The Girls Are All Right

PHOTOGRAPHY SHARIF HAMZA | FASHION LORENZO POSOCCO | TEXT MAXWELL WILLIAMS

KOTA EBERHARDT X-MEN'S NEXT VAMP

KOTA WEARS: COAT BOSS | BRA DKNY | RINGS BULGARI | EARRING ALAN CROCETTI

The first thing one notices in Dark Phoenix's promo imagery may be the presence of Selene. The vampiric villain, making her first appearance in the live-action X-Men universe this summer, is played by Kota Eberhardt, who, on a call from her Bushwick home, points us to another first for the franchise— a subtle call out to Indigenous culture.

“[My character's tattoos] are indicative of Indigenous culture; I’m part Sioux,” Eberhardt says. “I like that they pay homage to that. Those tattoos are not an appropriation thing— they're on someone of Indigenous blood. So, to me, it’s really super meaningful.”

Though Selene is a relatively deep cut even for wellversed Marvel fans, the character possesses an inventive range of pyrokinesis, clairvoyance, and body-snatching. “She has many names: the Black Queen, the Moon Goddess, Mistress of the Fire,” says Eberhardt. “She’s one of the most incredible underrated Mutants ever. She’s 17,000 years old, and considered to be secretly the most powerful. She has tons of physical attributes, and powers that make her super dynamic. I'm curious to see where [Selene] goes.”

An established model, Eberhardt may be most recognizable from her appearance in Pharrell’s “Happy” video. But modeling, let alone blockbuster drama, wasn’t always in the cards. Growing up in suburban Virginia, she lost her mother at 17 to addiction. Her single father then raised her, intent on scholarly pursuits. Eberhardt was a cardiovascular research student at Howard University when the camera came calling (literally—Bruce Weber discovered her while she was relaxing at Virginia Beach). “It’s a crazy journey,” she laughs. “When I found acting, and the ability to express myself, it made a lot of sense. I felt like why I was doing medicine was to make drugs that did good for the world. When I discovered that I could do the same thing in acting, that I could heal people—that by liberating myself in storytelling, I could liberate others—it was an amazing revelation for me.”

The next step for Eberhardt is to write her own films, enabling her to tell her full story. “I want to tell the story of my mother’s life,” she says. “I want to tell a story about reckless youthfulness, femininity, sexuality. What it means to be black in America or Native [in America]. Really big concepts."

SADIE SINK STRANGER NO MORE

SADIE WEARS: COAT CHANEL | TOP GUESS

When Sadie Sink was little, she and her brother would watch live tapings of Broadway plays obsessively, then attempt to recreate the shows for their family. “My mom, eventually, was like, ‘Okay, you guys need to get out and do this stuff already,’” she says. “So we moved out into community theaters in our small town, and then eventually regional theater in Houston, and then somehow—both me and my brother around the same time—sent in tapes to audition for Broadway shows, and my brother got into Elf on Broadway and I got Annie.”

This earned Sink even more acclaim; she played a young Queen Elizabeth in 2015's The Audience starring Helen Mirren before pivoting to TV and film (The Americans; Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; The Glass Castle). But not until signing on to Stranger Things 2 did, as Sink recalls, "everything change.”

The attention drove the now-17-year-old to have to go most places incognito, donning a hat and sunglasses. While fan fervor during the show's off-season is less intense, its third installment, which hit Netflix on the Fourth of July, is bound to set off plenty more fireworks.

“I can’t say too much, but Season Three is my personal favorite,” says Sink. “This time, you not only get the sci-fi, supernatural element that Stranger Things is known for, but you also get a deeper look into the characters’ personal lives at the beginning of the season. It’s nice to get to know your characters when they’re not in the Upside Down or fighting Demagorgons or dealing with government conspiracies.”

Next up for Sink are starring turns in a few more scary scenarios: Eli, a supernatural thriller set in a haunted hospital (launching on Netflix this year), and the second installment of the R.L. Stine trilogy Fear Street, which is set for 2020. In between, she’s focusing on a healthy lifestyle off-camera— she’s been vegan for four years—lots of yoga, and, of course, scouting out future productions.

“For me, it depends on the character,” Sink explains. “When I’m looking at a potential project, I have to love the script, but I’m really looking for cool characters that are going to be fun to play, that I can not only relate to, but that will also be a challenge." She pauses for a second, then adds: "I’d love to try some kind of period piece. But instead of the 1980s [like Stranger Things], more like the 1800s."

