W Magazine’s 2023 Best Performances Portfolio, part of their annual Best Performances issue on stands February 7th, celebrates 32 incredible actors at the forefront of cinema. Curated by W’s editor-at-large, Lynn Hirschberg, the Best Performances Portfolio features profiles with Paul Mescal (Aftersun), Danielle Deadwyler (Till), Kate Hudson (Glass Onion), and Diego Calva (Babylon) among others, photographed by Jamie Hawkesworth and styled by W Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Sara Moonves.
PAUL MESCAL
On his first kiss: “The first kiss doesn’t really count, because it was more of a headbutt. It was one of those arranged kisses at a friend’s birthday party. I misjudged my calculation in terms of entering the kiss, and we kind of smacked heads and ran away. My first proper kiss was very unglamorous. It was behind a white van in a housing estate.”
On how he initially wanted to be an athlete rather than an actor: “When I was young, Gaelic football was the thing that I was good at. But my school has an amazing policy where everybody has to audition for the school musical in their fourth year. It was a big one—The Phantom of the Opera—and I ended up playing the Phantom. That probably changed my life.”
DANIELLE DEADWYLER
On how they handled the heaviness of the film’s subject matter: “…The weight of the material was always present, so it was imperative for us to counterbalance the great mother lode with levity. We were laughing all the time. I was singing gospel music, and I am not a gospel singer. We were playing jokes and just cracking on each other. It was really beautiful to have both, because Black life can’t exist without the balance. Whoopi was cracking jokes all the time, in between takes, and all that good stuff.”
KATE HUDSON
On her first kiss: “It was at a party. We were friends. It was “Chris wants to kiss you,” and I was like, “Oh great.” And then we did, and it was really sweet. We kissed, we hung out, and then I was like—maybe I’m not ready for this. Maybe I need to be alone and independent. I think it foreshadowed the rest of my life.”
On a particularly dramatic entrance during a scene in Glass Onion: “The pool scene! As my clothes fall off! You know, I don’t shy away from an entrance. That’s part of why I wanted to be an actress. There’s something thrilling about moments like that. This is a girl who’s been tucked and nipped, and I’m sure she’s getting every machine all over her body. So while the rest of the cast were having their Aperol Spritzes on the beach in Greece, I was staring at them longingly going, ‘When is the bikini scene going to be done?’”
DIEGO CALVA
On how he got his debut role in Babylon: “I’m Mexican, and Damien Chazelle, the director of Babylon, saw a picture of me somewhere on the Internet. It was one of my first headshots. He sent me a message, and that was it. Damien worked with me a lot on the part. I lived in his house for 10 days! We—Damien; his wife, Olivia Hamilton; and I—rehearsed the whole movie in his backyard. On the day that we started shooting, I told Brad Pitt, ‘Hey, I even know your lines.’”
[Photo Credit: Jamie Hawkesworth/W Magazine]
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