Bel Powley rose to fame in 2015 as Minnie, the self-assured 15-year-old cartoonist who becomes sexually attracted to her mother’s boyfriend in coming-of-age tale, The Diary of a Teenage Girl. Since then, the west London-born actor, 29, who recently became engaged to fellow actor Douglas Booth, has been carving out a reputation for herself as one of Hollywood’s ones to watch.
It was after her recent performance as Claire Conway, however, in Apple TV+’s bingeable #MeToo drama The Morning Show, that she became a household name. Powley plays an eager, young personal assistant who has an affair with a weatherman (Néstor Carbonell). Rooted in genuine emotion, the relationship is the perfect foil to the show’s other central relationships, which are characterised by an abuse of power. Nonetheless, the season ends with Claire breaking off the relationship and standing alongside her long-suffering female co-workers.
As we wait for season two, due later this year, Vogue speaks to the actor about her relationship with beauty, her newfound love of gua sha, and why she had to delete Instagram for the sake of her mental health.
“When I was younger, it was probably my mother. She is one of those fabulous women who could take a lipstick out of her handbag and put it on without looking in the mirror. I always thought she was so beautiful, on the inside and on the outside.”
“I always felt a bit awkward because I had quite a boyish-shaped body with very twiggy legs and arms. I didn't like wearing skirts to school because people used to call me ‘Pritt Stick’ [UK glue stick]. I didn't feel womanly. It was at that time when American Apparel had just become a thing and everyone was wearing those really tight disco pants. I had these limbs and a spare tyre in the middle as opposed to the hourglass shape, which was deemed to be perfect, which my friends had. I didn't know how to accept it or how to dress for it.”
Bel Powley stars as Claire Conway in The Morning Show
Apple TV+“I always experimented with different subversive looks. I went through a bit of an emo phase. I had dark hair that swept over my face like a fringe and dark eye makeup. Then I came out of that phase and went through a 1950s phase where I would wear tea dresses and backcomb my hair into a beehive. I was enjoying not trying to do the generic beautiful look; I was enjoying being a bit different. I felt more comfortable being in the kind of, ‘She's a bit different and a bit weird’ section.”
“It’s only been in the past couple of years that I have come to feel very confident. And that’s not because I think I look really good or anything, it’s more that I’ve come to this state of self-acceptance. Like, ‘This is me. This is the face and the body that I have been given. Don’t fight against it, just work with it.’ Part of being an adult is learning how to accept yourself, but also how to accentuate what you’ve been given.”
“As I’ve grown up, I’ve started to wear less makeup. When I was younger, like in the early 2000s, it was way more trendy to wear lots. My best friend and I were obsessed with those metallic liquid eyeliners from M.A.C. Now, I enjoy having a bare face. I like washing it and just going out. And if I am going to wear makeup, I wear concealer and a bit of mascara. I will do my eyebrows and sometimes put on some red lipstick. However, if I am doing a red carpet, and I have a makeup artist to guide me, I will push the boat out and do something really different. It’s fun to almost create a character.”
“I enjoy getting dressed up. I love fashion, makeup, and creating a character for myself. I enjoy the process, but I don't enjoy standing in front of 10 million photographers. It's terrifying. You just stand there, frozen, with all these thoughts going through your head.”
“I’ll have someone else look, like my stylist. I'm not going to spend hours trawling through the images. I don't think that's good for you. In the same way, if I do a play or a film, I don't read the reviews. You can become too self-reflective and it can be a bit damaging.”
“I use it in my job to transform into someone else. That sometimes requires a lot of makeup and is usually different to what I normally wear. Putting on a costume or a wig gives you that extra layer of confidence. When I did The King of Staten Island [2020], I had to wear fake tan, nails, extensions and lots of contouring. Watching it back, I thought it actually looked quite good. It gave me huge respect for the fabulous women who wear their makeup like that because there's an art to it.”
“At the beginning, I had a bad relationship with Instagram, it actually made me depressed. When I wasn’t working, I would lose so much time scrolling through it. It became hell for me. It makes you think you are meant to look like someone else, and do what other people are doing. You lose focus on your own journey and you get obsessed with it. I've got a much better relationship with it now. I will actually delete the app off my phone for the day and then I'll check it in the evening and give just 10 minutes to scrolling through and then I'll delete it again. Otherwise, I can fall back into the wormhole.
