DMT Beauty Transformation: Morgan Baila

Spread Some Joy With R29’s Pop Culture Valentine’s Day Cards

February 15, 2021BruceDayne

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

We’re about to enter the one-year mark of quarantining and working from home due to shutdowns, Mercury is in retrograde, and Britney Spears is still under conservatorship. But some good things are happening: Brandy’s Cinderella is finally streaming, the new moon is in Aquarius, and Refinery29’s pop culture Valentine’s Day cards are here again.

These Valentine’s Day cards do more than their (stale, boring, always the same) Hallmark and drug store counterparts — our unique cards take you through the past year through the lens of the best TV, music, and cultural moments, from poet Amanda Gorman to K-pop star Wonho. So many of us feel alone on Valentine’s Day. These cards are meant to bring a smile to you, your family, your friends, your co-workers, and even your upstairs neighbor who is constantly stomping around.

Let these pop culture Valentines usher in a little much-needed laughter and thirst onto your screen.

Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman

Promising Young Woman, writer and director Emerald Fennell’s breakout hit film marked by its fantastic soundtrack and a devastating ending, is the definition of bittersweet. This card is for someone with a dark sense of humor.

Paul Mescal in Normal People

Has one chain ever broken so many hearts? Paul Mescal’s tender and nuanced performance in Hulu’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People redefined the “soft boy.” This card is for someone who wears a chain — or changed your life for the better.

Chloe x Halle

Chloe and Halle Bailey of Chloe x Halle have proven they’re capable of creating otherworldly, elegant, and unforgettable bops. Like the angels they are, the sister duo released Ungodly Hour in June when we needed it most. This card is for someone you miss getting into trouble with.

Amanda Gorman

22-year-old poet laureate Amanda Gorman inspired a nation with her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climbed.“ This card is for the dreamers and lovers in the world.

Wonho

Korean singer Wonho, King of the Funky-Yet-Sincere Bop, also happens to be the patron saint of thirst. Just check out his Instagram — you’ve been warned. This card is perfect for that special someone who’s locked in a gilded cage of yearning.

Regé-Jean Page in Bridgerton

Regé-Jean Page won over more than just Daphne with his role as The Duke of Hastings in Netflix’s Bridgerton. This card is for someone who kept rewinding the “Wildest Dreams” scene — over and over again.

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When Did Charities Become The New People Magazine Cover Reveal?

December 08, 2020BruceDayne

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

If 2020 had a mantra, it would be: Don’t be afraid of change. Or at least, that’s the mantra I’ve given myself. This unprecedented year has seen the confluence of a global pandemic, important and long-simmering social justice movements, and too much political upheaval to count. At a global level, this change is coming in waves — traumatic, uprooting, destabilizing. But sometimes, and in certain contexts, change is good, and necessary. One example of this promising change? Seeing celebrities pivot to using their public clout to highlight something positive, spurring attention, action, and evolution (even if we know they’re also in for the red carpet galas).

This year, three famous and popular couples chose to highlight personal milestones in a unique new way: using the websites and social media accounts of their charity partners. It started with that black-and-white photo of Katy Perry’s daisy nails holding the tiny hand of her new daughter, Daisy Dove Bloom, in August. Instead of followers seeing the first photos of Perry and Orlando Bloom’s first child on a glossy magazine cover, they saw the intimate photo on UNICEF’s website, right above a donation box asking interested fans to consider improving the lives of children around the world. It was an organic fit: Perry became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2013, while Bloom started publicly working with the organization in 2007.

After Perry and Bloom announced Daisy’s birth through a UNICEF post, Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski shared the news of their second child through War Child, and Scarlett Johannson and Colin Jost sent their wedding announcement to Citymeals on Wheels. Barring a global pandemic, celebrities are constant fixtures at galas, dinners, and red carpet events benefiting various organizations, but using charities’ social media platforms to quietly disseminate relationship and family updates is different, and new.

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As someone who keeps close tabs on all celebrity and pop culture happenings, I was a little surprised. Typically, celebrity couples choose to announce engagements, pregnancies, and births through outlets like PEOPLE, Us Weekly, and, if they want to allow journalists to pry a little more, Vanity Fair and Vogue. This exchange of goods is long established; celebrities give publications access to newsworthy life updates, and the publications give them coverage, relevance, and an opportunity for a controlled appearance in the public eye. Sometimes, magazines will pay for an exclusive, like in the famous bidding war for the first photos of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt in 2006. (Time Warner won the bid at $4.1 million; Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie very publicly donated the money to charitable organizations, a process that was repeated when the couple had twins in 2008.) Compared to the magazine covers announcing a celebrity’s split, or perceived downfall, a star willingly sharing good news is a rare moment of publicity bliss. It’s the celebrity gossip industrial complex at work, and it’s changing in front of our eyes on Instagram.

