Callie Hernandez
Texas native Callie Hernandez was busy dedicating her life to playing the cello and making music in bands, when a string of unlucky events forced a change in her perspective and lead her to acting. “I went on a two week tour playing cello with a good friend of mine, driving through the Pacific Northwest,” she explains. “I guess I kind of came to grips with the fact that I was miserable in my life at that point. By the time I got back to Austin, everything shifted. It always sounds like bullshit when I talk about it, but I became suddenly very aware of what I wanted to change. And I did. I suddenly knew I wanted to act.” Callie must have been destined to make this fortuitous decision. “I found all these ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ sort of time capsules you fill out in elementary school. Every single one of them said ‘actor.’ But it got buried somewhere along the way. It wasn’t until a few years back that I came back around to it.” She clearly has the talent necessary to get noticed in Hollywood. In a few short years, she’s already acted alongside Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the much lauded La La Land, scored a role in the forthcoming Ridley Scott directed Alien: Covenant, and is currently working on Under the Silver Lake, a neo-noirish L.A. crime thriller also out in 2017. Next year is looking good for Callie.
Text Clementine de Pressigny
Tallulah Willis
Acting runs in Tallulah Willis’s blood. Daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, she made her film debut in her mother’s cult classic The Scarlet Letter aged one. She joined her father in Bandits and The Whole Ten Yards before she’d even started high school. Today an illustrator by trade, the Idaho raised, L.A. living 22-year-old has used the last 12 months to hone in on the ways in which gender inspires her. She worked on a recent project with photographer Natalia Mantini, which culminated in the design and sale of t-shirts in aid of Planned Parenthood. Modeled by the likes of Adwoa Aboah, Grace Miceli, and Alexandra Marzella, the tees came emblazoned with the slogan ‘ours not yours’ and quickly established Tallulah in a world of switched-on millennial activism not often associated with the offspring of Hollywood royalty. “It is a very odd feeling walking into a room and knowing that people already have a set opinion about you,” she says on the occasional assumptions that come with a family name she shares with sisters Rumer and Scout. Of course, Tallulah cites her mother, along with artist Ilona Royce Smithkin, as her biggest role models. With such a strong female presence in her life, what does the word feminism mean to her in 2016? “It’s about viewing oneself and others from an all-encompassing lens of acceptance and love,” she replies. “We live in a social climate where gender is more fluid than it has ever been. It should not be grounds to dictate the way a human being is treated.”
Text Matthew Whitehouse
Zoe Levin
Zoe Levin always dreamed of being a film star but growing up in Chicago, she never thought it possible. “I was doing a lot of acting in theatres back in Chicago,” the 22-year-old recalls. “It was always so much fun but I never thought I could make a career out of it.” Good luck prevailed, and at 18, she was whisked off to Los Angeles after landing the part of Steph in the coming-of-age movie, The Way Way Back. “It was very serendipitous,” she says, modestly, “I was in the right place at the right time.” While luck may have got her to Hollywood, it’s Zoe’s natural talent that’s kept her there. In 2013, she was cast in Gia Coppola’s debut feature Palo Alto, in which she plays the role of Emily, a popular kid with a bad reputation. There she met James Franco, who cast her in his upcoming film The Long Home. “I love playing all these different characters,” she gushes. “With acting you get to be another person, it’s incredible that I get to do that as my job.” Zoe is looking to breakout of her comfort zone. “I started off working when I was a teenager, and all my roles have been high school kids,” she muses. “Now I’m trying to become a woman. It’ll be interesting to see that transition mirrored in my acting.”
Text Tish Weinstock
Emily Robinson
Politically engaged and socially aware, actress and native New Yorker Emily Robinson forms part of a new guard propelling Hollywood and its outdated conventions into the future. “I think the main thing that sets my generation apart from actors before us is access. We have every resource at our fingertips. We have the power to go deeper than before.” At 18 years old, finding depth in characters and stories certainly comes as second nature. Shaped by her experiences working on Transparent over the past two years, Amazon Prime’s critically acclaimed, award-winning series about a father’s transition from male to female, this year Emily was inspired to direct and star in her own film, Virgin Territory, about a young girl’s sexual awakening. “Transparent helped drive me to create the content I wanted to see. Virgin Territory was born out of a frustration over the lack of female-led movies that explore sex-positive, queer themes. We need to hear the stories the world has been missing out on due to prejudices and fear. More people of color, more three dimensional women, more LGBTQ+ roles.” With seven films slated for release this year, Emily’s star is certainly in the ascent. With an ambition to “make the big screen look like the real world,” we can’t wait to see her shine.
Text Ryan White
Credits
Photography Gia Coppola
Styling Heathermary Jackson
Hair Jamal Hammadi at Art Department
Make-up Tracy Alfajora at Jed Root
Photography assistance Nicole Netzah
Styling assistance Jordyn Payne, Quan Nguyen
Models Callie Hernandez. Tallulah Willis. Zoe Levin. Emily Robinson.