Elle USA Vol. XXXVII №8 2022

Summer Preview | C U L T U R E BUTLER: HUGH STEWART; DESERT: COURTESY OF HIGH DESERT TEST SITES. SOME ARTISTS USED MATERIALS T HEATE R NATIVE TO THE EVENT’S DESERT LOCALE, INCLUDING SALT FROM AN FUNNY BUSINESS INDUSTRIAL PLANT (ABOVE LEFT). Beanie Feldstein takes on one of ART musical theater’s greatest heroines. DESERT QUEST he first assumed the persona of comedian Fanny Brice at her A bewitching assemblage of works out West. S third birthday party, wearing ON A SANDY, WINDSWEPT STRETCH of California’s Southern Mojave Desert in a leopard-print outfit made by Wonder Valley, past tumbleweeds and flower-dotted creosote shrubs, sits a her mother. Now Booksmart 24-foot sculpture of a nude female figure perched atop a shipping container. star Beanie Feldstein is repris- German artist Paloma Varga Weisz created the larger-than-life character as an ing the role for a much larger audience in the ode to the region’s quirky roadside attractions, whose architecture mimics revival of Funny Girl—back on Broadway for the fare inside—like a lunch stand in the shape of a frankfurter. In keeping the first time in 58 years, with a revised book by with that theme, a vendor sells vegan hot dogs from the shipping container Harvey Fierstein and directed by Michael Mayer. to visitors and passersby. Channeling the iconic figure—“on Broadway and not in my family’s backyard,” Feldstein has said— The monumental installation was organized by High Desert Test Sites, an has been a lifelong dream come true. arts nonprofit that supports experimental, site-specific projects. And it’s just Jane Lynch, who portrays Brice’s strong- one of nine works installed throughout Pioneertown, Yucca Valley, Wonder willed mother, Rosie, in the run (which opened Valley, and Joshua Tree as part of The Searchers, on view through May 22 April 24), is another childhood Funny Girl aficio- (certain pieces will be shown on weekends only). Cast-concrete cabins, nado. The original cast recording is the first music neon saloon signage, and a shallow pool filled with salt are among the works she remembers listening to as a kid. Back then, she created by an international roster of artists, two-thirds of whom are women. recalls, “I played every character. I actually knew Nestled among small sand dunes and vegetation is another highlight, every breath of the album.” conceived by Dineo Seshee Bopape and built with the help of volunteers: a Fierstein also has a long his- stack of 6,000 bricks, which will gradually disintegrate back into dirt and tory with the show, having seen clay.—ANNA FURMAN the mid-’60s Broadway produc- tion, back when tickets were a mere $2.50. Revamping the original script, which some crit- ics found uneven, was a tricky undertaking, he admits, but adds, “I love that kind of chal- lenge because you’re not writ- ing a show from the beginning. You’re trying to find out what went wrong and help it along. When I read it through, I said, ‘Oh, this has a lot of Band-Aids on it.’ My job was to take off the Band-Aids, to look at the structure, and try to make it all work without putting my stamp on it.” He adds puckishly: “I mean, my ego wants you to notice everything. But on the other hand, I don’t want you to notice anything. I want you to think, ‘Oh, Harvey just took a check and did nothing.’” One of the biggest changes Fierstein made was to include a new monologue, which shows off Brice’s comedic chops. But equally im- portant was what he didn’t alter: namely, the feel of a Golden Age Broadway musical. In this time of endless reboots and reimaginings, he wanted to stay true to the show he saw so many decades ago, only with a new star at the helm. When Lynch plays opposite Feldstein, she says, “I’m not thinking about Barbra Streisand at all. I’m locking eyes with Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice, who is so confident—a force of nature, really—just an undeterred young lady who is not going to let anybody stop her.” —VÉRONIQUE HYLAND 97

C U L T U R E | Summer Preview BOOKS JHUMPA LAHIRI’S LOVE LANGUAGE How the acclaimed author found herself in translation. little over a decade after win- JHUMPA LAHIRI Do you think readers have a lack of under- LAHIRI: CELESTE SLOMAN/NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX. PHOTOGRAPHED IN standing of what exactly a translator does? A ning the Pulitzer Prize for PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY. I think there’s an erroneous perception of trans- her 1999 short story collec- TRANSLATING MYSELF AND lation as being an act of copying—that as long as tion Interpreter of Maladies, OTHERS (PRINCETON you have access to the language, it comes easily. Jhumpa Lahiri relocated to UNIVERSITY PRESS) IS OUT Or that if you know the other language, you can Rome. Her goal: to fully im- ON MAY 17. just re-create the book in that language. I think merse herself in the Italian language. Since then, what people don’t realize is that it is an act of re- the London-born, Rhode Island–raised author writing the book that’s already there. So there’s has embraced both writing in Italian (In Other a lot of imagination, a lot of ingenuity, and a lot of Words; Whereabouts) and translating Italian creativity that go into translating a literary text. works (sometimes her own) into English. This month, she releases Translating Myself and Why publish this book? Others, a series of essays that explores this pur- I’ve been teaching translation now for all of these suit. “It’s what inspires me,” she says. “It’s what years at Princeton, and it’s something that has I do. It’s not my job.”—ADRIENNE GAFFNEY grown into a real vocation for me. I just find it so gratifying and challenging in all of the right ways. Why was Italian the language you chose to I wanted to put together the book to organize my learn and then write in? own thoughts in a way, and my reflections on the It really does feel like a calling, like something importance of translation, not only for me per- rather mysterious in nature at the end of the day. sonally, but for our world, for our understanding I don’t know the answer. I have asked it of my- of literature, for our humanity. self, and I can only say now that it’s a language in which I feel very at home, very alive, and very inspired. And so that’s what’s been pulling me in for several decades, and it’s now become the language for my creative work—for creative ex- pression, for translation—and also my personal life. I feel like I have created a life in which I feel very at home and very alive and very inspired. What differences do you see in the way you write in Italian versus in English? I think originally the Italian writing was more straightforward and stripped down to its essen- tials, because I didn’t have as great a range of ex- pression. It was a new language, so I was learning to say what I wanted to say in the most direct way. I thought it was revelatory that I could actu- ally say things so directly, as opposed to using the greater range of expression that I have in English. I think that’s changed over the years. I’ve just re- cently finished a book of short stories in Italian that I’ve been writing over several years now. One can see in that book how my own relationship to Italian has changed. It’s still different from how I can move around in English, but it doesn’t have that astringent quality anymore.

