HONEY DON’T! Star Margaret Qualley Covers VANITY FAIR’s March Issue

Pin

Margaret has made her own name in the family business, thanks to breakout roles in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD and THE SUBSTANCE. Now, with THE DOG STARS on the horizon, fans fawn over everything from her marriage to Jack Antonoff to the slight gap between her teeth.

In her cover interview, a typically guarded Margaret opened up to VANITY FAIR’s Marissa Meltzer about her path to success, her public persona, making career mistakes, and how husband Jack Antonoff helped her find confidence in herself.

Pin

Pin

On growing self-confidence in a challenging industry…

“I started working so young, and when I first started acting, I was just overwhelmed. I felt like if I was fully myself, women would hate me and men would hurt me. And so that took away some of the tools that come with being a woman because I was scared. Gradually, now that I feel like I have more control of my life, I can kind of lean more into the sensual and the feminine.”

“Jack [Antonoff] has helped me for sure, because he has made me feel more confident to explore all the parts of myself.”

A text message Margaret sent to VF author Marissa Meltzer following their first interview, in which Margaret was guarded about what to share…

“I love my husband, my family. I love dancing and horses. I love the moon. Happy crying is the best. I love listening to Tara Brach and books on tape. And anything Jack writes. Female friendships are so holy, shout out Talia Ryder. My sister was my first soulmate. I wanna die on a farm.
I need to learn how to drive stick, my brother tried to teach me but I was 12 and it didn’t land. Smokey, dog, god. I love you world, thank you for having me.”

Reflecting upon making mistakes throughout her career…

“I’m supercompetitive with myself, and I’m very driven,” she says. “I have learned the lesson of my eyes being too big for my stomach professionally. That means taking all the opportunities I can get and then crashing and feeling like I have a schedule I can’t keep up with.” She’s taken on roles she thinks were mistakes. “When I say mistakes, I don’t mean it was the wrong thing, I mean I wouldn’t do it again.”

Why she chooses to keep her private life an enigma…

“I don’t feel like I’m always good at representing myself publicly in real time, so I would almost rather say nothing at all? Because rather than have the wrong idea about me, someone just wouldn’t have any idea about me.”

On what roles she hopes to pursue in the future…

In the future she’d like to take on roles that explore her own darkness. She now thinks of filming a movie as one long meditation—she is a faithful student of twice-a-day Transcendental Meditation. “I used to use my job as an excuse to check out of my life. I find that now staying checked in to my life is the best medicine.”

[Photo Credit: Dan Jackson/Vanity Fair]

• Dan Jackson
• Editorials
• Magazines
• Margaret Qualley
• Vanity Fair