Exclusive: Lean In With Zazie Beetz
The German-American actress talks about representation in the film industry and the mood-boosting effects of clothes.
You might recognize Zazie Beetz from her role as Vanessa in the hit comedy-drama Television series Atlanta. Or maybe you’ve seen her starring in Marvel’s Deadpool 2, or even Todd Philips’ Joker. All to say that the 30-year-old German-American actress has had quite the successful career – and it seems to be just the beginning.
Beetz was recently awarded Max Mara’s Face of Future Award, an accolade that honours outstanding actresses in the industry. Here, she looks back on her achievements – which include an Emmy Award nomination for Supporting Actress in Comedy Series in 2018 – and talks about what’s to come in the future.
You recently received Max Mara’s Face of Future Award. What did it mean to you to receive it, just as you hit 30?
I honestly felt surprised, really honoured and humbled. Being considered the “Max Mara Face of the Future” is a big title. It’s an indicator of where the media industry is headed, and I’m glad that people are pleased with the kind of work I’m doing. Overall, what I like the most about Women in Film initiatives is that they take into consideration not only women in front of the camera (namely actresses) but also women behind the camera, such as producers, crew members, screenwriters and leadership positions in the industry. They make sure that all of their voices are elevated. They have been doing it for a long time and it’s pretty visible how the industry has been changing and shifting since then. I think that is what we all aim at
What is your first memory of the Max Mara brand?
My first memory of the Max Mara brand is the idea of women in suits, I suppose. The idea of beautiful quality, beautiful texture, beautiful shaped clothing that allows you to feel powerful in what you’re doing and allows you to feel power in your character. I’m somebody who definitely gets energy from the clothing I wear. I sometimes love wearing bright clothes because it changes my mood, I actually feel more playful, more joyful when I’m wearing bright clothing and I can see how it affects people around me. Like if I’m wearing florals, it brings joy. And when I’m feeling sad that the way I address it often is by dressing up and grooming myself. It’s just one way I feel good about myself and clothing plays a huge part of that and a huge part of my emotional experience in my life. And when I put on Max Mara clothing like the Max Mara suit, it’s also structured and it makes me feel very strong and that I can get things done. I love the narrative that this brand was made for women who wanted to join the workforce and as a woman who is working, I like to feel empowered in my clothing.
How much of your mental state is linked to what you wear? Has there been a moment where a piece of clothing instantly changed the way you felt?
My mental state is very affected by what I wear. I remember going to school in the morning, it took me like an hour to pick what to wear because I couldn’t decide the night before, because the night before wasn’t me the morning. I’d be feeling differently, thinking differently of what I would need to represent in myself today. And I still am this way. I’d rather go late or not show up at all than not feel good in my clothing which is less about vanity and more about emotion. I don’t like being told what to wear, I like to just really be in my own mind and expression there. I have this handmade jacket coming from a Parisian woman who takes kente cloth and makes these jackets. Looking at the fabric, I just felt so joyful so I ordered it online. It’s so interesting, this jacket, the way it is structured, what it looks like with blue stripes and big orange leaves... every time I put it on I just feel so happy. I don’t know why, I look at the jacket in the mirror when I wear it, and I’m like “I’m just happy”. It feels so me, I just get joy from it and I don’t even think people in my life love this jacket that much but for some reason, it just instantly perks me up. So if I want to feel some joy I throw it on and I feel like... I’m me.
What was it like growing up part German and part African- American? How did it factor into your identity?
Growing up German and African-American I felt like fully both, not half of either, but a person that embodied my German side and my African-American side in a complete way. I actually heard recently that people don’t really say “you’re half your mom, you’re half your dad but you’re always fully both of your parents” and I think it’s the same for me, I felt that way as a child. I think sometimes that point of view got challenged by the world, but I believe I have re-found, as I got older, that my identity doesn’t belong to anyone but myself and so I get to decide who I am and what I am, no matter what is perceived or wanted of me. It’s definitely been a journey and I guess culturally I’m probably more American since I grew up here, more than in Germany, but I definitely have German elements to myself: my family is German, on my father’s side, and they don’t speak English. My relationship with my father is 95 per cent in German, we don’t really speak English with each other, he is a German man who is culturally fully German. So yes, that’s a part of me and I have nostalgia around it and I identify with it. But again, I’d say the majority of my relationships in my life are with Americans, I went to school in the United States and I live in the United States so probably my “default self” is quite US-based but I would say that I still feel very fully both.
What does representation on the big screen and small screen mean to you?
I think that’s an interesting question. I don’t know if I really know what it means. I suppose, representation means a diversity of identities, a sort of all facets. We are demographic, your monetary demographic, your ethnic demographic, your gender and sexual demographic, and all the sort of intersectionality is there in. I think for a long time in the general Hollywood media there has been an assumption that the default is a straight white man and a straight white woman and that we could all really identify with him or her. But the United States, at least, is just not mostly that, there are all kinds of different ways to feel, think and perceive the world. And what I like is the idea that maybe a white man can identify with a black woman’s experience for example, and that his point of view of the world is not necessarily the default point of view. Obviously, this takes a sort of generational shift and change that I do think our industry has been taking, but I also do believe that for a long time that was sort of the foundation of film and television. And it’s just sort of knots to untie, and really reinforcing or enforcing this idea of how there is no normal experience. Each experience is individual, which is why we need to display as many of them as possible.