After posting the first photo of Daisy Bloom, UNICEF says it received an “incredible wave of attention” from the announcement on over a dozen websites. “Katy and Orlando are UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors, and their decision to use this precious moment to amplify the needs of mothers around the world underscores their unwavering commitment to creating an equitable world for every child,” Shelley Diamond, Chief Marketing Officer from UNICEF USA, told Refinery29. “We are so grateful to all of the individuals who graciously use their platforms and voices to support UNICEF’s work, and who won’t stop until the rights of every child are upheld.”

It’s the celebrity gossip industrial complex at work, and it’s changing in front of our eyes on Instagram.

The charitable celebrity has always been one of Hollywood’s more palatable tropes, but the question of who approaches whom (celebrity versus organization) has flipped over the years. Eighty years ago, the Hollywood Victory Committee, a government-funded initiative launched during World War II, worked in tandem with the Screen Actors Guild to utilize performers who were not active in the military by having them contribute to the ongoing war effort. Megastars like Marlene Dietrech and Clark Gable boosted morale by traveling from city to city for bond drives and providing entertainment for troops at the front. President Franklin D. Roosevelt even went so far as to have the actors explain rationing and Land-Lease programs to the masses, while also encouraging citizens to enlist. The HVC encouraged and promoted a different type of celebrity influence, yet it shared similar roots with the current idea of celebrity endorsements.

Spokespeople and executives at UNICEF, War Child, and Citymeals all told Refinery29 that the idea to announce news on the charities’ accounts came from the celebrities themselves. The charities all excitedly agreed to be the harbinger of good news.

“The idea came from Thomas and Amanda and we were only too happy to execute it,” a spokesperson from War Child told Refinery29 in an email. “We received an enormous amount of positive press through this announcement, which is key to reaching new audiences and new supporters. Sometimes it’s an amplifying effect: People hear about us, learn more, follow us, and then when it comes to holiday giving or some other global event they think of us. We do know that the more times people hear about us and our work, the more likely they are to give, and Tom and Amanda have been incredible champions in this respect (and are donors themselves).”

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This amplification brings in money, press, and exposure, and is the running theme throughout these announcements. Every charity mentioned in this story was happy to provide a comment to Refinery29 to express its gratitude for the celebrities’ good intentions. These are organizations that trade in humility and doing good work under the radar; it’s not their brand to gush about A-listers doing their part. But again, we’re in uncharted waters.

Citymeals on Wheels’ Executive Director Beth Shapiro also noted how organic this kind of post can feel, especially at a time when all of social media feels staged and performative.

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“Celebrities have a unique platform and ability to engage their followers organically, which can result in critical attention and funds for causes that many people may not have previously been aware of,” says Shapiro. “While Citymeals works with the culinary and entertainment community on a variety of fundraising initiatives throughout the year, we recognize the increasing ability – and opportunity – that celeb’s’ personal announcements in partnership with non-profit partners can have to draw attention to causes that elevates the mission of an organization.” Less Annie Leibovitz, more paying it forward, and we still get the punny “Jost Married” cover headline.

Celebrities are still going to announce news in exclusive interviews paired with lavish magazine covers, but it will be hard not to look at those with a newly critical eye: Why not share the attention with a charity in need that helps those in even greater need? Two birds, one stone, as they say. The nuance of a celebrity turning a private piece of information into a moment of positive impact for an organization is one of the few good things out of 2020. Imagine that.

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November 24, 2020BruceDayne

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Katherine Waterston’s Finally Not The One Going Through Hell

September 15, 2020DMT Beauty

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Mandatory Credit: Photo by Jonathan Hordle/Shutterstock (9977766aq) Katherine Waterston ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ film premiere, London, UK – 13 Nov 2018

Katherine Waterston might be one of Hollywood’s most humble performers. Usually a fan of darker roles, audiences might be surprised to hear just how casual and approachable the actor is in real life. As someone who has demonstrated every facet of a woman’s experience both on film and on stage, the real Waterston is genuinely chill. Maybe it’s because she isn’t on social media, or because her 2015 big break in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice had her gamely talking about her nude scenes for months. Maybe it’s because she finds strenuous projects to be a “treat,” and, in keeping with the character she plays, nothing really fazes Waterston during a recent phone call about her role in HBO’s psychological thriller, The Third Day, premiering September 14.

