Charli xcx is done playing herself—sort of. We met the musician-turned-actor—and our Issue 13 cover star—in Los Angeles for a Monica Vitti-inspired photo shoot and interview about her big plans for cinema, including her upcoming movie The Moment, a “2024 period piece” inspired by BRAT. Read her essay ‘The Death of Cool’ which accompanies the interview here.
I first saw Charli xcx (real name Charlotte Emma Aitchison) at a pub in 2011, somewhere in Shoreditch. It was a friend’s idea. At that time, Charli was a part of a new-raver scene that was coursing through London’s bars and pubs. Her name was frequently on Soundcloud song tracks as the accompanying voice to an entire scene of music, of a culture that remains distant now but meaningful to anyone who lived through it. She was the star of that small world. Then, she became the star of the whole thing.
Fourteen years later, I find myself once again watching Charli at work—this time for a photoshoot at a studio in Downtown Los Angeles. Standing on a large chess board, Charli cranes her neck upward and glances into the lens of an old camera. Behind her, a sheet depicts a countryside backdrop. Around 30 people—all working on the photoshoot—crowd in silence to watch her perform an homage to the legendary Monica Vitti in a scene from La Notte (1961). And, like that, in front of our eyes, a (movie) star is (re)born.
Charli, who is 33, has the same soft gait, piercing eyes, and confidence of the Italian siren. Stepping out in an elegant black dress, she jokes around in Italian with the crew: “Uno spritz, per favore.” Perhaps she picked it up in Italy recently, where she celebrated her wedding to George Daniel among her friends, the present day Brat Pack (or should it be BRAT Pack), Jeremy O Harris, Rachel Sennott, Troye Sivan, and a roster of other extremely fashionable—and highly collaborative—millennial artists that seem like they’re always having the best time: partying, creating, chainsmoking, and travelling. An entourage that has caused considerable envy by fans online, it feels like Charli is their figurehead.
Cover for Issue 13 featuring Charli XCX. Photography by Hailey Benton Gates and Creative Direction by Fatima Khan. Buy here.
Anyway, hours later I’m sitting in a dressing room with her for this interview. Outside is the noise of people putting together another set. The blonde Monica Vitti wig stays on.
Yesterday, Charli tells me, she watched L’Avventura (1960) for the first time in preparation for this shoot (one look returns to the blonde and forlorn Vitti standing by a wall): “We went to the same locations [in Sicily] during the honeymoon. I wish I’d seen it sooner. We could’ve screened it there.”
Prior to our interview, Charli had spent all day being photographed by director (and her friend) Hailey Benton Gates, and was courteous with her time, despite how demanding we were with it. But there’s a meta quality tied to this shoot, she explains, that makes it more fun. “I wanted Hailey to photograph me because she plays my creative director in The Moment and here she is now directing me in real life,” Charli grins. “Everything I do is meta.”
Perhaps that’s why the transition to acting has seemed so effortless. She already lives in cinema’s spiritual heartland Los Angeles, a city that she loves but is steadily falling out of love with (“the scene was better in 2015”). She’s spending a lot more time in New York, where many of the BRAT Pack reside. London remains special to her too, she smiles.
Charli recently published an essay on her Substack, explaining, “… As some of you may know I’m currently feeling more inspired by film than I am by music. Film is where my creative brain seems to be gravitating.” It follows acclaimed acting performances in 100 Nights of Hero (2025), Pete Ohs’s Erupcja (2025), and the announcement of a Tokyo-set series by the legendary provocateur Takashi Miike. That came about after she watched Miike’s Imprint (2006) and decided to call the Japanese filmmaker on a whim. “I never thought he’d respond but he did, we had a Zoom and are now on this project,” she says. “I just want to make the movies I love watching.”
The same day as the shoot, her video for the sweepingly romantic, kind-of-heroic new song ‘Chains of Love’, for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation, was released. It’s a prolific start.
But most personal is The Moment—a satire mockumentary directed by the talented Aidan Zamiri. It is a story borne from Charli’s experiences following the surreal phenomenon of BRAT and what followed, with characters inspired by the very real people in Charli’s environment at that time (there are cameos by Sennott, among others). “It’s a 2024 period piece,” she explains. It’s also, perhaps, the ultimate meta role. “The Moment is on the nose, but the last thing I want is to play a version of myself,” she insists, referring to the Charli xcx “It girl” persona—an incarnation of post-internet sass, sunglasses, and cigarettes (the Charli in front of me is unlike that; rather, more kind and grounded). Other directors—big directors—have tried to typecast her but Charli is a natural shapeshifter. “My biggest goal is to disappear, for people to not see Charli xcx in my performances. Like Tom Waits in Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother (2025).” She pauses at my reaction. “You don’t feel the same about Tom Waits?”