ELLE’S PICKS FOR YOUR SUMMER READING LIST THE IMMORTAL REMARKABLY THE GARDEN OF THIS TIME NIGHTCRAWLING KING RAO BRIGHT CREATURES BROKEN THINGS TOMORROW BY LEILA MOTTLEY BY VAUHINI VARA BY SHELBY VAN PELT BY FRANCESCA BY EMMA STRAUB (Alfred A. Knopf, June 7) (W.W. Norton (Ecco, May 3) MOMPLAISIR (Riverhead, May 17) & Company, May 3) (Alfred A. Knopf, May 10) Fast money, crooked Infused with heartfelt Straub’s modern take on cops, and dire Vara’s debut follows a humor, Van Pelt’s elegant After a horrific 13 Going on 30 skips all the consequences are at the Steve Jobs–like figure portrait of a widowed earthquake hits fluff and goes straight for forefront of Mottley’s who creates a world- woman who finds Port-au-Prince, Haiti, one the gut. Brimming with electric debut novel, changing product that understanding and family is left to pick up the whimsy and humor, the which she wrote when sparks his reign as a global connection with a clever pieces of its beloved story of a young woman’s she was just 17 years old. leader. She brilliantly octopus is refreshingly, if island while also tending second chance at life is Striking prose and describes a world that surprisingly, relatable. to its fractured grounded by the unforced unforgettable isn’t real but feels like it Despite the unorthodox attachments. Momplaisir father-daughter characters—including a soon could be.—AG relationship at its core, captures the soul of her relationship at its center. young Black woman in the debut novel offers a home country with rare Come for the nostalgia, relentless pursuit of wholly original intimacy while also stay for the justice—make for a meditation on grief and examining motherhood, tenderness.—JU shocking page-turner the bonds that keep us survival, and and timely afloat.—AG forgiveness.—JULIANA reflection.—JU UKIOMOGBE TV + STREAMING AN OMINOUS HEARTBEAT-LIKE THRUM pulses through two new limited series, both about political turmoil—one based on true events, the other on fiction that feels ripped from the headlines. Gaslit, SO! MUCH! which premiered April 24 on Starz, boasts an A-list cast, including Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, Betty SCANDAL! Gilpin, and Dan Stevens, playing two couples involved in the Watergate case. Across the pond, Netflix’s Anatomy of a Scandal (April 15) follows Sophie Whitehouse (sharply portrayed by Sienna Miller), the Dirty politics and legal wife of an ambitious junior minister whose seemingly standard-issue extramarital affair escalates quickly, drama rule the small rocking the couple’s once-idyllic home life and inciting mayhem in the press and Parliament. Meanwhile, screen this season. Claire Foy and Paul Bettany star in A Very British Scandal, a miniseries centered on the notorious 1960s divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll (Amazon Prime Video, April 22). Might as well get the teakettle going and the popcorn popping now.—MG 99

PERSPECTIVES FROM LEFT: REPRESENTATIVES OUR JACKIE SPEIER AND ABORTION PRAMILA JAYAPAL, STORIES SENATOR GARY PETERS, AND With abortion rights REPRESENTATIVES under attack, CORI BUSH AND BARBARA LEE AT THE ELLE brought together U.S. CAPITOL ON five members of Congress FEBRUARY 9, 2022. perhaps most qualified to discuss the issue— because they’ve been there themselves. BY MADISON FELLER AND ROSE MINUTAGLIO I t’s been nearly 50 years since the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. Ever since, that right has been threatened— now more so than ever. In the past decade alone, some states have passed a record number of abortion restrictions, including imposing patient waiting periods, burdening clinics with cost- ly and medically unnecessary requirements aimed at shutting them down, and today’s policy du jour among Republicans: banning abortions at various points pre-viability—as early as six weeks, before most people even know they are pregnant. In response, some Democratic members of Congress are pushing to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds for abortion care in most cases, and to enact the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would create a federal right to access abortion care. But neither is expect- ed to make progress before this summer, when the Supreme Court is poised to deliver a decision on the constitutionality of 100

