Lifestyle

Françoise Hardy, French pop star and fashion icon, dies at 80

Published

2 years ago

June 13, 2024

Françoise Hardy, French pop star and fashion icon, dies at 80

Françoise Hardy, the French chanson singer, songwriter, fashion “It Girl” and darling of the 1960s “yé-yé” French pop movement, has died. She was 80.

Her death was announced Tuesday on Instagram by her son, Thomas Dutronc, who wrote, “Maman est partie” — “Mom is gone” in French — without specifying when or where she died. Hardy said in 2004 that she’d been diagnosed with lymphoma.

A superstar in Paris by the time she turned 20, Hardy released her debut single, “Tous les Garçons et les Filles” (“All the Boys and Girls”), in 1962. Across the following decades, she issued more than 30 studio albums, a body of work that was briefly interrupted by a late 1980s retirement.

Though hardly a household name in America — she sang most of her hits in her native tongue — Hardy was a phenomenon in her homeland, regarded both for her minor-key lyricism and her delicate delivery. She followed her first hit with “Le Temps de L’amour” (“The Time of Love”), which featured spacious, echoed production that captured the spirit of Gene Pitney’s sessions with Phil Spector. Songs including “La Maison Où J’ai Grandi” (“The House Where I Grew Up”) and “Comment te Dire Adieu” (“How to Say Goodbye to You”) pondered the absence of love and, once present, the futility of keeping it.

Director Roger Vadim, left, and stars Françoise Hardy and Jean Claude Brialy attend the premiere of “Château en Suède” (“Castle in Sweden”) in Paris on Nov. 19, 1963.

(Max Micol / Associated Press)

“In music, I like above all the slow, sad melodies, that stir the knife in the wound. Not in a way that plunges, but in a way that uplifts,” Hardy said, according to Frédéric Quinonero’s 2017 biography. “I still aspire to find the heartbreaking melody that will bring tears to my eyes. A melody whose quality gives it a sacred dimension.”

Often dismissed as an artist at the time due to her gender and beauty — a 1967 Reuters article identified her as “France’s sexy long-haired, mini-skirted singing idol” — Hardy drew on her skills as a writer and interpreter to render moot such simplistic descriptions. Her looks and charisma, however, did draw the attention of musicians such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones and the French singer Jacques Dutronc.

Many baby boomer music fans, in fact, learned of Hardy not through song but by reading a Dylan poem on the back of his 1964 album, “Another Side of Bob Dylan,” where the seemingly smitten Minnesota bard wrote (in lowercase), “for françoise hardy / at the seine’s edge / a giant shadow / of notre dame / seeks t’ grab my foot / sorbonne students / whirl by on thin bicycles…”

Hardy harnessed her early-1960s singing and songwriting success to become a renowned fashion icon, astrologer and published author. She also appeared in several films, including “Château en Suède” (1963), “What’s New Pussycat?” (1965) and “Grand Prix” (1966). As the decades progressed, her muse pushed her away from the commercially driven yé-yé sound toward pop-focused psychedelia, folk-rock and meditative adult pop.

“From when she was 18, she knew she was different,” producer Erick Benzi, who collaborated with Hardy for two decades, told Uncut in 2018. “She was capable of going in front of big artists like Charles Aznavour and saying, ‘Your song is crap, I don’t want to sing it.’ She never made compromises.”

Francoise Hardy walks past a middle-aged man wearing a suit and pretending to be asleep on a park bench

Born Jan. 17, 1944, during an air raid amid the final months of Germany’s occupation of France during World War II, Hardy was conceived through an affair between her mother and a much older, well-to-do married man. Her only sibling, sister Michele, arrived a year later.

Despite excelling at school and having a father from a higher social status, Hardy faced an adulthood similar to those of her middle-class peers. At one point as a teen, she recalled in her 2008 memoir, “The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles” (published in the U.S. in 2018), “my mother and I conjured up all the realistic careers open to me: executive secretary, medical secretary, nurse, pharmacist.” She added: “In secret I was nurturing the ambition of finding an activity with some connections to the musical style I had recently fallen for.”

When she was a teenager, as a reward for academic success, Hardy’s mother and father offered her a gift of her own choosing. She wavered between a radio and a guitar before going with the latter. “I will never know why I chose a guitar because a transistor radio was all I ever wanted,” she told the Guardian. “My future life would flow out of this crucial choice because, once I had this precious instrument in my hands, I started scratching out three chords over which I sang snatches of my own melodies.”

