“What are you wearing?” I ask Zazie Beetz, promising her my
intentions are innocent after the somewhat awkward question leaves
my mouth. I should preface by saying this isn’t a typical cover
story interview. Beetz and I are not at her favorite local coffee
shop or traipsing a buzzy new exhibit together. Instead, she is
dialing in from her Toronto hotel, and I’m sitting in a phone
room at the Who What Wear headquarters in West Hollywood, so some
context is needed. She laughs and gives me the unglamorous truth:
“Well, I am, in fact, in bed, so what I’m wearing right now
actually is matching thermal long underwear. They are army green,
and I got them in Germany from a surplus store.”

The long-distance phone call is a result of Beetz’s
relentless work and travel schedule. After wrapping production on
the fantasy drama Nine Days in late August, Beetz headed straight
to the Venice Film Festival to promote projects Seberg and Joker.
Then she was on to the Toronto Film Festival for Seberg (again) and
the Natalie Portman–led astronaut drama Lucy in the Sky, kicking
off what is sure to be a lengthy award season run. Her choice of
arresting looks by Rodarte, Miu Miu, and Valentino for the events
foreshadows an exciting red carpet run as well. But for now, during
a rare 45-minute break between juggling junkets, red carpet
appearances, and parties, Beetz’s choice in comfortable sleepwear
is a fitting one.

When I first met Beetz four months ago on the set of this cover
shoot, I made a point to listen intently when she introduced
herself. “You can think of it like the sea, Zazie,” she says.
“The second Z sounds like an S.” It’s important to get the
pronunciation correct—not just for future interactions, but
because the actress is on the fast track to household-name status.
Though, there’s a good chance many of you are already familiar
with her. For the past few years, Beetz has successfully
double-dipped in film and television, demonstrating her impressive
range with projects like Donald Glover’s dark comedy Atlanta
(which last year earned her an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting
Actress in a Comedy Series), the big-budget Marvel franchise
Deadpool 2, and the Netflix series Easy. But for the moment, Beetz
is spending some quality time on the big screen, where she prefers
it. “I’ve always been a film girl,” she tells me. 

Things kick off this month with Beetz starring opposite Joaquin
Phoenix in Joker, Warner Brothers’ highly anticipated origin
story of the famed DC Comics character. While this isn’t the
first telling of the Joker’s story (or the last, if we had to
guess), director Todd Phillips’s interpretation focuses on
somewhat humanizing the dark character, pulling back the curtain on
the disheartening series of events that ultimately inform his evil
stature. It’s a version of the story that has already earned
praise from audiences and critics out of Venice. “I think
what’s special about this Joker is that it’s a really human
story for a character that we don’t necessarily reserve empathy
for, or that we’ve historically decided to sort of keep at
arm’s length because we’ve labeled him the villain versus
really following his arc,” Beetz says. “I think that’s what
really drew me to this film, the kind of heart placed somewhere
that we usually don’t see.” 

Having empathy for even the most unlikable characters is
something Beetz credits to being raised between Berlin and New York
City. There’s a giddiness to her voice when she speaks of
spending her childhood summers, and most winters, with her
grandparents in Germany, a place that still feels very much like
home to her and where she plans to put down roots in the
not-too-distant future. It’s not lost on Beetz that, from a very
young age, her unique upbringing has afforded her a more open mind
to different cultures and ways of living while also influencing her
ability to transform into a mélange of characters, good or
bad. 

“Germany is different,” she says. “I think there is a lot
of me that has been influenced by that. I think my general sense of
empathy is much larger. I have a good ability of really putting
myself in anybody’s shoes, and I think that’s partially why I’m
drawn to acting. Acting is an interesting profession where, whoever
you’re playing, you can’t judge them. If you’re playing a terrible
person, you have to empathize with them, and you have to be them
and see it from their point of view. I think a lot of that has to
do with how I grew up.”

You could say a career in the arts was always in the cards for
Beetz. A self-proclaimed creative soul, she dabbled in everything
from acting and painting to singing and sewing while growing up.
With so many interests, which she partially attributes to being a
Gemini, attending a performing arts high school was par for the
course. Yet come college, she pursued a different path and embraced
another of her loves: languages. Majoring in French gave Beetz the
opportunity to study abroad in Paris, turned out to be one of the
most important and formative times in her life. But she still
couldn’t deny the pull of acting; it had been such a constant in
her life since the age of 7 when she got her start in community
theater. “I had this strong feeling that I should be
auditioning,” Beetz tells me of her final college years. “I
don’t know if I was just kind of done with school and wanted to
begin my life in more of a real way, or if it was sort of a higher
calling.” 