PHOTOGRAPHED BY CELESTE SLOMAN

P E R S P E C T I V E S | Abortion a 2018 Mississippi state law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of preg- nancy. The conservative Court is ex- pected to uphold the Mississippi law, ending nearly a half century of Roe v. Wade precedent by opening the door for states to potentially pass legisla- tion that bans abortion at virtually all stages of pregnancy. In the face of such uncertainty, ELLE brought together five mem- bers of Congress who have been open about their personal experi- ences with abortion: Representatives Cori Bush, Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, and Jackie Speier, and Senator Gary Peters. The members gathered at the U.S. Capitol in February to dis- cuss how to protect abortion access. ACTIVISTS IN A FLASH MOB OF DANCE AND MUSIC DUBBED “ACT FOR ABORTION” PERFORM IN FRONT OF THE Of the 539 members of the current U.S. SUPREME COURT ON JANUARY 22, 2022, ON THE 49TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ROE V. WADE DECISION. Congress, these five are the only ones to have gone on the record with their abortion stories; there are likely many more, given that the most standards, they should not be here. They did survive, but it was recent estimate, compiled by the Guttmacher Institute in 2017, rough. [They had a lot of ongoing medical issues]—everything found that one in four women in the U.S. will have an abortion you can imagine as a kid. I went through postpartum depres- in their lifetime. sion, ended up getting a divorce, and then [met] a wonderful These members chose to participate in ELLE’s historic man after that. I was one of those people who take birth control roundtable discussion because they know the power that comes religiously and still get pregnant. My doctor said, “There’s no from making the political personal. In sharing their stories, they guarantee that you’re not going to have the same kind of birth.” are giving voice to the hundreds of thousands of people who, [With Janak,] I ended up having an emergency C-section. [The each year, for hundreds of thousands of reasons, choose to have doctor said,] “We don’t know why that happened with Janak, an abortion. Abortion patients are your neighbors, your friends, but it just may be that it happens again.” Janak was just a few your colleagues, and, yes, even your elected officials. “Hopefully years old at the time, maybe three or four. And I realized there it’s helping, with all of us here,” Lee said of the gathering. was just no way that I could possibly take care of Janak and Below is their conversation, abridged and edited for clarity. take care of myself and go through potentially the same sce- Towatchthefullvideo,gotoELLE.com/congress-abortion-stories. nario again. I really wanted to have another child, but I knew I could not do it then. ON GETTING AN ABORTION GARY PETERS: [My then-wife and I] were expecting a second child, a child that we wanted and were looking forward to bring- CORI BUSH: I was 17 when I got pregnant. We went from just ing into the world. But toward the end of the second trimester, talking, and then next thing I knew, he was on top of me. I lit- her water broke. We knew something was really wrong. The PROTEST: ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES; REMAINING IMAGES: CELESTE SLOMAN. erally didn’t know what was happening. Did I say something physician said, “There’s no way this fetus can survive.” But be- wrong? I remember just lying there. A few weeks later, I found cause there was a faint fetal heartbeat, he had to get approval out that I was pregnant. I was able to go to the Yellow Pages and from the hospital board. And I’ll never forget listening to the call; I didn’t have to jump through hoops or anything. When message on the answering machine as he said, “I’m very sorry I went into my own consultation, I’ll never forget how I was to say the hospital refused my request.” He said he was fearful treated. I’ll never forget being told, “If you don’t do this, you’re that my wife had an infection, and that if she waited any lon- going to be on welfare.” I just remember feeling so hurt, and I ger to have an abortion she could lose her uterus. He said, “If just didn’t know what to do. I felt very alone, but I had the op- you wait even longer, you’ll lose your life.” We were fortunate a tion to make the decision to go ahead or to not. I made the best friend of ours is an administrator at a different hospital, and he decision for me, because mentally and emotionally I was not in was able to get us in immediately. a good place. It changed my life, because it gave me the space BARBARA LEE: I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, and I to be able to take care of Cori first. was raised Catholic. Fast-forward to the 11th grade—way before JACKIE SPEIER: I was 40 years old when I had my abortion Roe v. Wade. I got pregnant. Of course, there was no compre- at 17 weeks. The fetus had slipped through the cervix into the hensive sex ed class in school. I was in a quandary, but thank vagina. They put me upside down in a hospital bed, trying to goodness my mother was there to support me. She called her have the fetus return to the uterus, and it just wasn’t happening. friend, and her friend said not to worry, that she knew a doctor So I decided that it was time to have the abortion. The majority in Juárez, Mexico. Her friend took me, and I was terrified. My of women who have abortions are mothers. I was a mother. I mother gave me the money. It was $200. I’ll never forget that. wanted that baby, but it wasn’t meant to be. It was a back-alley clinic. But the doctor was a really good doc- PRAMILA JAYAPAL: I had a very difficult first pregnancy. tor; he was kind. It was late at night, maybe 10 p.m. We crept My kid, Janak, who goes by they/them pronouns, was born up there and walked in, and my mother’s friend was with me at 1 pound, 14 ounces, at 26 and a half weeks. By all medical the whole time. And I survived. But all the while, I knew what

was happening to women who had these back-alley abortions, OUR CONGRESS because then, for Black girls and women, that was a cause of ON THEIR CHOICE death for so many of us. So of course I was fearful and worried. Afterward, I thanked God that I survived, because I knew so PRAMILA many women hadn’t. JAYAPAL PJ: We cannot go back, Barbara, to those back-alley abortions. “Our culture has We just cannot do that. made this a BL: It’s going to be women who don’t have money who are shameful act, going to be denied access to abortions. It’s going to be women instead of a who can’t travel to [other] states to have an abortion if, in fact, self-empowering, the Supreme Court rules in the direction of eroding Roe v. Wade. self-preserving act It’s going to be primarily Indigenous, Black, and brown women of choice.” [who will] bear the brunt of an unequal, racist system that de- nies full access to reproductive health care, including abortion. CORI BUSH ON STIGMA AND SPEAKING OUT “I remember pulling up [to the clinic], and people JS: I told my story on the House floor in 2011 because the very surrounding the car, first bill that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle had yelling, calling me a baby introduced was H.R. 1, which was to defund Title X. It was murderer. I was afraid to targeted at Planned Parenthood, and they were particularly walk in. It was tough.” focused on second-trimester abortions, which was what I had. I remember my colleague on the other side of the aisle talking BARBARA about sawing off limbs; I felt this rage build up inside of me and LEE thought to myself, How dare you talk about something you “I survived. But I knew know nothing about? When I got up to speak, I said, “I had a what was happening to procedure.” I was trembling. I walked to the back of the cham- women who had these ber and [the late] John Lewis was standing there [with] tears back-alley abortions. I in his eyes. He said, “Jackie, that’s one of the most powerful thanked God I survived, speeches I’ve heard on this floor.” because I knew so many BL: It was my private decision. It was no one’s business. Fast- women hadn’t.” forward to what’s taking place now, and I felt I finally needed to talk about it. Still, it’s hard, because [there is] stigma. Every JACKIE time I heard Congresswoman Speier talk [about her abortion], SPEIER I said, “That is so brave. I wonder how she feels. People are “We’ve allowed shame to going to ostracize her.” She gave me a lot of courage to step up be associated with a safe when I did. I remember you telling those stories many, many health procedure, and years ago, Jackie. it’s misogynistic and it’s PJ: Like you, Barbara, I never talked about it. I didn’t even tell racist. We have to dispel my mother, because I’m an immigrant from India, and you have the myths and the stigma.” children—that is what you do. I also felt that shame that you’re talking about. I’d always been a reproductive justice advocate, GARY but [when I came to Congress], I realized we have a platform PETERS here. So Jackie, I Googled, “Has any member of Congress ever “I was surprised by how spoken about an abortion?” I thought to myself, If she can, so many men came up to can I. I just want to thank you for that. I decided I was going to me and said, ‘I went talk. It was liberating and terrifying. I had to make sure I had through this as well with security around me; I got a lot of death threats. my wife.’ We don’t talk about it, but because we ON WHY CHOICE MATTERS don’t talk about it, it just eats away at us.” JS: I’mapracticingCatholic.IgotomasseverySunday,and[one time] this older woman came up to me and said, “I want to talk to you.” I thought she was going to lambaste me about my po- sition on abortion. But what she said has stuck with me: “I had to carry a fetus that was dead to term, and it has affected me my entire life.” That’s the kind of activity that [could] be engaged in by so many if we don’t speak up. CB: I remember at that time it was still the days of saying, “We have to get all of these young Black girls off welfare.” But society also won’t help you. The social safety net is not struc- tured in such a way. When I was 17, if I wouldn’t have had that abortion, how was I supposed to then CONTINUED ON PAGE 145

