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With all the attitude and allure, Silvers has also gained fans in the high-fashion cliques. She floats around her garden in printed silks for Hedi Slimane’s latest Celine collection. Dons blue jeans and an artist collab T-shirt to deliver a message on sustainability for Stella McCartney. Head-to-platform-booted- toes in Chanel at the brand’s show at the Grand Palais in Paris. At Ralph Lauren in New York, she stood out from the frost-
ed blondes at her table in a black and white tux, slicked hair, panda-black eyes, vamp lipstick and spike heels that would have Sally Bowles high-kicking chairs in delight.
When you’re a rising star, rather than a model-among-ma- ny, the fashion world opens up like a flower in the garden,
and becomes a glamorous playground dipped in the magi-
cal. For example, Silvers took her mother Christina with her
to the Miu Miu female filmmaker focussed ‘Women’s Tales’ jamboree during the Venice Film Festival of 2019, where they zipped around piazzas and palazzos with Hunter Schafer, Tessa Thompson, and other bright young film sprites. “Venice!” She gushes. “That was one of my favorite experiences I have had so far, being in this industry. That was so special. I met so many wonderful people that I genuinely think the world of and look forward to seeing. We actually all really bonded, which I wasn’t expecting.” Then she sighs, “It’s crazy, because that was kinda like the last ‘event’ I did... before Covid.”
It’s inevitable here not to look back at the past year and inquire what Silvers took from the experience. “Necessary pause ... and reflection,” she shares. “There’s no other way to put it. It’s uncomfortable to be forced to reflect, essentially. But it was necessary, in many different levels, from personal, city, world... So many different layers of community, it was necessary for everyone to just stop, and reflect.”
In 2020, the historic Biden vs Trump Presidential Election prizefight fell on the day of Silvers’ 23rd birthday. Rather than celebrating her birth, a concerned Silvers urged her followers to vote. Other notable 3rd November kids include Colin Kaeper- nick, Anna Wintour, Dolph Lundgren, and Kendall Jenner. I run down the list to her. And for full disclosure, I add myself, as I too share this rather auspicious born day. Scorpio Power. She gets
it, and chuckles. “Legends only. Literal legends only. We’re all going to change the world!’ And I do not doubt she will. She’s rather adroitly using her platform to expose her over 750,000 followers to positivity, activism, and social justice flash points— Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, BLM, Amanda Gorman’s speech at the Biden inauguration—as well as upping the ante by rec- ommending books like incisive renegade feminist Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Essays on Self-Delusion.
Not only is Silvers politically aware, she is somehow simultaneously natural, goofy and gorgeous, a slice of a quirky wholesomeness. There’s no bronzer-dusted cleavage, over-filled lip puckering, OnlyFans teasers or airhead pseudo-spiritual quotes. Silvers doesn’t need to cut-and-paste anodyne affirma- tions—she’s very much able to write her own story. I imagine the results if Patti Smith, now 74 years old, (who Silvers notes as one of her inspirations), had had an instantly communicable photo-poem machine in her pocket while she was finding her voice as young woman. I think that retro-active imaginary feed would probably have been much like Silvers’ in spirit, even if perhaps not in color palette. This is content that emanates from someone who’s independent, strong in her convictions, and not afraid to be an outsider. “I feel like people expect you to follow everyone else, and when you don’t, it’s scary, and people think you’re weird, or they think you’re this or that or the other thing, because you’re ok with going off and doing something different from everyone else. I don’t know—I live in my own world... it’s the best place to live.”
Much of this compassion and ambition stems from a long-standing inner drive. “When I was in college,” she recalls, “everyone was going out, and I was like, ‘I can’t go out, I have to study, I have a job—there are things I need to do!’ I’ve been liv- ing my life that way from a very young age.” Keeping herself to
herself, was she ever a target for rivalry or jealousy? “I met really good people early on, people who were a little bit older, so I felt alleviated from the pressure of having to fit in my with ‘peers.’”
