉRONIQUE HYLAND know. We’ll never know. But my sense of justice is very strong. I was shocked by the way that he spoke to me. But what- ever, it’s done. Water under the bridge.” Her friend and Wonder Woman 1984 co- star Kristen Wiig observes that Gadot is unafraid to advocate for herself. “When she needs to wear that hat, she is very clear on what is right. People who think she’s just a pretty face are dead wrong.” She’s best known for playing a heroine who can teleport and fly. But the star’s biggest superpower is her willingness to speak up—for herself and others. 120

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RITA

MORENO In a career spanning over 70years,the legendary actress and activist has continuously defied stereotypes and challenged the status quo. And now, with a starring role in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming remake of West Side Story, the 89-year-old EGOT winner shows no sign of slowing down. By Isabel González Whitaker Dress, Givenchy, $4,650. Earrings, rings, from $8,900, Pomellato.

May I put it next to the little gold man? relationship with Marlon Brando. accused of murder who is “one mean HAIR BY ANNA MARIA ORZANO; MAKEUP BY ADAM CHRISTOPHER DUEÑAS; That’s what Rita Moreno’s eight- “Self-respect is one of the most difficult bitch,” she says. “It was so much fun.” P RO DU C ED BY JO N AT HAN BO S S LE AT T I G HT RO P E P RO DU C T IO N . things to achieve when you’ve lived with- But before that, a monumental home- year-old grandson asked his abuela out it for years, as I did,” she says. coming awaits. Moreno has a leading role one day at her house two decades ago, in the remake of West Side Story directed when he showed her his youth club’s Moreno was born in Puerto Rico and by Steven Spielberg. In this version, she soccer award. Thus, next to her barrier- moved at five with her mother to the plays a new character, Valentina. “Rita is breaking 1962 West Side Story Academy Bronx, where she experienced racism for an artist of enormous depth, power, and Award sits a plastic trophy that reads: the first time. “I never let my mom know wit,” Spielberg says. “Her presence, her 2004 Thunderbolts—Justin. “I told him that kids called menamesbecause Iintu- legendary career, and her life of political it will always be right here, and it always ited that there was nothing she could do activism and advocacy will speak power- has been,” Moreno says. about it,” she recalls. She studied dance fully onscreen about the six decades that as a child, eventually signing with 20th separate the original film and this new The keepsake maintains stellar Century Fox, which cast her in stereotyp- version, decades in which our country company. In the opening scene of the ical roles (“Cantina Singer” and “Honey and our world have changed in many acclaimed Moreno documentary Rita Bear” among them). important ways. Of course, in many ways Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for we haven’t changed nearly enough.” It, the camera pans slowly past shelves West Side Story proved a break- lined with Moreno’s honors. There are through moment, yet even after her In a life of historic firsts, Moreno con- Emmys, Grammys, the “little gold man” Oscar win, studios failed to offer her tinues to add to her ledger—this time that earned her the historic claim as first substantive auditions. Thankfully, the as an executive producer of Spielberg’s Latina Oscar awardee, a Tony, a Gold- rejections did little to crush her drive remake. “I wanted her to join us as a col- en Globe, and on and on, recognitions or newfound activism. At the request laborator. I needed her for her talent but for her roles on Broadway, television, of civil rights icon and entertainer Har- also for her vast experience, her savvy, and film. She’s been honored by two ry Belafonte, she attended the March her knowledge of history, and her rela- presidents, testifying to her significance on Washington in 1963. “Standing up tionship to the history of West Side Sto- across party lines: President Bush gave for causes may not have been the safest ry,” the director says. Of the inaugural her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in thing for my career, but that’s when my credit, Moreno says, “It’s one of the most 2004, and she received the 2009 National conscience came into play,” she says. “I thrilling roles of my life.” Its cultural im- Medal of Arts from President Obama. decided a long time ago we have to help portance should not be underestimated: people when we can and if we’re able According to a study by the Center for Today, at 89 years old, Moreno doesn’t to.” From AIDS efforts in the 1980s to the Study of Women in Television and put much stock in awards. “More import- supporting bills expanding voting rights Film at San Diego State University, only ant is knowing the value of yourself and today, Moreno has continuously refused 21 percent of executive producer roles for taking care of that,” she observes. That’s to stay silent. “Rita’s support of farm- 2020’s 250 top-grossing films were held a lesson hard-earned for the actress and workers and immigrant rights gave our by women (a USC Annenberg Inclusion humanitarian, who tried to take her life community the visibility and respect we Initiative study also found only 3 percent decades ago after a long, tumultuous needed at a time when few of our voices of all producers across the 1,200 top films were being listened to,” says civil rights were Latinos, despite being the largest legend Dolores Huerta. “She is an inspi- ethnic minority group in the U.S.). As ration to all Latinas. She paved a path for she preps for a milestone birthday later women to follow.” this year, Moreno continues to forge new paths for herself and those coming up be- As she enters her tenth decade, More- hind her. “I told Steven, West Side Story no now finds herself facing another un- had to come out before I turned 90,” she pleasant foe: ageism. “Hollywood hasn’t says with her characteristic charm. The even begun to address this problem, theatrical release is set for December 10, considering the doting-grandmother the day before her big day. “He got it in typecasting that happens to silver-haired just in the nick of time.” ▪ women like me,” she says. Not that she’s accepting any of those roles. In next year’s indie dark come- dy The Prank, Moreno plays a teacher “Self-respect is one of the most difficult things to achieve when you’ve lived without it for years,as I did,” Moreno says. 126

