In celebration of the new generation of actresses determined to leverage their fame for the greater good, Ben Toms and Robbie Spencer’s fashion story, published in AnOther Magazine S/S17, featured young women from Rowan Blanchard to India Menuez; Sophie Kennedy Clark to Maddie Ziegler. Writer Jack Sunnucks spoke to each of these women on set, for a series of interviews running over two weeks exclusively on anothermag.com.
Mary Pickford was Hollywood’s first studio head who started United Artists, and it’s a testament to Sophie Kennedy Clark’s fierce character that she’s been chosen to portray Pickford in the upcoming film The First. The Scottish actor moved to New York at just 17 to study her craft, which led to roles in Stephen Frears’ Philomena, playing a much younger version of none other than Judi Dench, and Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac.
Jack Sunnucks: Is there someone who inspired you to get into acting?
Sophie Kennedy Clark: At the moment, I have just started working on The First which I find very inspirational because I’m playing Mary Pickford, a woman who started Hollywood with Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks Senior. It’s been inspiring learning about what she created in the time when women couldn’t even vote or have abortions. What she created is unrivaled – still to this day there’s only been one female studio head since her.
“I think 2017 is gonna be cracking, but I really like the number 17 so it might just be that... I mean, fuck it, I hope so. Can’t be worse!” - Sophie Kennedy Clark
JS: Who was someone you’ve worked with and thought: “Oh, this is amazing!”?
SKC: I think working with Judi Dench. I didn’t actually have any scenes with her but I got quite a lot of time with her and just seeing the way she moved around the set and the way she interacted with people was a really beautiful thing to watch. Just the way she is with people, she is luminous and she has those eyes that go straight through you. She is a darling woman to be around. And I’m a huge Tilda Swinton fan!
JS: Apart from Tilda Swinton, what makes you hopeful for the coming year?
SKC: We don’t know what’s going to happen with Brexit, we don’t know what’s going to happen with Trump, but the decision has been made. All you can do is hope that if a wrong decision is made, then people band together in a way that we haven’t seen since the first and second World Wars. I would like to live in a world where community is valued higher than wealth or fame. I think 2017 is gonna be cracking, but I really like the number 17 so it might just be that... I mean, fuck it, I hope so. Can’t be worse!
Hair Marki Shkreli for Marki Hair Care; Make-up Samuel Paul at Forward Artists for Marc Jacobs Beauty; Set design Bryn Bowen at Streeters; Photographic assistants Vincent Perini, Geordy Pearson and Kaleb Marshall; Styling assistants Louise Ford, Johanna Burmester-Andersson, Bonnie Macleod and Sabrina Terlink; Hair assistant Kelly Oliphant.
These photographs originally appeared in AnOther Magazine S/S17.