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FINDING HER VOICE CAST IN STARRING ROLES IN WEST SIDE STORY AND SNOW WHITE, A HIGH SCHOOLER BECAME AN OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY. WHAT COMES NEXT FOR RACHEL ZEGLER? BY ADRIENNE GAFFNEY. PHOTOGRAPHED BY PAUL WETHERELL. STYLED BY ANASTASIA BARBIERI.

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achel Zegler is a modern movie star. She exploded onto the When we meet on Zoom, Zegler, who turns 21 in May, is in scene with a stunning performance in Steven Spielberg’s West London rehearsing the film, which costars Tony Award win- Side Story and a fairy tale of a Hollywood origin story—un- ner Andrew Burnap and Gal Gadot (who plays the Evil Queen known New Jersey schoolgirl beats out 30,000 with self-taped and calls Zegler “a delight to work with”). She appears warm audition! Before the movie was released, she had filmed the and welcoming, dressed casually in a plaid shirt, her newly superhero sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods alongside Helen chopped hair wet. Her exploration of London has been tem- Mirren and had been cast in a live-action adaptation of Snow pered a bit by her COVID caution, but she’s been able to visit White and the Seven Dwarfs. As befitting a celebrity tale of to- a few restaurants and vintage shops with Burnap, who lives a day, though, she has also walked headfirst into a fame machine floor above her, and to spend a night out with West Side Story where glamour and accolades are undercut by trolling and on- costar Mike Faist while he was in town. Her time abroad comes line attacks. The spotlight on her has led to an intense scrutiny right after a period living in Atlanta shooting Shazam! She’s of everything from her looks and personality to her ethnicity. still making the transition to a life filled with constant moves while also navigating the very ordinary, bittersweet pangs of “I got cast as Maria in West Side Story on 1/9/19. And I just growing up. “My relationship with my family, my ‘core four,’ won a Golden Globe for that same performance, on 1/9/22. Life as I call us—my mom, my dad, my older sister, and me—has is very strange,” Zegler tweeted after winning the award. She’s stayed the same, truly,” she says. Her mom left her job so she still getting used to the strangeness. While Zegler became an could accompany Zegler to the West Side Story set each day. overnight celebrity after landing the role of Maria, being cast in “I truly think that I would’ve lost my mind if I didn’t have her Snow White caused a more world-changing shift. “I felt more there, even after I turned 18,” she recalls. “I’m across the world of my anonymity go out the window after Snow White was now, and I miss that.” announced, because Disney has such a dedicated following,” she says. There was a dark note to the commentary, with an While Zegler made gestures toward attending college af- undercurrent of anger at the idea of a Latina woman playing ter graduating from New Jersey’s Immaculate Conception the quintessential Disney princess. For the second time, Zegler High School, somewhere in her mind she knew that it might was taking on a historic part loaded with cultural associations. not happen. “I really believed in my talent very early on, and “I had to step into these iconic shoes,” she says. “The first thing probably in a psychotic way, to the point where I was, ‘Yeah, I thought personally was just how to block out the inevitable I’m in an audition for a Spielberg movie; maybe then I won’t comparison that would come between myself and Natalie go to college.’ That was the idea I had.” Wood, and myself and a literal two-dimensional cartoon that everyone and their mother seemed to care about the second Maybe it’s that self-assuredness, the kind young girls are they announced that I was in the movie. Snow White was this encouraged to have and also punished for having, that has fed incredible piece of art, hailed as this triumph for animation, the undue online hostility. Some of the backlash has been reac- and put Disney on the map in such a huge way.” tive, like the negative response to a video in which Zegler did a dramatic line reading of sensitive tweets regarding Britney The mild-mannered princess might seem at first glance to be Spears’s family turmoil. But other comments seemed to come an odd match for Zegler’s vibrant and outspoken persona, but out of nowhere. “It’s hard,” she says of the criticism, “but at the the vision of director Marc Webb, whose earlier films include end of the day, you have to remember that, at least in my case, 500 Days of Summer and The Amazing Spider-Man, gave her I’m the one with the confidence to go out there, and show my confidence that the story would embrace a new take. When he face, and be myself, and I’m getting paid. I’m working, doing initially approached her, the project was so shrouded in mystery what I love...and it’s all I’ve ever wanted in my entire life. I’m that she was unaware what the film was even about. “We had a really excited to share myself in that way, and let them all talk, very straightforward conversation before I’d even realized that you know? Let them all talk. I lead with love, and that’s all I [the movie] was Snow White. When I started to put the pieces can really tell the world.” together and I knew it was a Disney princess thing, he was like, ‘Who’s the fairest of them all: What does fair mean? What does it Zegler, who began her career posting her performances have to mean? Does it mean skin tone? Does it mean beauty? Or on YouTube, appreciates what an online audience has offered does it mean whether or not you are just? The way you treat peo- her. But at times, more frequently now, social media is just too ple? The way you approach others with kindness or lack there- much. “Every day, I watch as we distance ourselves further and of?’ ” she recalls. “It’s just been a really beautiful moment for my further from love and understanding,” she says. “Everybody inner child, bringing her back. We were forced to grow up very learns just how fast these people who claim to love you can fast with all of the life change that we went through in the last turn on you in an instant. We put so many eggs in the basket couple of years. [This is] just this very healing process for me.” of parasocial relationships and these expectations that are im- possible for these normal human beings to meet, and then we 109