Alongside peers including Jane Birkin, Brigitte Bardot, France Gall and Sylvie Vartan, Hardy ascended to become a yé-yé hitmaker in her native Paris, drawing the attention of jet-setting pop stars, tastemakers and fashionistas from London, New York and Tokyo. As with other yé-yé singers, Hardy’s music blended mid-1960s bubblegum pop, groovy guitar lines and France’s romantic chanson tradition to create sticky-sweet love songs.

Hardy first visited Los Angeles in 1968 to record her English-language album “En Anglais” (“In English”) — although she had appeared onscreen at the Cinerama Dome two years earlier in John Frankenheimer’s race car movie “Grand Prix” — but never seemed too concerned with stateside success. It didn’t help that she suffered from stage fright.

James Garner sits in a race car wearing driving gloves and goggles around his neck as Françoise Hardy appears alongside

Her commanding presence drew the attention of the Paris fashion scene and she became a muse to designers such as André Courrèges, Emmanuelle Khanh and Yves Saint Laurent. Current Louis Vuitton creative director Nicolas Ghesquière called Hardy “the very essence of French style,” a trait apparent in the cover photos of Hardy’s first four albums, which were shot by fashion photographer (and then-boyfriend) Jean-Marie Périer.

“My songs had little interest compared to the Anglo-Saxon production. So I took it to heart to dress well every time I went to London or New York,” she told Vanity Fair in 2018, calling herself “above all a fashion ambassador.”

In the late 1960s, Hardy and Jacques Dutronc began a relationship that would last the rest of their lives. Their son, Thomas Dutronc, now a successful French singer, was born in 1973, and Hardy raised him as she continued to release some of her most expansive albums. The title track to ’73’s “Message Personnel” (“Personal Message”) is a gentle exploration of unrequited love and unspoken emotions lush with orchestral arrangements.

Hardy and Dutronc married in 1981 — purely for fiscal reasons, both stressed — but separated in 1988. Despite entering into other relationships, they never divorced and remained close. Her extended family life had its share of tragedy. According to Hardy’s memoir, in 1981 her father, with whom she had had little contact, was killed in his home by a male prostitute. As she also conveyed in her memoir, in the mid-2000s, her sister, who had long struggled with mental illness, died. Though the police investigation never officially confirmed the cause, Hardy believed her sister died by suicide.

Commercial success afforded Hardy the opportunity and time to fully explore her creativity; one main avenue was astrology. Introduced to the belief system in the 1960s, she immersed herself in the various schools of thought, ultimately studying with French writer Jean-Pierre Nicola. Using her fame to advocate for his methods, she eventually became the daily horoscope reader on Radio Monte Carlo. She released her astrology book “Les Rythmes du Zodiaque” (“Rhythms of the Zodiac”) in 2003.

Hardy published her first work of fiction, “L’Amour Fou” (“Crazy Love”) in 2012. Written as a companion to an album of the same name, its success kept her writing. Two books of essays followed in 2015 and 2016.

Hardy’s statements on politics drew ire from French liberals in 2012 when she stated that if Socialist Party candidate François Hollande were able to initiate his proposed 75% tax on millionaires, Hardy would “have to sell my apartment,” adding, “I’ll be on the street.”

Hardy lived long enough to see her recordings rediscovered by a new generation of listeners. She sang on a remix of the Britpop band Blur’s 1994 song “To the End,” and continued to release albums and collaborate with others for the rest of her life. In 2015, the respected archival label Light in the Attic reissued her first four albums. in 2021, Hardy and the French house group Bon Entendeur released an updated version of her early hit “Le Temps de L’amour.”

“No one can sing like Françoise,” Iggy Pop said in 1997 as he and Hardy were promoting their version of “I’ll Be Seeing You.” “Her emotional and musical accuracy combined with her sense of reserve and mystique make an indelible and very French impact on the listener. There’s no one else as good around.”

Eddy Mitchell, in sunglasses and black leather jacket, smoking a cigarette alongside Françoise Hardy

“It has always been a big surprise to me that people, even very good musicians, were moved by my voice,” Hardy told the Guardian. “I know its limitations, I always have. But I have chosen carefully. What a person sings is an expression of what they are. Luckily for me, the most beautiful songs are not happy songs. The songs we remember are the sad, romantic songs.”

Hardy, who survived lymphatic cancer in the mid-2000s, was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her ear in 2018. Later that year, she explained her situation in an email to the French magazine Femme Actuelle: “My physical suffering has already been so terrible that I am afraid that death will force me to go through even more physical suffering.”

