If I were being lazy I could, when writing about Margaret Qualley, employ one of many celebrity profile clichés. I could inform you about the weather and how she is defying it. I might throw in that she is not wearing any make-up. And I could make a point of telling you that the Golden Globe-nominee is So! Normal! Really! But you know the problem with clichés, right? Doh.
And so, regrettably for my journalistic integrity but great for a lunch date, when I meet her at the Marlton in Greenwich Village it is biblically bucketing out when Qualley swoops in all smiles and sparkle, like a human dose of vitamin D. Not (it seems) in make-up, she is wearing the kind of chaotic get up (Laura Ashley dress from eBay, dad’s letterman jacket, fiancé’s cap peppered with brooches and, okay, fine, a Chanel bag) only the beautiful or cool can get away with. First impressions? Very, very nice and, yep, very, very normal.
Qualley likes to chat. Within minutes she has put her mind to who she can set me up with (do it Margaret, I’m serious) and is reaching around for an explanation as to what makes the menu’s Amish chicken, well, Amish. ‘One of the best things about my job is getting to meet so many awesome, awesome people. Literally just talking and listening is the most interesting thing in the world.’
Her new project is all about the talking. Sanctuary is a twohander starring Qualley and Christopher Abbott as a dominatrix and her employer. A psychological thriller-cum-dark comedy, a deliciously twisty exploration of sexual, gender and class politics. ‘It’s the passing of the torch of who has power,’ is Qualley’s take. ‘It’s confusing. You don’t know what’s reality and what’s acting. It’s an outrageous, theatrical, hot ride.’
Sanctuary’s loquaciousness feels like a play and demands attention from the viewer. Every line is intentional; it’s sort of anti-background watching I say. ‘I’m glad you think so. That’s another thing that I like about it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like people think you need to be like bombs! Boom! Action! Craziness! Whirlwind! Now there’s a montage! You’re outside! You’re inside! You’re upside down! She’s here! They’re here!’ she says with exaggerated mania. ‘And this is just so contained. It’s just two people in one room, they don’t leave, it’s all there, it’s just talking. And it turns out, I think that’s pretty interesting. Maybe you don’t need all the other bullshit, maybe we just need to talk to each other and that might actually be the sexiest thing in the world.’
There’s a moment in the film when Rebecca, Qualley’s character, says matter-of-factly: ‘I want what I’m worth relative to what you have.’ Why do women often find it hard to assert themselves? ‘It’s hard to ask for what you need. It is. [When I was young and dating] my way of saying I was hungry was “Is anyone hungry?” instead of being, like, “Hey I want to go get something to eat!” That’s a very small example that doesn’t have much weight to it, but there’s always a feeling of not wanting to be too much.’ Later, when discussing French director Claire Denis, she says, ‘You don’t have to pretend to be a dude to be in your power, you can be a woman and be in your power. In fact it’s probably more powerful.’
During her childhood in Asheville, North Carolina, Qualley didn’t harbour ambitions of being an actor. Rather, as the significant baby (her sister, Rainey, is five years older; brother, Justin, seven years) she ‘just dreamed that one day I would be like my older sister. I think that’s what all kid siblings feel like. I’d park myself outside her door and wait for the moment I’d be allowed in there. I’d hang for a while, listen, so stoked to be included.
Nevertheless, acting was always there on the periphery. Her mum, Andie MacDowell, was she says, ‘probably the only Hollywood actress in Asheville’. Was that weird, inhabiting two worlds? ‘I grew up always being like, “Well it’s just normal to me, she’s my mom, so it’s my normal life.” But also I knew it was weird.’ She tells me she would grapple with trying to ‘say the right thing’ in response to curiosity about her family. ‘But what’s the right thing? What makes me seem the most relatable?’ Eventually she plumped for honesty as the best policy; real life is often many things at once. ‘It’s weird. I’m really lucky. It was a strange thing but then I did go to a normal school, [had] normal friends, and have a somewhat normal life. Then my mom would go off and do movies and sometimes I’d go with her and sometimes I’d meet, like, Gérard Depardieu.’ She laughs at the surrealism of it.
Growing up, Qualley, now 28, was less influenced by her mother’s specific career path as the fact that she was on one. ‘Since I came into this world my mom was going and doing the thing she loved and I’m very grateful for that,’ she says, adding she credits her with showing her ‘the sky’s the limit’.
Still, the real glitz of Qualley’s childhood came from her love of dance. She would enter competitions across North Carolina, bedecked in ‘rhinestones and feather boas and false eyelashes and jazz shoes and double denim jackets that had been custom embroidered. I loved dancing that way and loved dance competitions’. But in her early teens she experienced an inevitable rite of passage: mortification. Suddenly she felt ‘this is embar - rassing’ and transitioned to ballet ‘because it was much more respected’ and kept at it until she couldn’t stand it any more. ‘No, I can’t commit my life to this because I f***ing hate it!’
Sometimes I’d get to go with my mom to her movies and I’d meet, like, Gerard Depardieu
Now, she says, she’s ‘going back to my dance competition freak, shimmying, nine-year-old self — or attempting to. We’re all on an endless course of trying to figure out who we are, you know? And I feel like that a lot of times you’re really on fire when you’re a little kid. [It’s about] trying to bring that little kid — respectfully, with all the knowledge that you’ve learnt throughout your life — into the world in a way that feels good to you.