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feign disappointment when they don’t meet them. Everyone that not only had nothing to do with me but were made about is learning every day, and I’ve constantly found myself being a situation that was said to have occurred [five] years prior to rightfully called out for things, and absolutely, there are neces- when I had met and worked with this person. With no thought sary moments of learning, and adapting, and understanding— to the fact that I was also 17 when I met this person, 17 when that’s how we grow as human beings, and I’m really proud I worked with them, 17 and 18 when I had to do love scenes.” of those things. There’s also just a lot of unnecessary things. Comments that people make about people’s relationships, their Much has been read into what Zegler did or didn’t say appearance, and the way that they decide to live their lives, about Elgort, with the internet desperate for clues into how even though it’s quite literally nobody else’s business but their she responded to the situation. Behind the scenes, she says, own. You just sit back and think to yourself, ‘Do I need this?’” she was devastated. “[There is] inherent discomfort that comes with that realization that there are tons of people who There’s so much for Zegler to enjoy within her own reali- think that you have to answer for the actions of an adult male ty. She’s still close with her childhood best friend, Brenna, and who can speak for himself. It is so wildly disappointing at is in a relationship. While she doesn’t mention her boyfriend every turn, no matter how you slice it. No matter how many by name, it’s reportedly actor Josh Andrés Rivera, who played times I’ve tried to justify people’s concern when it comes to Chino inWestSideStory.Sweetsnapsof thecouple pepperher me in my brain, but then realizing that it comes from a place Instagram; when he visited her in London, she took him on the of me having to answer for that, and not them actually caring Harry Potter studio tour. She says that having a partner who about whether or not I was okay, was really hurtful. And also shared in the life-altering experience of West Side Story has paying no mind when it came to the conversation between helped her achieve some needed peace. “There’s always this myself and these other incredible women in my cast, with- deep understanding of what I go through. Since [his experience out any thought process to our experiences as women in the was] on a different scale, he’s able to bring me back to earth and industry who constantly find ourselves in close encounters tell me when it really doesn’t matter. Because he’s removed with men in power, and a very iconic woman in Hollywood from it to a certain degree, he’s able to just snap me out of it, who has spoken about her experience with sexual assault. In and tell me to stop checking my phone, or remind me of what the grand scheme of things with this woman who has come actually matters,andremind meto bepresent,andtonotfocus forward with these allegations, I cannot imagine what she on the opinions of 3,000 faceless strangers on the internet.” had to go through. If I’m sitting here thinking that those days “THERE ARE TONS OF PEOPLE WHO THINK THAT YOU HAVE TO ANSWER FOR THE ACTIONS OF AN ADULT MALE WHO CAN SPEAK FOR HIMSELF. IT IS SO WILDLY DISAPPOINTING AT EVERY TURN.” The intense press days preceding West Side Story’s were traumatizing for me, I don’t pretend to know. I could HAIR BY EUGEN E SOUL EIMA N AT STR EE TE RS; MA KEUP BY LOT T EN HO LMQVIST FOR December release, when Zegler took part in interview after never know,” Zegler says, finally adding, “I really don’t have DIOR BEAUT Y; NAILS BY CHISATO AT CAREN AGENCY; SET DESIGN BY MAX BELLHOUSE; interview, have passed. One moment remains in my mind. In anything to do with this conversation, and I’m looking for- PROD UCE D BY T HEA CHA RLE SW ORT H AT THEA RCA DE . a roundtable conversation, women in the cast—Zegler, Ariana ward to moving past it.” DeBose, and Rita Moreno—were questioned about controversy surrounding costar Ansel Elgort. In 2020, a woman accused Her words give a new meaning to something she said earlier. Elgort of sexually assaulting her in 2014, when she was “Nobody is actually aware of what goes on in my day-to-day life. reportedly 17 years old and he was 20. Why would it be on They don’t know the conversations that I have with my team, or his female costars, of all people, to speak on his actions, I ask? the things that I think about myself, or the situations I’ve been forced into, the things I’ve had to say or not say. They don’t know. Zegler is immediately alert, open to the question. She too And so I have a lot of grace for those people as well.” doesn’t understand why throughout the film’s junket, she was the one receiving questions about Elgort’s actions, “even While in London, Zegler saw Cabaret in the West End. She though the person in question was present,” she says. (Elgort, thinks a lot about the song “What Would You Do?” Its life- who reportedly participated in only group interviews during and-death prewar context is worlds away from her life, she is the junket, said initially in a now-deleted Instagram post that careful to say, but there’s something she sees in the lyrics. “If he had a “brief, legal, and entirely consensual relationship” you’re faced with something that seems absolutely impossible, with the woman and denied all allegations of sexual assault. like being held to impossible standards as a young woman in “I have never and would never assault anyone.”) Hollywood who is just starting out and cannot risk to ruin her career before it’s even begun, what would you do?” she says. “It was a real gut punch, honestly,” says Zegler of being “I have to think people would make the same decision I did or asked to answer for her male coworker. “I reverted back to they wouldn’t, and they would also get the horrible comments this brain space I was in [back in] June of 2020, when the ac- that I get, or the horrible backlash that I get for breathing cusation surfaced. We were in the middle of the first wave of sometimes. You have to know you’re doing the best thing you lockdown, and there was nothing to do but doom-scroll. Those possibly can to preserve yourself. To take care of something days were some of the worst mental health days I’ve ever had. that is so fragile, and can be gone in an instant, which is every- I was sitting there having just turned 19, on the precipice of thing that I’ve worked so hard for in the past four years of my what was promised to be the biggest moment in my life, and life. You can only hope that it’ll get easier, and get better, and was being held accountable [by the public] for accusations get bigger and brighter.” ▪ 112