The show, set on the real-life Osea Island off the coast of Essex, is a dark and disturbing limited series which explores grief in all its iterations. It’s a heavy watch at times, especially for Waterston’s co-star, Jude Law, who plays Sam, a grieving and panic-stricken father. Waterston plays Jess, an academic with a PhD in the Essex witch trials studying the cultures of the fictionalized Osea Island. The land is inhabited by a mysterious cult-like group of locals who adhere to centuries old traditions and participate in an annual bacchanal-inspired weekend of debauchery. Although she doesn’t permanently live on the island, Jess finds herself immersed in their traditions, led to embrace the island inhabitants’ ways by her insatiable curiosity for its folklore and history. Sam and Jess see the island through totally different lenses. Where Sam sees danger, Jess sees opportunity. Jess’ lust for life is palpable, made clear by Waterston’s vibrant performance.

“Jess is able to truly appreciate people who have different sorts of spiritual and social practices — one can either reject and be frightened of [them], or embrace them,” Waterston explains from her current home in London ahead of the show’s premiere. “Just because it’s different from you or where you’re from doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily threatening.”

But I do like being the person going through hell because I like to be pushed and I like to explore the human condition.
katherine waterston

Waterston’s own fascination with the unknown and unpredictable has been a guiding light in her career and personal life. Never one to expect anything of the universe, she’s taken the approach to let life surprise her upon arrival.

A child of the industry (her father is Law & Order franchise-jumper Sam Waterston), Waterston has been spending her quarantine in England. She describes her life as split between England and New York, “both literally and emotionally,” but she still considers New York City home. Her career was born there after she left her Connecticut upbringing to pursue theater. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Waterston cut her teeth in off-Broadway shows before charming critics and movie-goers in 2015’s Inherent Vice. Throughout her career, the 40-year-old has been praised for her work across all genres; her natural talent, humility, and chameleon-like ability to fully transform into every character. Her IMDb page skates from protective mother (Steve Jobs), to resourceful wizard (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), to cunning survivor (Sleep Like State), to passionate lover (A World to Come).

In the HBO drama, Jess and Sam feel inexplicably drawn to Osea, and can’t seem to leave the island when bad things start happening. It’s a feeling — a stirring connection to a new place — that Waterston’s experienced herself. She’d been lucky enough to travel a lot prior to quarantine and says she’s felt strong connections to certain places for inexplicable reasons. “Why would you feel connected to one place and not another?,” she muses. “You just feel something. I can’t explain it.”

Waterston’s interviews are always candid and complex conversations about her craft — one in particular with friend Natasha Lyonne comes to mind. She’s an actor’s actor, but in a cool way. She’s worked with every kind of director, on every kind of budget, including her upcoming feature The World to Come, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week to rave reviews. Starring alongside Vanessa Kirby, Christopher Abbot, and Casey Affleck, Waterston once again slips into a character and completely disappears.

Like Third Day, The World To Come, based on Jim Shepard’s book by the same name and directed by Mona Fastvol, is about isolation and loneliness. The movie follows two neighboring couples as a romance blossoms between Abigail (Waterston) and Tallie (Kirby). Fastvold told Indiewire after the film’s premiere that she immediately thought of Waterston for the lead because of her subtle and nuanced performances. “As an actress she makes me lean in,” Fastvold said. “That’s what I want from Abigail.” Waterston explains that Paul Hansen’s script was one of the most beautiful she’s ever read, and deems her character “one of the best characters I’ve ever had a chance to play.”

“Suffering characters,” she says, give her more to explore as an actor. She’s a natural explorer in her career, similar in many ways to Jess.

“[Jess is] the kind of person who will reach across the table in a foreign country and slam a fork into something, have no idea what it is, and have a bite of it,” she says. “She’s thrown into contact with someone who is completely shut down and is not experiencing the world because he’s isolated in his grief.”

Waterston and Law, who both worked on the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise but appeared in only one scene together, share more screen time in The Third Day. Yes, maybe they kiss and take psychedelics, but for the most part, Law goes through the wringer while Waterston bears witness. She describes a massive heat wave followed by a scene filmed in freezing cold water. There was sprinting, getting beaten up, falling down — rigorous and demanding stuff.

But Waterston confirms Law maintained the cheeriest of demeanors, which she cheekily attributes to his handsome face. “I feel like people that are that good-looking should have a good attitude,” she laughs.

Going through grueling elements also led to a greater friendship between them. This camaraderie blossomed further during quarantine when Waterston started a charity platform app called Spare Hand, which she describes as “Tinder for charities.” Waterston says Law came out numerous times to volunteer and support the community.