Arguing on behalf of her right to die, she wrote: “It is not for the doctors to accede to each request, but to shorten the unnecessary suffering of an incurable disease from the moment it becomes unbearable.”

For an artist long drawn to the ways in which people cope with grief and sadness, her plight seemed aligned with the themes of her music.

“I sing about death in a very symbolic and even positive way. There is an acceptance there, too,” she told the Guardian. “At my age, I can really only sing about that one very special train that will take me out of this world. But, of course, I am also hoping that it will send me to the stars and help me discover the mystery of the cosmos.”

Hardy is survived by her husband and their son.

Lifestyle

For filmmaker Chloé Zhao, creative life was never linear

Published

7 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

For filmmaker Chloé Zhao, creative life was never linear

In 2021, Zhao made history as the first woman of color to win the best director Oscar for her film Nomadland. Her Oscar-nominated drama Hamnet has made $70 million worldwide.

Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

It took a very special kind of spirit to make Hamnet, which is nominated for best picture at this year’s Academy Awards. Chloé Zhao brought her uniquely sensitive, mind-body approach to directing the fictionalized story about how William Shakespeare was inspired to write his masterpiece Hamlet.

Zhao adapted the screenplay from a novel by Maggie O’Farrell, and for directing the film, she’s now nominated for an Oscar. She could make history by becoming the first woman to win the best director award more than once.

Zhao says she believes in ceremonies and rituals, in setting an intention, a mood, a vibration for any event. Before Hamnet premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, she led the audience in a guided meditation and a breathing exercise.

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes in Hamnet.

Zhao also likes to loosen up, like she did at a screening of Hamnet in Los Angeles last month, when she got the audience to get up and dance with her to a Rihanna song.

She, her cast and crew had regular dance parties during the production of Hamnet. So for our NPR photo shoot and interview at a Beverly Hills hotel, I invited her to share some music from her playlist. She chose a track she described as “drones and tones.”

Our photographer captured her in her filmy white gown, peeking contemplatively from behind the filmy white curtains of a balcony at the Waldorf Astoria.

Director Chloé Zhao at the Waldorf-Astoria in Beverly Hills.

Zhao says she believes in ceremonies and rituals, and makes them a part of her filmmaking process.

Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

Then Zhao and I sat down to talk.

“I had a dream that we were doing this interview,” I told her. “And it started with a photo shoot, and there was a glass globe –”

“No way!” she gasped.

It so happens that on the desk next to us, was a small glass globe — perhaps a paperweight.

I told her that in my dream, she was looking through the globe at some projected images. “We were having fun and it was like we didn’t want it to stop,” I said.

“Oh, well, me and the globe and the lights on the wall: they’re all part of you,” Zhao said. “They’re your inner crystal ball, your inner Chloé.”

“Inner Chloé?” I asked. “What is the inner Chloé like?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” she said. “Humbly, from my lineage and what I studied is that everything in a dream is a part of our own psyche.”

Dreams and symbols are very much a part of Zhao’s approach to filmmaking, which she describes as a magical and communal experience. She said it’s all part of her directing style.

Chloé Zhao used painting and dance to connect with actors on the set of her latest film Hamnet.

Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

“If you’re captain of any ship, you are not just giving instructions; people are also looking to you energetically as well,” she explained. “Whether it’s calmness, it’s groundedness, it’s feeling safe: then everyone else is going to tune to you.” Zhao says it has taken many years to get to this awareness. Her own journey began 43 years ago in Beijing, where she was born. She moved to the U.S. as a teen, and studied film at New York University where Spike Lee was one of her teachers. She continued honing her craft at the Sundance Institute labs — along with her friend Ryan Coogler and other indie filmmakers.

Over the years, Zhao’s film catalogue has been eclectic — from her indie debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me, set on a Lakota Sioux reservation, to the big-budget Marvel superhero movie Eternals. She got her first best director Oscar in 2021 for the best picture winner Nomadland. Next up is a reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“A creative life,” she notes, “is not a linear experience for me.”

The Real 'Hamnet' Died Centuries Ago, But This Novel Is Timeless

Zhao still lingers over the making of Hamnet, a very emotional story about the death of a child. During the production, Zhao says she used somatic and tantric exercises and rituals to open and close shooting days.

She also invited her lead actors Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley to help her set the mood on set. They danced, they painted, they meditated together.

“She created an atmosphere where everybody who chose to step in to tell this story was there for a reason that was deeply within them,” actress Jessie Buckley told me.

Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare's wife in Hamnet.

Buckley is a leading contender for this year’s best actress Oscar. She said that to prepare for her very intense role as William Shakespeare’s wife, Zhao asked her to write down her dreams “as a kind of access point, to gently stir the waters of where I was feeling.”

Buckley sent Zhao her writings, and also music she felt was “a tone and texture of that essence.”

That kind of became the ritual of how they worked together, Buckley said. “And not just the cast were moving together, but the crew were and the camera was really creating dynamics and a collective unconscious.”

Filmmaker and Hamnet producer Steven Spielberg calls Zhao’s empathy her superpower.

Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

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Bethany Mollenkof for NPR

That was incredibly useful for creating Hamnet — a story about communal grief. Steven Spielberg, who co-produced the film, called Zhao’s empathy her superpower.

“In every glance, in every pause and every touch, in every tear, in every single moment of this film, every choice that Chloé made is evidence of her fearlessness,” Spielberg said when awarding Zhao a Directors Guild of America award. “In Hamnet, Chloé also shows us that there can be life after grief.”

Zhao says it took five years and a midlife crisis for her to develop the emotional tools she used to make Hamnet.

“I hope it could give people a two-hour little ceremony,” she told me. “And in the end, I hope that a point of contact can be made. That means that there’s a heart opening. But it will be painful, right? Because when your heart opens, you feel all the things you usually don’t feel. And then a catharsis can emerge.”

As our interview time came to a close, I told Zhao I have my own little ritual at the end of every interview; I record a few minutes of room tone, the ambient sound of the space we’re in. It’s for production purposes, to smooth out the audio.

In 'Nomadland,' Discover The Joy And Sorrow Of The Road Less Traveled

Zhao knew just what I meant. She told me a story about her late friend Michael “Wolf” Snyder who was her sound recordist for Nomadland. “He said to me, ‘I don’t always need it, but just so you know, I am going to watch you. And when I tell that you are a little frazzled, I’m going to ask for a room tone … just to give you space.’” she recalled. “‘And if you feel like you need the silence space, you just look at me, nod. I’ll come ask for a room tone.’”

I closed our interview ceremony with that moment of silence, a moment of peace, for director Chloé Zhao.

Lifestyle

This spring, have a tea ceremony inside of an art installation and shop the latest Givenchy

Published

8 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

This spring, have a tea ceremony inside of an art installation and shop the latest Givenchy

Givenchy by Sarah Burton introduces the Snatch

Givenchy’s “The Snatch” handbag.

(Marc Piasecki / Getty Images)

Echoing the designer’s ready-to-wear sculptural designs, the Snatch from Givenchy by Sarah Burton is sensually shaped by the contours of the person who carries it. Its supple leather, fluid silhouette and three sizes allow it to slip effortlessly and intimately into the hand, over the shoulder or across the body. Now available. givenchy.com

Guess Jeans opens new L.A. store

In a move familiar to many millennials these days, Guess Jeans has returned home in its 45th year. The new flagship store in West Hollywood is both a return to its California roots and an envisioning of its future still ahead. While the brand may be an established icon, the store boldly reimagines the retail space as a living laboratory for design, craftsmanship and collaboration, with dedicated workshop and customization spaces. 8700 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. guess.com

Louis Vuitton’s new Color Blossom collection

Taylor Swift’s sky may be opalite, but the starry blue hues in the new jewels of Louis Vuitton’s Color Blossom collection belong to sodalite. Rarely used in jewelry, the dark navy of sodalite adds an unexpected layer of depth to Color Blossom’s existing luminous gemstone lineup. Sun and star motifs rendered in gold enhance the gem’s night sky coloring, while the classic flower designs celebrate the 130th anniversary of the Louis Vuitton Monogram. Sodalite pieces available March 6, entire collection available April 4. louisvuitton.com

Loro Piana debuts Library of Knits

L.A.’s (many) winter showers bring spring wildflowers, and a bouquet of Loro Piana’s new Library of Knits fits right into the vibrant spectacle. The exquisitely soft cashmere pieces in classic styles now come in over 20 shades inspired by Sergio Loro Piana’s personal wardrobe. With a spectrum ranging from blues and greens to corals and creams, it’s hard to choose just one for a frolic in the fields. Now available. loropiana.com