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JUST BETWEEN FRIENDS IN THE NEW HULU SERIES CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS, ALISON OLIVER AND HER COSTAR JOE ALWYN SPARK AN ONSCREEN CHEMISTRY TOO INTENSE TO IGNORE. BY LAUREN PUCKETT-POPE. PHOTOGRAPHED BY GREG WILLIAMS. STYLED BY ROSE FORDE.

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erhaps Alison Oliver and Joe Alwyn don’t look like they would lives. Oliver admits she hasn’t yet experienced this equation in be lovers. In early marketing materials for Conversations With her career, but Alwyn gives what I read to be an understand- Friends, the upcoming Hulu series adapted from literary wun- ing look. He’s already fielded an inquiry about whether Nick’s derkind Sally Rooney’s debut novel, Alwyn, 31, seems almost polyamory reflects on his relationship with Swift. (It does to loom over Oliver, 24, as she slouches on a rocky precipice not.) “You choose projects and the thread there, of course it along the Croatian shore. Alwyn, suntanned and blue-eyed says stuff about you, but also you need to work,” says the actor, with the precisely tousled hair of a Hellenistic sculpture, has kind but cautious. Still, watching the Oliver and Alwyn pair- the movie-star aura, as well as the burgeoning repertoire: ing—open, vulnerable, passionately in love—can feel surreal, You might recognize him from his turn in the Oscar-winning even voyeuristic. period piece The Favourite, or perhaps as the lead from the military drama Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Meanwhile, That’s the complex intrigue of Conversations With Friends. Oliver is a Hollywood newcomer, having recently graduat- Both Alwyn and Oliver read the book before they were cast ed from Ireland’s Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art at in October 2020, and both grew enamored with the ethical Trinity College (where Paul Mescal, star of the TV adapta- questions at its core: How much do we owe one another? tion of Rooney’s second novel, Normal People, also earned his What does it mean to be seen? To be understood? And can degree). With her slight nose and unfussy brown hair, Oliver multiple forms of love coexist in the same ecosystem? Below, looks every bit the curious twentysomething she plays in the actors discuss how they approached these knotty roles, the Conversations, though with a much sunnier disposition. construction of intimacy scenes, and what they learned about relationships in the process. Apart, they might seem a strange match; together, Alwyn and Oliver create a delicate chemistry. Oliver plays Frances, a ELLE: How familiar were you two with this project before you Trinity College student of immense intelligence but little self- signed on? regard, whose ex-girlfriend, Bobbi (Sasha Lane), is now her pla- ALISON OLIVER: I knew Sally’s work, and I really admired tonic performance partner and best friend. When the two meet it. I loved the adaptation of Normal People as well. So when I Melissa (Jemima Kirke) after one of their poetry readings, she heard they were doing this, it was something I would dream invites them home to meet Alwyn’s Nick, her quiet, aloof hus- to be a part of—because it’s really nice to feel like you’re com- band, who works as a B-list actor. As Bobbi unabashedly flirts ing into the industry being a part of a world you feel like you with Melissa, Frances turns to Nick, and soon afterward, the understand, and a character I felt like I understood. two begin an affair. As the clandestine couple, Oliver and Alwyn JOE ALWYN: I’d also read Conversations and read Normal strike an uncanny cadence, and the differences between them— People, I think because my mom or some friends had men- age, economic, social, and otherwise—slip into the background. tioned one of them. It wasn’t tied to the fact that I knew they were making shows from it. Like everyone else, I just thought Oliver’s performance as Frances is tightly coiled, intimate [Rooney’s] writing was so phenomenal. But I remember think- but opaque. Away from the role, her shoulders roll back; the ing those kinds of jobs are so few and far between. I would smirk that characterizes Frances dissolves into easy, endearing happily audition, but didn’t think anything would come of it. laughter. She’s not famous—not yet—but audiences will see the There were two or three scenes I put on tape, and then within, radiance in her, as they did Mescal in 2020. Alwyn, meanwhile, like, a week or so got a call. comes to his role in markedly different circumstances, given ELLE: Alison, lead director Lenny Abrahamson and executive the fact that he’s dating one of the world’s most obsessively producer Ed Guiney have mentioned in interviews how it was chronicled superstars. That he has remained an elusive facet immediately obvious you were the right fit for Frances. Why do of Taylor Swift’s life for more than five years, reportedly, speaks you think that was? to his inscrutability. Swift is known for her music’s bare-it-all, AO: I was in college at the time, and I’m not from Dublin, but true-story approach, and Alwyn cowrote songs on the singer’s there were similarities in terms of things about Frances’s life Folklore and Evermore albums under the pseudonym William that I really resonated with. She’s such a multifaceted character; Bowery. Yet Swift and Alwyn have chosen to speak only rarely she can be really, really awkward and embarrassed and nervous, about their relationship. And when asked if he hopes to contin- and then she can be ballsy and brave and a bit reckless. I tried ue writing songs, Alwyn simply says, “It’s not a plan of mine, no.” to have fun with all those elements of her, and I was just lucky that maybe they saw I was trying to do that. With that in mind, I ask about the tendency for audiences to study artists’ creative choices—such as, say, acting in an adap- tation of a Sally Rooney novel—for insights into their personal 123