The two will be reunited for the third and final installment of The Third Day, “Fall,” which is debuting as a live performance in between parts one and two of the limited series, titled “Summer” and “Winter,” respectively. The event was originally pitched as an interactive play, where the main cast would give a theater performance for a live audience in London, and was one of the reasons Waterston signed on for the role. But, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the cast is instead performing a 12-hour play, which will be broadcast live. Waterston calls the event “incredibly exciting” and “a little bit scary,” but thinking of all the challenges that come with such a physically demanding and unprecedented theater event — one of the show’s creators, Felix Barrett, is the founder of Punchdrunk, an interactive theater company — thrills her.

“It’s always a little bit difficult for me to identify the challenges [of a project], because obviously there are dark places [actors] go to in our work,” she says.

And after being in the industry for most of her life, Waterston deserves to treat herself, even if for her that means taking on a grueling role. “I have played a lot of [dark characters],” she acknowledges. “One of the pleasures with Third Day was just not being the person going through hell, you know? But I do like being the person going through hell because I like to be pushed and I like to explore the human condition.”

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Lili Reinhart’s Been Through Heartbreak. She Wants To Tell You About It.

August 18, 2020DMT Beauty

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“I am not the human being I was four months ago,” Lili Reinhart says during a recent Zoom call. The 23-year-old actress recently moved into her first home in Encino, CA, where she’s spent most of the last five months sheltering in place. It’s there that she’s been bonding with her beloved adopted puppy, Milo, widening her social group (“I recently befriended a porn star!”), and musing over her two forthcoming, intensely personal projects: Swimming Lessons, her debut book of poetry out September 29, and Chemical Hearts, an achingly tender teen drama streaming August 21 on Amazon.

Together, Swimming Lessons and Chemical Hearts act as a double feature introducing another side of Reinhart to the world. Best known for her starring role as Betty Cooper on the wickedly popular CW series, Riverdale, Reinhart has also had memorable turns in the 2016 indie Miss Stevens and 2019 hit Hustlers. While her new work feels more personal than anything else she’s ever done, it also feels like an organic evolution from not only her prior roles, but also her lived experience. Which is why, in order to understand this new Reinhart, it helps to understand the old Reinhart. And by “old,” I mean young.

Born in Cleveland, OH in 1996, Reinhart was always an entertainer. From an early age, she was given votes of confidence by her family and friends to pursue a career in acting. She started going to open calls in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh before she was even a teenager, which led to booking her first short film in New York City in 2010. Reinhart’s interest in acting is so innate that she doesn’t remember asking to audition, or having to beg her mom to drive her eight hours to New York City from Cleveland to audition — it was just something that was understood. “My mom really believed in me for some reason,” she says. “I think I need to ask my mom, ‘How could you have so much faith in me that you drove eight hours to New York in your blue minivan, as I made you listen to Glee songs the whole day, which I’m sure was just fucking miserable?’”

Reinhart moved to Los Angeles at 16 to live in a house with other young struggling actors, where she booked a few indie roles (Not Waving But Drowning, Kings of Summer) and a recurring role on the short-lived TV series Surviving Jack. “It was depressing,” she says of her experience in L.A. as a teenager. “When I first moved to L.A., my anxiety was so bad that I was throwing up every night.” Between the anxiety, depression, and rejection, Reinhart considered giving up acting. Her perseverance paid off, though; at the age of 19, she booked Riverdale, and was instantly hailed as an “overnight success.” At that point, Reinhart had already been a working actress for half her life.

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“You see someone’s success and you’re like, Oh shit, it came so easy to them,” she says, remembering the narrative around her career’s ascent. “No. It didn’t. Between [12 and 19] I was struggling being told no. I was broke. I was mentally unwell.” And though being cast on Riverdale would somewhat quickly solve the first of those two problems, mental health issues aren’t ever going to be resolved overnight; they take time and care to address. Which is why, with Riverdale having so totally occupied the past four years of her life, it’s only now, during the pandemic, that Reinhart has been able to find a moment to really reflect. “This has been the first time in four years where I’ve been able to like stop and process the immense life changes that I’ve gone through,” she says.

Reinhart is speaking to me perched atop an oversized couch, one of the few pieces of furniture in her still-sparsely decorated living room, her new home seems like the perfect blank slate to move forward from what she tells me felt like a “black tunnel [that] was never going to end.” She says, “I couldn’t see the light. I was like, I feel like I’m dying. It was fucking rough, and there’s no other way through it than just through it. I’ve seen a lot of people when it comes to heartache and grief and breakups, and they try to get that void filled with sex, with coke, with food, with drinking, [but] the void is still there. I took the road less traveled and just dealt with my shit. I had to face my own pain head-on.”

