written by DOUGLAS GREENWOOD
photography SOPHIE SCOTT
It sounds like the setup for a shit joke: A popstar, comedian, and professional dater-turned-film director walk into an 18th-century mansion. They want to make a music video together. It could be chaos but also maybe awesome. It turns out it’s actually a little bit of both.
I arrive at Addington Palace in deep South London and accidentally saunter straight into shot: Maisie Peters, the big-gun British indie-pop girl, is filming the music video for her new track “My Regards.” Dressed in a black business suit, hair slicked and clipped into place, she is in bodyguard mode. Her client? A blue-jeaned Benito Skinner who, at this moment, is being set upon by a gaggle of rabid fans. Someone shouts “Cut!” It’s Chicken Shop Date creator Amelia Dimoldenberg.
This combination of characters was Peters’ idea. A mix of people she’d never properly met before but is a big fan of, like Skinner, and acquaintances who she shares a common language with, like Dimoldenberg. The song is a sexy, country subversion of the boy-protector and girl-protected narrative. For the video, Peters originally had a different idea: “When I was writing, I very much saw it as this old country-and-Western film, with me on my horse and my boyfriend behind me,” she says. But after sending the song to Dimoldenberg, she had a different idea, inspired by one line: “Call me Kevin Costner / The way I’m guarding his body.” And so here Peters is less cowboy, more CIA.
“When Amelia had this idea, that the reason I’m so protective of him is because it’s my job, it clicked into place,” Peters says. “Then we agreed that this man in the video had to be a sex icon, and we both thought: Benito Skinner.”
Skinner’s in the makeup chair getting touch-ups, looking good, he thinks, because he’s recovering from food poisoning. He’s having fun. His preparation was pretty easy. He just listened to the song 50 times. “Not having any lines is kind of explosive,” he says. “Like, it’s all in the eyes.” (For most of the video, his star persona wears sunglasses.)
“When my brain brought me Benny, I realized that adds another level to it, because I know how funny Benny is, but he’s also genuinely gorgeous,” Peter says. Dimoldenberg, understandably locked in for the day, told me later: “He was the final piece of the puzzle.” Following the creation of Chicken Shop Date and directing her first short film, she felt like she was ready to add something new to her bow. “Stepping behind the lens for my first music video has felt like a natural evolution,” she says. “I wanted this to feel playful, humorous, and in line with everything else I’ve done.”
“She’s so stoic, thoughtful, and sharp,” Skinner says of Dimoldenberg as a director. “I feel like she’s going to be doing this a lot.”
“My Regards” is one of the early teases of Florescence, Peters’ third studio album. It was recorded after a long and manic spell of live shows, touring her last LP, The Good Witch, and doing support slots for just about every significant star on the planet (Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Conan Gray). She had been tinkering away at what would come next on that journey—she’s the kind of artist that never really stops, and reckons she’s written at least 60 songs for the album—but found herself burnt out, hitting a wall. So she canceled some shows, came home, and decided to figure things out. “I know other artists will go into an album with the title already, and a whole thesis,” she says, but she works in retrospect, making and then shaping.
Much of that shaping happened in Nashville, where she linked up with Ian Fitchuk, the Grammy winner who worked on Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, to help bring things to life. Her writing partners this time around include Marcus Mumford and Julia Michaels, both of whom have features on the album.
Peters made her name as a pop star who was a little scorned and petty. Her past material, like “Psycho” and “Lost the Breakup,” offered opportunities for her to exorcise shitty old relationships. Each banger was a little teaspoon of salt in an ex’s morning coffee. But she’s 25 now, and Florescence feels like it’s written by someone assured and fulfilled. Even the quirkier tracks like “My Regards” are written from the POV of someone who knows they’re comfortable and loved. “While I was writing, I reminded myself that I’m a hopeful and forgiving person,” she says. “At this point in my life, I don’t have a lot of resentment towards people. I’m able to look back and see a lot of the relationships I had in a really new light. Maybe that’s growing up.”
On the “My Regards” set, she seems like an artist who has. I first met Peters when she was 17, in the offices at Atlantic Records, just after she got signed. The upside of having spent so much of your adolescence making music is that you can come into your own at the perfect time. She jokes about feeling 900 years old now. “Not every choice across my career I can stand by,” she insists, “whether that’s certain haircuts or outfits. But I do think musically, you can drop me wherever in my discography and I really stand by what I made.” She can say the same of Florescence, its own distinct, grown-up chapter. “It feels the most true to myself,” Peters says. “Who I actually am.”