“I did,” I replied. But looking back, I’m not sure I was being entirely honest. Time will tell if Charli will, indeed, blend in how she wants to; nor is she being naive about the switch—she’s already been at the apex of one industry, and is doing her best to navigate a film career without making some of the mistakes a younger actor would. “I’ve paid the price for some decisions in music and I don’t want to do that with film—because I love film much more than music,” she says. It’s a relief, a chance to escape. Cinema offers new worlds and possibilities, and acting allows Charli’s inner chameleon to be free to create unbound. There is also the potential for humiliation, she explains—a thrill she hasn’t felt for a while now. “I’ve been on the same hamster wheel since I was 15. I don’t feel the danger with music anymore,” she continues. “I’m in control of every aspect of my music—the sound, my image, the performing. But with cinema, I have to surrender myself to someone else’s vision.”
Charli xcx by Hailey Benton Gates. Charli is wearing MM6 Maison Margiela black dress, Andrea Wazen Carol Mules, Melinda Maria earring.
Since seeing her on stage in that musty room in 2011, I’ve watched the evolution of Charli xcx: the femme fatale persona—not the mind behind the shades, the cigarette smoke, and the dynamic songwriting. But she has been telling us who she really is all along. When I compliment her recent essay and the insight it gave me into her practice, she half-frowns as though suggesting that I have underestimated, or at least misunderstood, her. Filmmaker Ariel Schulman, a friend of hers, told me after: “Charli’s one of the most published poets in the world right now if you think about how many people are listening to her lyrics. She knows how to say what she wants like no one else.”
I want to feel life on overload, at full speed. If I couldn’t create, I would die.
Charli xcx
Charli concurs. “I’ve always been open in interviews about my art. People just haven’t listened… or I’ve been taken out of context. Writing publicly lets me create the context.” The Moment serves the same purpose. It’s Charli speaking directly to the world about the surreal aftermath of BRAT. She thought the album would be niche—something for her fans. Instead, it became a global phenomenon, reshaped and meme-ified far beyond her control. “I didn’t know if I’d make music again. Everything I did would be compared to BRAT.” The fallout sent her into a creative fog. And for Charli, creativity is not optional; it is existential. “Look, you might think I’m being dramatic, but I talk to my husband about this all the time. I want to feel life on overload, at full speed. If I couldn’t create, I would die. Someone might say, ‘She’s over the top,’ but the past five years I’ve been frustrated with my music rollout. I hate going on tour—it’s monotonous. I like to be in the throes of creation constantly. This is honestly what keeps me alive.”
Set built, the assistant steps inside to call her out for the final look of the day. There are thank yous and smiles. But as I, and our managing editor Anna Pierce, loiter by the set, the Charli I spoke with slips away and another person appears directly in front of us, with the strut of a panther and ready to get to work. There’s little doubt what we’re observing here. Fourteen years after that night at the Shoreditch pub, the transformation is complete: a movie star in the making.
Credits
Creative Direction & Concept: Fatima Khan
Photographer & Film Director: Hailey Benton Gates
Production Director: Anna Pierce
Executive Producer: Anastasia Ehrich
Producer: Corrine Dye
DP: Stefan Weinberger
Gaffer: Mike Williamson
1st Ac: Elliot Barnes
Key Grip: Kaleigh Schoen
Sound: Daniel S. McCoy
1st Assistant: Keith Kleiner
2nd Assistant: John Novak
Digital Tech: Morgan Acaldo
Stylist: Chris Horan
Styling Assistant: Angelina Arena
Hair Artist: Ricky Fraser
Hair Assist: Zach Birch
Makeup Artist: Yasmin Istanbouli
Manicurist: Stephanie Stone
Graphic Design and Title Treatments: Broad Peak Studio
Production Designer: Julie Faravel
Studio: Sunbeam Studios
Film Lab: Spectra Film & Video
Post Production: Alena Zolotnikova
Creative Assistant: Kitty Spicer
Production Assistant: Quinn Sheehan
Production Assistant: Jadyn Norris Sarno
Special Thanks: Ariel Schulman, Kodak, Special Purpose Lighting and Grip, Huxley, Sunbeam LA and The Hair Shop
Look 1: MM6 Maison Margiela black dress, Andrea Wazen Carol Mules, Melinda Maria earring.
Look 2: Full look by Chanel SS26 LK 19.
Look 3: RIMOWA Attaché Chess Silver. Rago Shapewear lingerie: Style 9057, Body Briefer Extra-Firm Shaping.
Look 4: RIMOWA Original Vanity Case Silver. Conner Ives Sash Strap Gown, Dust Purple.
Look 5: Marc Jacobs sculpted Lace Shadow Dress, USD. Kirkwood shoes from The Archive x Yana.
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