Pain — from heartbreak, from loss, from trauma — is something Reinhart is unafraid of exploring in her work. In both Riverdale and Hustlers, Reinhart’s brought depth to a perky girl-next-door character, exploring the many facets of teenage girlhood. Chemical Hearts, though, offers a different look at how pain manifests in a person, and that’s exactly what Reinhart loved about it, that it wasn’t a “niche 16-year-old drama,” she says. “If I was going to do a high school movie, it was going to be raw and emotional. In Riverdale, everything is go, go, go. It’s very in your fucking face all the time. This movie is not like that. It’s very pulled back — more grounded, more settled, and there’s more silence.”

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Based on a YA novel by Australian author Krystal Sutherland, Chemical Hearts is a movie about first love. It’s also about the type of extremely painful breakup that might make someone going through a breakup of their own turn away in order to protect themselves. But not Reinhart — that’s exactly what drew her to it.

In Chemical Hearts, Henry Page, a genial guy played by Euphoria’s Austin Abrams, narrates his tragic love story with new student Grace Town, played by Reinhart. Henry never thought much about love until Grace transfers to his high school and is recruited to join the school’s paper as his co-editor-in-chief. Henry falls hard for the mysterious figure and her tattered copy of 100 Love Sonnets. While Henry is the kind of guy who seems to crave his very own manic pixie dream girl, the movie — and Reinhart — steer clear of that trap by making Grace live up to and beyond the state of reverie he finds himself in when he’s around her.

The movie’s writer and director, Richard Tanne, says Reinhart was perfect for the part, but tells me, over the phone, that she brought something more than just her acting abilities. When he met her in Vancouver, “she was very unassuming,” he says, “and very determined to make a meaningful piece of art. I remember feeling very encouraged that we both wanted to embrace the darkness and the tragedy that permeates the book.” The two agreed that adding threads of darkness from romantic films like Blue Valentine, Blue Is the Warmest Color, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo would speak to the type of teen film they each wanted to create.

The result is a profoundly melancholic love story, more The Virgin Suicides than The Kissing Booth, in which just as much communication happens within uncomfortable silences and precisely composed shots as it does from the dialogue. As Grace, Reinhart speaks sparingly, conveying deep grief in subtle, but powerful ways. In order to transform into the broken-hearted girl who shields herself from the world, Reinhart went a little method (“I’m not Daniel Day-Lewis”), and fully embraced her own recent experiences with loss — a painful breakup, and the end of a friendship — to really let Grace take over.

“It was a delicate balance showing this girl who’s very clearly grieving, but not portraying her as a bitch,” Reinhart says. “A girl doesn’t have a smile on her face [and] people say, ‘Smile.’ It’s like, fuck you.”

Reinhart would probably love to say “fuck you” to a few people — or rather, a few thousand. As much as she has tried to keep her private life private, her on-again-off-again romance with her co-star and always-friend, Cole Sprouse (that W Magazine cover was a year ago), has led to intense public scrutiny, with countless complete strangers weighing in with uninformed opinions about highly intimate matters. To be honest, “fuck you” would probably be a polite response to some of what has been left in Reinhart’s Instagram comment section. And on top of all that, Reinhard is dealing with the very real turmoil associated with leaving a relationship.

“The last couple of months have probably [been] the most emotional few months of my entire life and my therapist [told] me, ‘Your body’s going through withdrawal from love,” she says. “‘You’re used to having this exchange of happy chemicals between you and the person that you’re with.’ In moments of my life, I have dropped every ounce of pride that I had just to be like, Love me. Please take the pain away for a day, a second, an hour, just so I can feel that fix again.”

As she says this, Reinhart is leaning casually on the back of her couch. The more vulnerable she gets, the more comfortable she looks. Make-up free in a white T-shirt, her damp, naturally curly hair slightly frizzing around her face, Reinhart doesn’t seem like a media-trained actress, practiced in providing polished soundbites: she seems free and open, like an artist.

Reinhart wrote a lot of poetry on the set of Chemical Hearts, using the time between takes to express herself in a different, still creative way. And even though her life has been imitating art for years now — “When I was 18, I actually considered being a stripper at one point,” she says, referencing Hustlers — it does feel oddly like fate that her debut book of poetry will be released at around the same time as her starring role as a young writer and poetry lover. Is it art imitating life, or is it just…life? Whatever it is, it’s overwhelming. “The most vulnerable thing I’ve ever done is publish a book of poetry where it’s basically my innermost thoughts and feelings written down in what, I think, is a beautiful form,” she says, almost laughing at the idea of her future trolls “judging the shit out of me for it.”