LILLIYA SCARLETT REID ART-HOUSE VIDEO VIXEN

LILLIYA WEARS: COAT BOSS | NECKLACE CARTIER | EARRINGS HER OWN

"Someone looking at my Google search history would probably be freaked out, like, ‘This girl has issues,’” says Lilliya Scarlett Reid with a snicker. Reid, 18, is talking about painting, which she has done for as long as she can remember. “I’ll look at surgical pictures or photos from autopsies for reference. I’ll have those images in my head, and that’s what I’ll paint."

Reid's burgeoning acting career takes on similar tones. Her first major part was on Chambers, a Twin-Peaks-meets- Supernatural bonechiller that debuted on Netflix in late April. Reid plays the spectral role of the late Becky LeFevre, a high achiever whose seemingly charmed life comes to an untimely, mysterious end. As Becky's organ-donated heart wreaks uncanny havoc on its recipient, the cracks in her family (mom Uma Thurman, dad Tony Goldwyn, and twin brother, played by Nicholas Galitzine) emerge.

“It was [a] really interesting [role] to play; we’re close in age, but [unlike Becky] I wasn't a normal teenager at all, because I did homeschool," Reid says. "I had to put myself into the shoes of this girl who was amazing at everything; that was her thing. But then she also had all this secret damage, and a secret life. She was being tormented.”

The daughter of two writers, Reid moved from Livingston, Montana to L.A. when her father landed a showrunning job. There Reid began going out on auditions to act, but hindered by her height, she found little success at first. “I’m 5-foot-11 so I’ve always been taller than the age I would be playing. It was really frustrating,” Reid says. Of course, it's that outlier trait that has since landed her a Versus Versace campaign and the holy grail of a modeling track: the music video cameo. In 2018, Shawn Mendes enlisted her to put her hands all over him for his "Nervous" video.

These days Reid is continuing to go on auditions, and simultaneously focusing on her painting career. But a dive into her artistic oeuvre, which conjures the impressionistic gore of Francis Bacon or Goya, suggests a possible backup career. “I’m very into oral hygiene,” she says. “I used to [only paint] teeth. I just love them." However idiosyncratic, Reid's interest in dental care seems rooted in the soul-baring work of acting after all: "It’s the only part of your skeleton that is exposed,” she adds with an audible smile.

LEYNA BLOOM QUEEN OF CANNES

LEYNA WEARS: TOP, PANTS, BELT SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO | BRA DKNY

In Port Authority, protagonist Paul arrives in New York from the Midwest and is immediately captivated by a young voguer in the street named Wye, played by Leyna Bloom. “She’s a super humble girl,” says Bloom. “She works at a coffee shop, and she does ballroom by night. She knows where she belongs in the world, and she just wants people to come together and be happy. She wants everyone to feel connected, and I love that.”

An established but underground-by-nature dance circuit catering to trans and queer people of color, the voguing scene is in the midst of a pop-cultural boon, with creators like Ryan Murphy adapting it for his glossy FX series Pose. Then in May, Bloom, who like Wye is a member of New York ball culture, became the first trans woman of color to lead a film at Cannes—a platform she used to channel her communityoriented roots. “I took every woman who is trans with me to Cannes,” Bloom says.

Port Authority's first-time director Danielle Lessovitz made sure to involve prominent members of the New York "kiki"—a youth-centric offspring of ballroom. “This is Leyna's first feature, and the same is true of anyone in the kiki scenes,” says producer and manager Damian Bao.

Trained as a ballerina, Bloom was performing on the American Ballet Theatre stage by 14. She played the Scarecrow in a production of The Wiz at the South Shore Cultural Center in her hometown of Chicago, and has been modeling since she moved to New York, walking for Tommy Hilfiger in Paris and for Chromat.

As graceful as she is, gliding from runway to stage to screen, Bloom says starring in a Cannes-worthy film (produced by Martin Scorsese no less) didn’t come without a fight. Though now on the precipice of stardom, she says her journey included a period in which she teetered on homelessness—an experience she credits with keeping her grounded. Back on her feet and then some, Bloom hopes to chassé through the industry's many-layered glass ceilings.

“There’s nothing that can limit me now; I want to be a Bond Girl. I want to go to the audition to be Cleopatra,” she says. "I want to work with filmmakers who take risks. I think we’re in a time where we can do that: take where we’re at right now and really make it explode... All over the world."