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ELLE: Joe, on your end—Nick is a tricky character. He’s passive, them as “shapes,” making different “shapes.” She would try out though not necessarily weak. He’s passionate, but not forthright. different ones, and then we’d copy her. He’s in love with two different women. There’s a lot to explore JA: Lenny always spoke about the [sex scenes] as extensions there. How did you do it? of conversations. They weren’t just there for the sake of it. JA: God, I don’t really know. I mean, there were ways I could Obviously,they’refunnyandawkward things at the beginning. initially relate to him. I’m not a married, 32-year-old Irishman But once you get over that and you’re working with people you having an affair, but I could relate to some of his anxieties and trust—and Lenny’s in the room, and Lenny is hilarious. You ups and downs—perhaps accounting from his profession, being would want him on set in any scene. an actor. Without turning this into a therapy session, I could re- ELLE: Some viewers might see this story as advocating for open late to some of his depressive moods and struggles. marriage, though I’m not sure the lessons of Conversations With Friends are that straightforward. With that in mind, what People who are outsiders in the one sense and can’t quite themes from Rooney’s novel stood out to you two the most? communicate what’s on the inside, I always like those charac- AO: Itisdefinitelyareallycomplicatedstory.Therearesomany ters. It’s a quality in both of them that Frances is initially drawn things that people can get from it. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s to. It’s a behavior that Bobbi labels as boring at the beginning, also a story about an affair. It’s also a story about female friend- and Melissa probably thinks Nick could do with bucking up a ship. I found that—whether it’s one person, two people, three bit. But for Frances, for whatever reason, she’s drawn to that people—love is always going to be complicated. And there’s and intrigued by it. Obviously, that’s interesting and hard to always going to be sacrifices made. play, and I think what can seem distant or perhaps cold or JA: If we are able to [find love] outside of the constructs that guarded is him actually just being.... He’s quite fragile. He’s we’ve created for ourselves of friendships and of marriages and just trying to hold on. of conventional relationships, can we find happiness in more ELLE: In your opinion, what do Frances and Nick find in each unconventional ways? Maybe challenging the idea of this one other that they don’t elsewhere? archaic way to find love or happiness, that’s what I took away AO: I feel like it starts with, initially, an intrigue. For Frances, from it. One of the reasons why I think the book was so heavily for him to show any interest in her—because she has such a low “WE’LL DISCUSS [EACH SEX] SCENE: WHAT’S THE TRAJECTORY, AND WHAT’S THE QUALITY OF INTIMACY? WHY IS IT HAPPENING? IT’S A CONTINUATION OF DIALOGUE, IN A SENSE. IT JUST BECOMES PHYSICAL.” opinion of herself—it’s like, “Oh. I can be the person I want to be, discussed was Sally’s refusal to tie things up neatly at the end HAIR BY ROKU ROPPONGI FOR GHD; MAKEUP BY FLORRIE WHITE FOR SISLEY-PARIS; or the version of myself that I like when I’m with him, because of her stories. She doesn’t give an answer. GROOMING BY BENJAMIN TALBOT T FOR DIOR; MANICURE BY ROSE L ANSLEY FOR DIOR all the things that Bobbi knows about me, he doesn’t know.” It’s ELLE: Have your perspectives on your characters shifted since VERNIS; PRODUCED BY BOB FORD AND CORDELIA MACDONALD. an opportunity to reinvent herself. you first read the book? Was there ever a point when you changed JA: In stepping away from the people they’re used to being your mind about them? next to and coming together, they provide a space for the AO: Frances, in the book, has this kind of aloofness, this almost other person to grow into and heal. They don’t initially know detachment, so that when I would think about her in my head, that’s going to happen. Whether it’s the ability to give love she [seemed] this really able person. It was only in coming to or be loved or have value or self-worth, things that perhaps play her that I realized how out of her depth she is, how young were unable to be fully processed with Melissa, he’s tapped she is, how she really doesn’t know how to handle this [affair]. into with Frances. The affair completely consumes her. It’s all she thinks about. AO: Theyoddlyhelptheothertobe—like,therelationshipwith It keeps her up at night. Frances helps Nick’s marriage, and then her relationship with Nick opens her up to the fact that she’s still in love with Bobbi. And in the book, she has [Bobbi] on such a pedestal. Seeing I think that’s such an interesting thing, how one love can open Sasha [Lane] bring Bobbi to life was one of the most incredible you up to another again. things, because she had that real boldness and that electricity, ELLE: Walk me through what it was like working with your in- but you also see incredible sensitivity. And how Frances does timacy coordinator. How do you make those scenes feel as real really mistreat her in many ways, without realizing she’s hurt- as they do in the books? ing her. In her head, she sees Bobbi as untouchable. I was like, AO: There’s a brilliant system in place for it, where [intimacy Oh, that relationship is actually something that felt different coordinator Ita O’Brien] will come into a rehearsal with us. once I started to play it. I learned so much about Bobbi. We’ll discuss the scene: What’s the trajectory, and what’s the JA: I think I always empathized with Nick, but as [shooting] quality of intimacy? And why is it happening? It’s a continua- went on more, I found more empathy with him. As you see tion of dialogue, in a sense. It just becomes physical. So, from where he is coming from and what he has been through, you the get-go, [sex scenes] were presented to us as you would do hopefully begin to realize that what could seem him being dis- a stunt and you’d choreograph that. We’d rehearse it loads. Ita tant was actually—he was probably really trying. It’s not until would come in and suggest—Lenny would always talk about he puts the pieces back together in himself and finds some happiness again that some of that is healed. ▪ 128

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LIKE A DIAMOND SIMONE ASHLEY SHINES BRIGHT AS THE NEWEST BELLE OF BRIDGERTON. BY A. N. DEVERS. PHOTOGRAPHED BY CHRISTINA EBENEZER. STYLED BY ANNA TREVELYAN.