Reinhart’s ability to laugh off internet trolls comes courtesy of years of experience. Just recently, she gracefully handled Instagram commenters critiquing her appearance, asking if she was pregnant because she uploaded a bathing suit photo — she’s not, she just doesn’t have an “inverted stomach” and doesn’t let a scale dictate her life. She’s used to the negative attention now, and learning how to handle it has clearly made her stronger. It also means that she doesn’t care if she falls short of anyone else’s idea of what a poet is. “I don’t even call myself a poet,” she says. “Writer,” however, hits the spot.

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Whatever she calls herself, Reinhart’s entry into poetry comes from what she calls “typewriter poetry” — think, the relatable and quotable work you’ve seen on your feeds, by writers like Tyler Knott Gregson, Michael Faudet, and Lang Leav, that combines the aesthetics of a handcrafted note with the lyrical qualities of your favorite song about heartbreak. Reinhart and Leav, a Cambodian-Australian novelist and poet who rose to fame on Tumblr and Instagram for her relatable love poems, first connected on social media, and have now forged a virtual friendship. Leav recently asked Reinhart to write the foreword for her upcoming book, September Love, about — what else — relationships, heartbreak, and secret desire. “The foreword she wrote was achingly heartfelt and personal,” Leav tells me via email. “It was as though her voice was always meant to be part of the book.”

Leav also praised Reinhart’s Swimming Lessons, as well as her ability to exist creatively despite the public’s judgmental eye. “Her poetry is so raw and honest. It possesses an ethereal quality that is rare and wonderful,” Leav says, continuing, “In a small way, I can relate to some of her experiences over the last few years, being a woman and in the public spotlight. Social media can at times be vicious and cruel. It is such a hyper-moralistic and deeply hypocritical culture. I am amazed at how Lili handles it all with so much maturity and grace.”

The introduction to Swimming Lessons is an example of Reinhart taking control of her narrative before an unwelcome one can be imposed upon her by readers; in it, she makes it crystal clear that her writing is not simply a personal confession. Betty Cooper isn’t real, and neither is the Lili Reinhart that exists in her poetry — the emotions are the only truth that matters. Though Reinhart does write about the grief of a broken heart, she cautions that this shouldn’t be read as a commentary on one particular relationship — even if she can’t stop the world from thinking that. “I felt the need to write that because I was scared — and I am scared — that people are going to try and create their own idea of what my love life looked or looks like,” she says. “I’m not saying, My boyfriend fucked another woman. I’m saying, I felt betrayed.”

But Swimming Lessons doesn’t just offer tantalizing glimpses into Reinhart’s romantic history, real or imagined, it has a deeper emotional core, one hinted at in the book’s dedication. Reinhart says she wrote it for her Nana: “She passed away two years ago. She would’ve loved this. She loved hearing me sing as a kid. This book is like me singing. It’s my voice coming through in a written word.”

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Using her voice creatively is a skill she’s honing off the page, too, with future film and TV projects. It would be easy for Reinhart to just put her name on a film and sit out the tough conversations, but instead, she’s leaning in. Reinhart hints at an upcoming project with Netflix, where she’s signed on to produce a film with a Black woman director. Working on projects with powerful women isn’t new to Reinhart — she’s worked with four women directors and has an all-women team — but she’s now more conscious of making sure her future projects are diverse in ways that go beyond gender-inclusivity. “Asha [Bromfield, who plays Melody on Riverdale] made such a good point, where there’s an idea that if you have one Black person in your movie, you’re good, you’ve covered all the bases. As if one Black person is representative of the entire race,” she says, incredulously. “That was striking to me, because I wasn’t looking at it that way, because I’m fucking white, and I wasn’t asked to look at it that way.”

But now she is forcing herself to look at it that way, and using her institutional power to uplift others. “I’m a white woman and I want to make my films diverse,” she says, adding: “I produce specifically making sure that when I do have a character that isn’t white, it’s not in any ways boxing in or contributing to a stereotype that already exists. I think that’s what I can do from my position.” Reinhart, who came out as bisexual this June, says this also applies to LGBTQ+ roles and actors, too.

“I’ve made a point to make this time in my life, this pandemic, this quarantine helpful for me in some way,” she says. “I very much have looked inward and really worked on myself and I can feel myself having grown a lot. Even just the way I’m thinking is different and I’m less judgmental and I’m more open to meeting new people. I’ve gone out of my way to try to better myself as a human being.”