A higher calling sounds about right. While most struggle to
break into the industry, Beetz found luck with her career right out
of the gate. As with most aspiring actors, Beetz waited tables on
the side, carrying around multiple outfits at all times and
prepared to audition at a moment’s notice. She landed her first
small role in an indie project early on and a supporting role in
another indie shortly thereafter. “It was just like, Yay,
another!” she laughs. She had every intention of going back to
the restaurant life when she received the call that would change
everything. Beetz tells me her audition for Atlanta was very
normal, and although she knew the show’s creator and star Donald
Glover had a following, she could have never anticipated the extent
to which the FX series would put her, and many of her costars, on
the map. The series would line up consistent work and open new
doors for Beetz, who went on to land the role of Domino in
Marvel’s Deadpool 2.  

With multiple buzzy projects under her belt and three
award-worthy films hitting screens this fall, it’s clear
Beetz’s project-picking philosophy is a good one. She’s at a
stage in her career where she can be more selective, something she
knows is a privilege in this business. When I ask about her
methods, she tells me a new project has to be something she herself
would want to watch, which she knows will change as she does. At
the moment, those stories range from a humanizing portrayal of a
legendary villain (Joker), a biopic about an ill-fated starlet who
becomes the target of an illegal FBI project for her support of the
Black Panther Party (Seberg), and a science-fiction drama about a
female astronaut who loses connection to her life on earth (Lucy in
the Sky). 

When making a decision, Beetz focuses on the quality of the
script. “I think it can be really hard to make a project work if
the script isn’t working,” she shares. “It’s the skeleton
of the story. If you don’t have that, then there’s nothing for
any flesh or blood or organs or skin to sit on. I’m not really
interested in exploring easy stories. I always want to see the gray
area in the world. I find as I get older I’m functioning more and
more in the gray and trying to let go of binary interpretations of
life, which I think goes back again to kind of being able to step
into empathy for other people.”

Beetz’s eye for great storytelling can be matched, as we’ve
learned, by her eye for fashion. Last year’s Emmy Awards, where
she stepped onto the red carpet in a deep crimson bejeweled Ralph
Lauren gown, stands out as the pivotal moment I knew this was a
girl to be watched. Her love of dressing up really shined through
on the set of our shoot, where she indulged in trying on power
looks by Paco Rabanne, Norma Kamali, and Acne Studios, and then
later when she told me about being inspired by ‘90s harajuku
street style. In her teens, she would make her own clothes, taking
a page from Gwen Stefani by cutting up old items and transforming
them into new pieces. “I just always felt so expressive in
that,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s almost like a
costume or if it’s a shield feeling. I just always felt very
drawn to playing characters with my outfits.” 

Beetz’s relationship with red carpet dressing, however, has
proven more complicated. “Sometimes it feels like it’s for
other people,” she says. “Especially since it can also be a
political thing about who you’re wearing and when you’re
wearing it, so that has sometimes been a little difficult to
navigate.” This is not to say that Beetz hasn’t found her way.
She recently started working with stylist Solange Franklin, and
together the two are proving to be a dynamic duo. “I love
collaborating with Zazie because she has a visceral sense of what
appeals to her, and I feel I have the freedom to exercise my
vision,” Franklin tells us of working with the actress. “Zazie
is a chameleon, but her look is underscored with confidence and
subtle rebellion.” Beetz echoes Franklin, saying, “I’m learning
how to be more forthright with what I enjoy and what is important
for me to wear. I think throughout my career, or just in general,
it’s always been very important to me to just remain loyal to
myself.” If Beetz’s looks at the late summer film festivals (a
palatable mix of sultry silhouettes and bold off-the-shoulder
numbers) were an amuse-bouche to what is to come from her and
Franklin, we can’t wait for the main course. 

Eventually a publicist chimes in to let us know it’s time to
wrap up the interview, so Beetz leaves me with these perfect
parting words: “In the end, it’s also just clothes, so let’s just
play. I just want to play.” I couldn’t have said it better.
 

Production Credits: 

Photographer:
Max Hirschberger 

Hair:
Lacy Redway 

Makeup:
Tyron Machhausen 

Stylist:
Shibon Kennedy 

Video:
Samuel Schultz 

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