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It’s a delicate affair, after all, to draw boundaries in a show like Bridgerton, a fantastical environment fixated on bodies, fashions, proclivities, and sex. Fans despaired upon learning that Regé-Jean Page’s Duke of Hastings—and his beloved back- side—would not be returning. When I tell Ashley that several Bridgerton fans I’ve talked with independently volunteered that the Duke’s butt was their favorite part of season one, she laughs. “No way. The Duke’s butt? Oh my God, that’s so funny.” We joke about how it’s probably no accident that the first nudi- ty in season two is the rear view of Jonathan Bailey, who plays Kate’s love interest, Anthony Bridgerton. Also clear within the first 15 minutes of episode one: Ashley has the acting chops for her role—and maybe more of Kate’s moxie than she realizes. imone Ashley is waiting for me, perched serenely near the win- “I yearn for someone fresh, someone unexpected, to turn dow of a Greek grocery shop just off the main drag of London’s this season on its head,” says Golda Rosheuvel’s campy Queen BroadwayMarket.I’mnotlate,sothatmakesherearly.Dressed Charlotte in one early scene, as she mulls over which young in athleisure and tennies, she greets me with a relaxed hug like lady to designate as the social season’s most desirable match, we’re old pals—surprising, since hugging strangers is not par- or “diamond.” Shortly after, viewers catch their first glimpse ticularly English. I melt awkwardly into it like the American of Kate, a mysterious woman in a black velvet hooded cape expat I am, thawing out after having avoided physical contact galloping fiercely across a meadow. Her morning ride draws with other people for two years during the pandemic. It all the immediate curiosity of Anthony, whose assigned task this makesmoresensewhenshetellsmethat,despitebeingBritish, season is to find a wife. When Kate whooshes past, he trots off she’s a California girl at heart, having moved to Los Angeles as in pursuit, worried she might be in danger. Kate, who has bor- a teenager to pursue acting, which kicked off a decade of liv- rowed the horse without permission from her hostess, Lady ing between L.A. and London. “I love the ocean so much,” she Danbury, becomes annoyed by this and swears in Hindi, her says, pulling out her phone to show me a picture of her cocker character’s mother tongue, before turning her morning ride spaniel frolicking on the California coast. into a sweaty horse race. A game is afoot. By now, several million Netflix subscribers have been in- Ashley plays Kate with a sharp edge—she’s serious to the troduced to Ashley, who stars as Kate Sharma in the massively point of stoicism. “I think she and Anthony mirror each oth- anticipated second season of Bridgerton, but when we meet, er in that sense, because he’s always in charge, and then they the premiere is still a month away, and the 27-year-old’s anonymity is somewhat in- tact. She’s summoned me to this particular “WE ENCOURAGED EACH OTHER locale—a bustling street market where you TO JUST TAKE IT ALL IN, AND can order fresh oysters on the sidewalk and idle away the day from stall to stall—be- cause it’s where everything started com- [ACCEPT THAT] IT’S NEVER GOING ing together for her. She spent her early TO BE THE SAME EVER AGAIN. twenties here, living with friends, going on dates, and trying to make ends meet as HAVING ANONYMITY, AND THEN a young actress. “I got Sex Education living FILMING A SHOW THIS BIG.” on this street,” she says, referring, of course, HAIR BY ISSAC POLEON AND MANICURE BY SIMONE CUMMINGS, BOTH AT CLM AGENCY; MAKEUP to the hilarious and raunchy Netflix show BY P ORSCHE PO ON; SE T D ESIG N BY JOA NNA GOO DMA N; PRODU CED BY YASSE R ABUB EKER. on which she plays mean girl Olivia Hanan. It was the first recurring television role she’d landed after several years of playing bit characters with kind of meet their match. I think a lot of people can relate to one- to three-episode arcs. Decent work, nothing glamorous, that type of relationship, where there’s a feeling so strong with but those early gigs gave her the space to live and learn, which, someone, and maybe it initiates as, ‘Oh my God, I hate you,’” in many ways, is all you can hope for in your early twenties. she says—adding that she “100 percent” pulled from her per- “This area reminds me of a really innocent time in my life,” sonal life to connect with her character. From the start, she felt shesays.“Thesunwasshining,andIwouldridemy bikedown aligned with Kate, an independent woman with a foot on two the canal to the park. I’d go to the gym, walk my dog, wait for continents. “All I’ve ever really known is moving around and my agent to call. There were young artists everywhere.” Later, being on my own, but in the most positive way. I enjoy it. And when we walk to a nearby bakery for cardamom and turmeric I think that this character, in particular, has a life where she’s buns, she points to a window with a tiny flower box above a had to be on her own quite a bit.” uniform supply company. “My best friend used to live there, Shonda Rhimes, one of three executive producers for the and we would just smoke our cigarettes outside that window, show, says she knew Ashley would make a perfect Kate almost watching the world go by and waving to boys.” immediately: “We have incredible casting directors who search Between the pandemic and the prospect of joining a wildly far and wide and listen to us about the way we see the roles. It popular streaming series, the past two years have been a time was wonderful for Simone to be placed in front of us, as she of significant growth, Ashley says. “When you get thrown into was exactly what we were looking for.” Bailey fell in love with this industry, especially as a young woman, you’ve got to learn the character of Kate while reading The Viscount Who Loved quickly how to take care of yourself—how to use your voice, Me, the second book in the Bridgerton series, upon which the how to set boundaries, how to speak up for yourself.” Kate has season is based. “And then meeting Simone, she made more those qualities in spades, I offer, and Ashley agrees, adding, sense as Kate than I even knew was possible,” he says. “She “Sometimes she has a bit of an imbalance of it. Sometimes she holds moments in such a composed way. And my gosh, her can be a bit too hard-core—not that I judge her.” eyes can tell a hundred thousand stories.” In some respects, it 137

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