Margesherwood X Peanuts

Love is famously in the air this time of year, apparently even for cartoon characters. This enduring love is illustrated (literally) in the Margesherwood X Peanuts collaboration. Inspired by the heart-fluttering love letters Sally writes to Linus, the designs feature instantly recognizable motifs that marry the Peanuts’ charm with Margesherwood’s refined silhouettes. The zig-zag of that famous yellow shirt winkingly graces a crescent baguette, while the black stripes of Linus’s red red shirt wrap around a slouchy shoulder bag. For the true heads and lovers, there’s even a petite hobo emblazoned with Sally’s pet name for Linus: “FOR MY SWEET BABBOO.” Now available. margesherwood.com

Ryan Preciado at Hollyhock House

Ryan Preciado's site-responsive "Diary of a Fly" at Hollyhock House features Oaxacan-woven textiles.

Ryan Preciado’s new site-responsive installation at Hollyhock House, “Diary of a Fly,” is titled after a late-1930s musical composition by Béla Bartók that imitates the frenzied pace of a fly — a fitting name since his show reconceptualizes the experience of the springtime pest flitting around a house. Instead of hovering around overripe fruit or stalking a trash can long neglected, however, viewers are invited to take in Preciado’s Oaxacan-woven textiles and brightly colored sculptures situated throughout the city’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site. Open through April 25. 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles. hollyhockhouse.org

Veronica Fernandez at Anat Ebgi

Veronica Fernanadez's "Prey" filters childhood memories through experience and emotion.

In the figurative paintings of Veronica Fernandez’s first solo exhibition, “Prey,” the artist’s childhood is recalled through dreamlike and fantastical scenes, with memories filtered through experience and emotion. Many of her works place a child at the center of the scene among family, friends and caretakers, who usually appear shadow-like at the edges of the paintings. As a kid, Fernandez endured periods of homelessness. But rather than depict a childhood of adversity, her paintings empower the kids within them to claim their own space, imbuing her memories with strength and light. Open through April 4. 6150 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. anatebgi.com

Dior launches J’Adore Intense

Florals for spring can be groundbreaking, especially when they’re created with none other than Rihanna as their muse. Dior’s J’Adore Intense captures the scent of solar flowers — jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, violet — right before they burst into fruit. The result is a warm, bold, addictive fragrance that drips with sensuality and femininity, down to the curves of its signature gold and glass figure-eight amphora. In other words, it’s Rihanna in a bottle. Available now. dior.com

Rocky’s Matcha X Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán

Rocky's Matcha hosts Japanese tea ceremonies in an ensō-inspired tea house from Oscar Tuazon at Morán Morán.

The single, uninhibited brushstroke of the ensō, the circular form in Zen art, serves as a record of a moment. Commissioned by Rocky’s Matcha, Oscar Tuazon’s “Circle House” at Morán Morán shares both the ensō’s form and its call to mindfulness. In the artist’s tea house, constructed from cardboard, wood and tatami mats, architecture is inseparable from ritual: visitors will soon be able to partake in a Japanese tea ceremony inside the installation, thereby participating in a choreography of attention not unlike the act of gliding an ink brush across a sheet of washi. Open through December 31. 641 N. Western Ave. Los Angeles. Subscribe to rocky’s newsletter for tea ceremony information. rockysmatcha.com and moranmorangallery.com

Celebrate Mr. Wash’s new book, “Artists in Space”

Celebrate the launch of Mr. Wash's new book of studio visits and interviews with other L.A. artists.

Make your first BBQ of the season a meaningful one at the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, where Compton artist and criminal justice advocate, Mr. Wash, will celebrate the release of his book “Artists in Space.” Proceeds from the book, which features interviews and studio visits with 20 Angeleno residents, go toward establishing the new community center where individuals returning home from incarceration will have access to art classes, creative residencies and housing. Mr. Wash will be in conversation with Patrisse Culllors and Evan Pricco (co-publisher and founder of the Unibrow) as well as displaying new works. The event is on March 7 from 2-6 p.m. 15 W. Rosecrans Ave., Compton. artbywash.com

Lifestyle

‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Published

19 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘Hamnet’ star Jessie Buckley looks for the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.

Kate Green/Getty Images

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Kate Green/Getty Images

Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.

Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.

But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”

The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.

Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.

Lewis Pullman and Danielle Brooks announced the 2026 Oscar nominees early Thursday morning in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 98th Academy Awards ceremony will be held on March 15.

“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.

Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

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Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features

Interview highlights

On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies

I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …

The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.

On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up

I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.

On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance

I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.

On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant

I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.

Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.

I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.

On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works

I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.

Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.