The way she paints it, cool doesn’t have much sway now. Qualley is happy leaning into domesticity in her small-town New Jersey beach house. ‘I love to clean if I’m feeling out of control — my favourite thing to do is tackle the house. Get all the nooks and crannies, organise the spice drawer, colour co-ordinate my clothes… An average day for me is cleaning in New Jersey and either listening to an audio book or reading Danielle Steel, who I’m obsessed with. I have insomnia and I find reading Danielle Steel the most soothing thing.’ She’s currently gobbling up The Apartment (‘a page-turner, to say the least’) and has just finished Blue .
Like a Steel heroine, at 16 Qualley moved to New York alone, looking for purpose (‘I was happy to be on my own and figuring it out in real time’). Unsure what she wanted to do but in need of a creative outlet, she would book art and photography classes via Craigslist. One day her thenboyfriend invited her to tag along to his acting class. ‘I’d come from dance world where I’d do anything physically, but I was never expected to talk, in fact I was really discouraged from talking. So it was crazy to be like, “Ooh, you’re talking.” It was scary and fun, and I fell in love with it’.
It was a scene-stealing cameo in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as a tongue-poking member of the Manson family, that launched Qualley into the zeitgeist. But it was the Netflix drama Maid that really cemented her as more than a pretty face. In it, she played Alex, a young mother who had escaped an abusive relationship trying to make ends meet. It was a nuanced, refreshingly humanising portrayal of the poor, one that doesn’t blame the subject but the system. There but for the grace of God, et cetera. ‘The ideals that Americans have been sold on aren’t very community driven. It’s really heart-breaking. The whole landscape of the United States right now is pretty f***ing upsetting,’ she says, adding of the clampdown on women’s reproductive rights in 13 states: ‘What the literal f***?! It’s so gross and upsetting it’s hard to think about, and it’s upsetting not to think about it.’
Does she feel the pressure to say something about everything she cares about? ‘I don’t have Instagram. I’m not really in that game. It’s kind of a lose-lose situation.’ She thinks we’ll look back on these nascent days of social media a bit like a high-school yearbook, with a big dollop of cringe. ‘People make mistakes, people with the best intentions can do dumb things.’
I love to clean if I’m feeling out of control — my favourite thing to do is tackle the house. Get all the nooks and crannies, organise the spice drawer
Each role she takes is a reaction to the last. Sanctuary, which was filmed over 18 days two summers ago, followed Maid. After Sanctuary she departed for Panama as the lead in Denis’ Stars at Noon. Co-starring Joe Alwyn it scooped the Grand Prix at Cannes. When Qualley heard Denis wanted to work with her ‘there was no question’ about doing it. ‘She’s a legend, she’s made some of the most beautiful films and I wanted to learn from her.
But there was another reason. Her father, Paul Qualley, whom she hadn’t seen for three years because of the pandemic and to whom she is close, was living in Panama. ‘He came to set with me every single day. I was playing somewhat of a prostitute, so he wasn’t watching,’ she laughs. ‘But he was there,’ even when the call time was 4am and despite her protestations. ‘I think the greatest gift that a parent can give to their kid is just paying attention to them, just caring and watching. My dad’s awesome at that. It was a really special time for us.
Qualley is big on family. Alongside her parents and siblings, there is also her fiancé, the producer and musi - cian Jack Antonoff (his family ‘rocks’, too). Does it help having a partner in an adjacent creative industry? ‘It helps whatever Jack is. Jack’s the best person I’ve ever met. I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I met him when I was 26 and I’m so grateful I got him at that age because I get to spend the rest of my life with him. I had a deep pit of longing until I met him,’ she says. ‘It’s not like everything is figured out once you find your person, but it is a lot easier.’ What advice would she give to anyone still in the longing-and-looking phases? ‘Trial and error, keep f***ing at it! It’s kind of fun, it’s kind of exhausting; it can be great, it can be horrible. I’m a little spiritual’ — she corrects herself — ‘I’m spiritual and I believe things happen for a reason.’
Career-wise it seems like she’s well on the right-decision phase. Up next is the Sanctuary press tour and she has just finished filming Ethan Coen’s solo directorial debut, Drive-Away Dolls (‘totally slapstick, really silly, I had the time of my life’) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. And she’s ‘actively seeking out more London in my life. People never really talk about the food in London, but I think the food in London’s awesome.’
Well, Americans think we have crap food and crapper teeth, I say. ‘So wrong! Your teeth are pearly white and the food’s amazing!’ Right now, however, she’s off to hang with Antonoff at his studio before going uptown for a fitting at Chanel. ‘I’m right back at being in the hallway outside my big sister’s door being like, “I’m allowed in? Sick!”’
Sounds very normal when you put it like that. Qualley grins. ‘We’re all totally the same and we’re all totally different.’
‘Sanctuary’ opens in UK cinemas this summer.
Photography: Rebekah Campbell
Stylist: Taylor McNeill
Hair by Edward Lampley at CLM using Oribe
Make-up by Emi Kaneko at Bryant Artists using CHANEL Les Beiges Summer-To-Go and CHANEL Hydra Beauty Micro Crème Yeux
Manicure by Megumi Yamamoto at Susan Price NYC using Chanel Le Vernis
Photographer’s Assistant: Alonso Ayala
Stylist’s Assistant: Kennedy Smith
Production Assistant: Caleb Simpson