Working with supportive, all-female teams like she did on Booksmart put stellar role-models right in front of her, which has had a significant impact. “Olivia Wilde [Booksmart director] say- ing, ‘I have bigger dreams than just being an actress. I also want to write and direct—there’s a world that lives in my head that
I want to see out there, too’—that meant a lot.” She describes something similar in her recent Birds of Paradise collaborator. “Sarah Adina Smith has such an interesting mind—she very much has a whole world in there. It takes a lot of courage to say, ‘I’m ok with being vulnerable’ and putting it out there for other people to see. It’s about entrusting this vision that lives inside you to other creatives, like actors, to help externalize it. It takes a village to make a movie.”
Musically, Silvers’ references are eclectic and inter-gener- ational. David Bowie to Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen to Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell share airtime with Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey. She valiantly covered LDR’s Norman Fucking Rockwell on acoustic guitar, crooning acapella, “Head in your hands as you color me blue.” One day soon she wants to bring an explosive rock diva to life onscreen. “My fantasy is to play some really cool 60s or 70s musician,” she enthuses. “If anyone wants to make the Linda Ronstadt, or the Stevie Nicks- slash-Fleetwood Mac biopic, I am available! And I’m classically trained, technically, if it helps—I studied cello for 10 years.”
We’ve amassed some serious momentum as it concerns acting goals. It turns out that underneath it all, Silvers has a longing for corsets and crinolines. “I really want to do a period piece,” she says. “I mean, I was a History nerd; I’d love to just travel through time as an actor.” Personally, I can see her in the 1960s—with her emotive brown eyes that wear winged eyeliner so well, she’s like a young Sophia Loren. Crossed with Bambi. I tell her that (without the Bambi part) and add that she should be working with today’s equivalents of Fellini, Pasolini, Bertolucci. She politely says thank you and, nary a second later, enthuses over the pasta-loving Italian icon. “Did you see the latest Sophia Loren movie?” This is The Life Ahead, the drama based on Ro- main Gary’s moving French novel, directed by the actress’ own son, Eduardo Ponti. She starts to look up the Oscar’s listings. “Was she nominated? I’m googling. No. It’s a shame—she didn’t get nominated. That sucks. That makes me sad. She was so good in it. I wept my little eyes out.”
I realize that Silvers and I could talk about movies forev- er. Instead, it’s time to wrap things up, and to relinquish her company to Canadian solitude. What’s planned for the rest of the day? “You know what I’m gonna do after this? I’m going to watch Best in Show. My boyfriend and I are going to watch the same movie at the same time—he’s in LA and I’m here. So we can talk about it. It’s with Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, and Fred Willard who plays my grandpa in Space Force.”
Signing out with a European “Ciao,” Silvers disappears from my computer screen. Later in the weekend, via the ever all-seeing two-way mirror eye of Instagram, she throws up a few seconds watching the Oscars on TV, congratulating Chloé Zhao, and reposting Anthony Hopkins’ acceptance speech. Red carpet gold-Croc-rocking Questlove’s new movie, Summer of Soul, gets her thumbs up as well.
This is one 21st Century Woman who’s got her eyes wide open, her heart in the right place, and her priorities in ethical working order. She alloys a true passion for the medium with innate old school class and an endearing effervescence to forge the kind of fresh viewpoint that’s much needed in The New Hollywood. Sharing is caring, and by gifting us little parts of her world, Silvers is powering and being powered by the tide in her own way. And the crest she’s riding? Well, it might have started small, but this November child’s got that Scorpio Super Moon energy backing her up, and it’s well evident her wave won’t be breaking anytime soon.
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PHOTOGRAPHER: RYAN PFULGER. STYLIST: CHLOE HARTSTEIN AT THE WALL GROUP. STYLIST ASSISTANT: KATYA STARETSKI. HAIR: GREGORY RUSSELL AT THE WALL GROUP. MAKEUP: MAI QUYNH AT THE WALL GROUP. VIDEOGRAPHER: JONAH WALLACH.