Filming on Riverdale’s fifth season begins soon, but Reinhart has her sights set beyond the series as she continues to shape her acting and producing career. But that doesn’t mean she’s done with writing: She already finished her second book of poetry. And when it comes to sharing even more of herself with the world, she says: “I’m ready.”

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Grace VanderWaal Is Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl

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“I’ve wanted to change my name so many times,” Grace VanderWaal tells me between taking sips of her latte. “I’ve always loved Eve or Evangela or Marie or Maria. I think all these names are so gorgeous and mysterious in a way. I just love them. Why didn’t they name me Evangela?”

That last question is directed at VanderWaal’s mom, Tina, who is sitting to my left, quietly knitting a rainbow beanie. They smirk at each other, in an instantly familiar way — Mom: Please stop. Daughter: Make me. This playfulness is one of VanderWaal’s most endearing qualities. It’s also proven to be pretty marketable. VanderWaal was just 12 years old when she first found fame on America’s Got Talent, performing an original song, “I Don’t Know My Name,” and showcasing a megawatt smile, bangs, and a voice that made even Simon Cowell say, “I think you’re the next Taylor Swift.”

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Now 16, VanderWaal charmed more than just the show’s judges: Her victory at the end of AGT’s eleventh season would result in the show’s highest-rated finale in six years, with almost 15 million viewers tuning in to see her play her signature ukulele — she now has her own line with Fender — on the intimidatingly large stage. The show was the ideal platform for America to get to know the name Grace VanderWaal, which makes it all the more interesting that, four years later, VanderWaal isn’t even sure she wants it anymore. But maybe wanting to reconstruct your identity is to be expected when someone achieves so much fame, so quickly.

After winning AGT, VanderWaal lived up to the promise of her initial viral performance: Throughout the remainder of 2016 and into 2017, the pre-teen performed everywhere, from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Austin City Limits, and even a few awards shows. She also released her first EP, Perfectly Imperfect, and later, an album, 2017’s Just the Beginning. Now, she’s perfecting the second half of her second EP, Letters, split into Volume 1, released in late 2019, and Volume 2, due out later this spring. Before that, though, comes her feature film debut as the titular Stargirl, based on the best-selling book by Jerry Spinelli, and out March 13 on Disney+.

Stargirl is an interesting role for VanderWaal, in part because she has more than a few things in common with the character she plays: They are both homeschooled, they are both talented singers, they both play the ukulele, they both develop a reputation of being unapologetically themselves, and they both find themselves with a very dedicated — and at times intimidating — fandom. And then there’s the fact that Stargirl literally renames herself, meaning that they both are working through some stuff when it comes to figuring out who they are in the world.

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“I still am so confused about my actual identity,” VanderWaal says. “Like two nights ago, I literally hyperventilated in my bed. I’m like, I am in skin. I will be in the skin for the rest of my life. She laughs, but she’s not entirely joking, and it’s clear that VanderWaal is trying to figure out how to match up how she feels on the inside with what people see on the outside.

One way she does this is through her art — she tells me that she recently wrote a song when she felt like she was struggling, because “I at least want to make money off it, if I’m going to stress about something.”

But her industry pragmatism is only part of her self-expression — lately, like so many of us do during an identity crisis, she’s been experimenting with her hair. After getting a short bob, she asked her hair stylist, with whom she’s been working since she was 12, to add two long, rattail-looking braids. VanderWaal can clip them in or take them out depending on her mood. “[My braids are] like accessories,” she says. “I just loved the way it made me feel.” Today, she’s braid-free, instead opting for a red and blue Chanel coat, which she doesn’t take off throughout the interview, with jeans and simple flats. (A few weeks after we meet, she’ll attend Chanel’s Paris Fashion Week show for the first time, joking that a photo from the event is her “clearest picture in 25 years.” Again, she’s 16.)

“I hate wearing something that I don’t feel nice [in],” she says of her personal style. “My mom knows I won’t leave the house if I don’t — not in a vain way, [but] it will ruin my day.”

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For someone who is hyperaware of and invested in defining her own image, VanderWaal has a challenge ahead of her when Stargirl comes out, since it’s natural that — given all her similarities to the character — people might start identifying them as being the same person. And she knows this. Speaking at a D23 panel in August, VanderWaal agreed that the role felt “meant to be,” but in front of me she’s more hesitant to say she’s the real-life Stargirl, as if identifying that way could prevent her from being seen as her own person, instead of just another manic pixie dream girl.

