I don’t know what I’m going to do in the next five years. I don’t know what I’m going to do next year,” Deba Hekmat tells me. “I wouldn’t label myself as an actor, a personality, a model or anything like that. I’m just extremely grateful to be able to work in spaces that allow me to collaborate on things that are bigger than me.”
She’s certainly doing that. Her new film, Last Swim, won two awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, and is out on Friday. Hekmat, 23, plays Ziba, a school leaver who joins her friends for one last day of partying and carousing around London. As they ride the Tube or relax in the city’s parks, Ziba is hiding a dark secret from them.
It’s her first leading role — and, in fact, only her second-ever acting role, after Luna Carmoon’s 2023 film Hoard. Born in Kurdistan, Hekmat came to the UK with her family when she was four. They settled in London, barring a short stint in Wales, after which Hekmat decided to become a model.
Not that it was planned. “Modelling genuinely came about because me and my dad weren’t really getting along,” she says. “I just needed an out. I had way too much confidence for a 16-year-old. I don’t possess any of that now, but at 16 I really did.”
She applied to an agency and her career took off — she cites one highlight as Xavier Dolan’s Gucci 2025 campaign, and reminisces about bumping into her childhood idol (Jin from BTS) at a recent show. “I was just looking at him and I was like, this world is so funny because at 14 years old, I was convinced I was going to marry you.”
But the desire to work is ingrained: in addition to modelling, she’s worked as a presenter, public speaker and writer. “I’m a first generation immigrant. I literally came with my mum to this country. I think when you are not born in the West, you always feel slightly different. I wouldn’t say I don’t fit in here because I do. London is my home. But I think there’s just like an immigrant mentality that we all have.”
Like what? “For me, there’s no plan B. I’m like, it must happen. It’s not like my mum owns a house. It’s not like my dad owns a house. It’s not like anybody in my family has the finances to back me if I don’t have myself.”
Fortunately, Hekmat’s career is on the up. In addition to modelling and acting, she’s contemplating a move to writing and directing. “I’ve been trying to write about my mum for ages,” she says. And of course, there’s all the plaudits she’s been getting for Last Swim. It looks like she’s not going to need that plan B any time soon.