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JENNIFER

HUDSON the untimely death of her mother—that helped inform Franklin’s singular voice, About a quarter of the way through Re- as well as the abuse she endured from her spect, audiences see Jennifer Hudson as first husband and manager, Ted White a young Aretha Franklin, covering Dinah (Marlon Wayans), and her eventual de- Washington’s “This Bitter Earth” at the scent into alcoholism. But it is also book- Village Vanguard. Seconds later, Mary J. ended by salvation through religion and Blige’s Washington, seated in the middle song, beginning with Franklin singing of the New York City jazz club, flips her alongside her father, Rev. C. L. Franklin, table, yelling, “Bitch, don’t you ever sing and ending with the recording of her sem- the Queen’s songs when the Queen is in inal gospel album, Amazing Grace, at a front of you!” Baptist church in Los Angeles. While vivid and memorable, the Like Franklin, the Chicago-raised scene is not historically accurate. Rath- Hudson grew up in the church (her ini- er, it appears to be a composite of two in- tial performance on American Idol was cidents—a similar outburst Washington the first time her family heard her sing had lobbed at Etta James and a critique secular music). And her first onscreen about the messiness of Franklin’s dress- appearance in Respect takes place during ing room. But it underscores, in a meta a rousing church service. “After the take way, one of the greatest truths of the film: was done, the congregation was still how damn near impossible, perhaps even carrying on,” Hudson says with a laugh. blasphemous, it is to attempt to conjure “They were shouting in the spirit, and the Queen of Soul, even for a prodigious- I’m still singing, and the camera people ly talented star like Hudson. were like, ‘What is happening?’ But it was like, ‘We having church.’ ” “I sit and think about it, like, What artist is built like that?” Hudson says, via Also like Franklin, Hudson has expe- Zoom, while trying to describe Franklin’s rienced more than her fair share of trau- gift. “She was music. She was anointed, ma. In 2008, her mother, brother, and and her life was anointed.” But Franklin seven-year-old nephew were murdered. clearly saw something in Hudson, asking Hudson’s estranged brother-in-law is to meet with her following her Oscar-win- serving a life sentence for the crimes. ning performance in Dreamgirls, and fi- Toward the end of Respect, Hudson’s nalizing the decision while Hudson was in Franklin has a vision of her late mother, The Color Purple on Broadway. “It was my stepping away from her piano to embrace dream to play her,” says the actress, 40. “So her daughter and remove a drink from then for her to say she wanted me to play her hand. “That scene, in that moment, her, it was a dream come true.” felt so real to me,” Hudson says. “One of my last moments with my family was The film, directed by Liesl Tommy, ad- in my home by the piano. And for me, dresses the childhood traumas—including when I’m trying to find my inner peace, I always go to the piano and play a song that was inspired by my mother.” A challenge for Hudson, who de- scribes herself as “very talkative and expressive,” was to convey Franklin’s subtlety. “Even when she was her most The star of Respect gives propers to the Queen of Soul,and sparks awards-season buzz for herself in the process. Blazer, $3,745, bodysuit, 129 $675, Dolce & Gabbana. Earrings, Bulgari, $2,390.

powerful and most fabulous, [Franklin] HA IR BY K IYAH WR I G HT AT M U Z E HA IR ; M AKE U P BY A DAM BU R R ELL FOR M .A .C C O S M ET ICS; M AN I C U RE was very careful with her words,” Tom- BY F R A N C ES CA B RO WN ; P RO DU CE D BY J O N AT HA N BO O S LE AT T IG HT RO P E P RO DU C T IO N . my says. “I was attracted to that side of her, why she was that way and how she changed from someone who was un- sure and shy to someone who was clear about herself, who had agency, and who stepped into her own power. That was the journey I was interested in.” The role marks a full-circle journey for Hudson as well. Her audition song for American Idol was Franklin’s “Share Your Love With Me,” after all. And this past August, Hudson wowed audiences at the We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert in Central Park with a breath- taking performance of “Nessun Dor- ma,” the aria Franklin famously sang at a moment’s notice at the 1998 Grammys, when Luciano Pavarotti fell ill. Hudson gave an encore performance of the piece the following weekend at Dolce & Gab- bana’s Alta Moda show in Venice. “It was my dream to play her. So then for her to say she wanted me to play her, it was a dream come true.” Also over the summer, Hudson signed on to star in an anthology project called Tell It Like a Woman. Her segment, “Pep- cy & Kim,” directed by Taraji P. Henson, centers on the true story of Kim Carter, a former addict who now helps other women take back control of their lives. While Hudson acknowledges that “mu- sic is the undertone” that helps her con- nect to emotion in her work, she’s also excited about the prospect of just acting. The next dream biopic role she’s cur- rently manifesting: “I would love to play Oprah,” she says. But for now, Hudson has reentered the awards-season conversation, with many touting her Respect showing as a worthy contender for the Best Actress Oscar. To costar Wayans, the accolades couldn’t be more deserved. “She did take after take after take, singing live. The woman never even asked for lemon and hot wa- ter or salt water to gargle with. She was a machine,” he says. “I’m just so happy that I got to watch that type of greatness. A queen played a queen. It’s a beautiful thingtosee.”—MELISSA GIANNINI WITH REPORTING BY DREAM HAMPTON 130

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YO U THESE RISING NG SCREEN QUEENS MAY BE EARLY INTHEIR CAREERS, BUT THEY ARE TAKING ON BIG ROLES THAT MATCH THEIR BIG TALENTS—PROVING THAT WHILE THIS MIGHT BE JUST THEIR BEGINNING, IT ISNOWHERE NEAR THEIR END. PHOTOGRAPHED BY GREG WILLIAMS STYLED BY RYAN YOUNG HOL LY WOOD