That doesn’t mean that VanderWaal sees Stargirl as just a trope — not at all. “She’s a real person — very real,” VanderWaal says. “That’s what’s supposed to be most apparent in the film.”

VanderWaal says she, along with her director, Julia Hart, and producer/screenwriter, Kristin Hahn, humanized the quirky character.

Hahn told me over email, “Stargirl has a profound acceptance of people for who they really are, which is a kind of innocence that shouldn’t be mistaken for naivety. Grace was able to capture this ineffable ‘worldly innocence’ that this character embodies in a way that never felt self-conscious — and that is a tall order, especially for your first big acting job. When I think of ‘natural talent,’ I think of Grace VanderWaal.”

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VanderWaal’s innate abilities come up a lot when people talk about her; via email, Hart told me that one of the most noticeable things about the actress was her “unbelievable gift for communicating emotionally with audiences through art.”

VanderWaal’s talents aren’t just artistic, though. She’s also naturally empathetic; Hart said, “Grace has an uncanny ability to become friends with people no matter how old they are or where they come from. She became as close to my 4-year-old son as she did to me.”

It’s no wonder, then, that VanderWaal has developed such a huge fan base; as of writing this, she has 3.5 million followers on Instagram, and she’s still figuring out how to navigate it all, telling me: “People don’t look up to people; people look up to celebrities. You can’t be real.”

Authenticity comes up a lot in our conversation, but VanderWaal thinks she’s got an advantage compared to other celebrities, since she’s spent all her teenage years in the spotlight: “I’m so grateful I was young, because I think that’s my out.”

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Of course, early fame isn’t without its own problems. VanderWaal is constantly asked about things that happened to her when she was 12, even though, at 16, her priorities are more normal things like getting her license, finishing her sophomore year of high school, and, oh yeah, completing her album and wondering if she’ll ever be more than just the girl with the ukulele from AGT.

In the movie, Stargirl grapples with what it means to abandon one identity and grow into another. VanderWaal faces a similar struggle, in figuring out how to exit the first phase of her life and smoothly end up on the other side, releasing music inspired by a combination of Kanye West and lo-fi jazz. The problem is that VanderWaal doesn’t quite know how to do that in a not-too-dramatic way. Her plan — one she’s had since she was little — is to run away somewhere and live a new life.

“You know that’s literally the ending of Stargirl,” I tell her.

“Dang it!” she says, grimacing. “But mine will be different. I will disappear. My mother will be worried. But I want you to know that my name is Evangela, I’m somewhere in France, I have long black hair, and I put on 20 pounds. Unrecognizable.”

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Shailene Woodley & Sebastian Stan Are The Definition Of Toxic In New Romantic Drama Endings, Beginnings

February 19, 2020DMT Beauty

#DMTBeautySpot #beauty

After starring in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, it only feels appropriate that Jamie Dornan hand-deliver at least one romantic role a year. This year’s role is one of his most endearing, and potentially heart-breaking, yet.

Dornan stars as Jack, one-third of the handsome budding love triangle in Drake Doremus’ upcoming release, Endings, Beginnings. Jack, along with Shailene Woodley’s Daphne and Sebastian Stan’s Frank, make up the rest of the complicated love affair which, in the trailer, looks as modern as it does messy. The trio first collides as Daphne, fresh off a long-term relationship, is swearing off men, that is until she meets two polar-opposite guys in one night — who also happen to be best friends. They’re both interesting, good-looking, and very into her.

From the title alone, viewers can anticipate the ending and beginning of new friendships, and even love affairs, but the trailer for the romantic drama leaves us wondering which pairing, if any, will make it to the end of the film.

For fans of Doremus, the movie, which is debuting its first trailer here on Refinery29 after premiering last year at Toronto Film Festival, hits all the marks: hot cast, brooding romance, and mostly improvised dialogue.

In late 2019, Stan told Refinery29 that while his character is the film’s resident bad boy, he really hopes its realistic portrayal of modern love resonates with viewers.

“We’ve all had relationships, and we know how tricky they are. They’re complex and there’s many layers,” he said, adding: “[Drake Dormeus] wants you to go, ‘I’ve had that conversation…been in that situation.’”

The most recognizable encounter from the trailer might also be its most toxic. In it, Daphne and Frank meet up at a bar to discuss this “thing” between them. Next thing, they’re on top of each other, despite knowing that they maybe definitely shouldn’t be doing this.

“Everything might not be okay,” Woodley says in a voiceover. “But that’s okay.” If you say so.

Check out the trailer debut, below.

Endings, Beginnings is in theaters, on digital, and on demand May 1.

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