Photography Angèle Châtenet
Styling Stella Greenspan
Interview Anika Jade Levy
Sarah Pidgeon, best known for her breakout turn as the haunted, hyper-perceptive Leah in The Wilds, has the kind of face the camera studies. Lately, that face has become sharper, more assured. In Tiny Beautiful Things, she evolved from ingénue to a woman with a point of view — someone whose presence bends the light around her. In 2024, she was nominated for a Tony for her stage performance in Stereophonic. Next year, she’ll step into her biggest role to date, starring as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy in American Love Story on FX.
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A Carnegie Mellon-trained theater kid, Pidgeon warms up her voice, she cares about collaboration, she still asks her scene partners after every take, “What did you think of that?” It’s the mark of someone who grew up believing in rehearsal. Now, she’s rehearsing something subtler — privacy. In an age when every out!t, every unboxing, every flight delay is potential content, Pidgeon feels aligned with an older idea of glamour: mystery as luxury. She jokes that cotton is the new couture, that the perfect white tee is as sacred as a diamond cuff. When she says it, you believe her. Pidgeon’s reflections on durability, beauty, and self-presentation feel like a manifesto for the decade’s quieter icons: women who know that what glitters doesn’t always have to shout.
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Anika Jade Levy: You came up in the theater. What habits from that practice have survived your transition into film?
Sarah Pidgeon: That’s a good question. Warming up is integral. The days I warm up my body and voice I !nd myself much more in the pocket of who I’m playing, more divorced from my own physical habits. A huge part of my theater training was about collaboration. Since you don’t have that long rehearsal process in TV that you do in theater where you’re collaborating every day, you have to come with your point of view immediately. But I still have that instinct like I do in a theater rehearsal asking after every take: “What did you think of that?”
AJL: Emma Stone said this thing to The New Yorker: If an actor is on stage with a cat, the audience will watch the cat, because it’s responding genuinely to every moment.
SP: Yes! About Jennifer Lawrence. She’s the cat.
SP: When I’m portraying a character, I’m allowing the character’s circumstances to wake up my own emotional life. I find it cathartic and experimental because — I was about to talk about my phone, but that’s boring. But we do numb ourselves with our phones. But especially now doing a show set in the ‘90s, [Carolyn] didn’t have that distraction and it’s interesting to explore her inner life and speak to things the general public might not be aware of.
AJL: The whole phone-nightmare-paradigm makes me think of something you said when you were putting your Tony’s look together: that you wanted to feel like an Old Hollywood actress. How do you think we can get back to that old Hollywood glamour and cultivate mystique in our debased digital age?
SP: The idea of personal vs. private has been on my mind while working on this project. Old Hollywood glamour was before the digital age. I don’t know how we as a society can cultivate that. I think individuals hold more responsibility for being private. But there’s a pressure to sell the self, to commodify different aspects of your life. Not just for actors. Anyone can be famous.
“I hope the conversation is shifting to investing — whether that be money or time — in finding things you want to wear for a long time.”
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AJL: You’re playing a style icon and you’re also becoming one. What do you think are the trends and motifs that will define 2020’s style when it’s viewed later in a historical context?
SP: I hope it has a lot to do with less consumption. I hope the conversation is shifting to investing — whether that be money or time — in !nding things you want to wear for a long time. There’s also a bigger conversation in my algorithm about tailoring. I myself am trying to stay away from synthetics and get more organics.
AJL: I love the idea of cotton as luxury.
SP: Cotton is luxury. You’re seeing more and more of the beautifully cut perfect white tee.
AJL: Do you have an opinion on archival costuming? How do you feel when you see Kim Kardashian in Marilyn Monroe’s dress?
SP: I might regret saying this: In terms of archival pieces being worn, I think that if they’re not being damaged, it’s an amazing opportunity for people to see pieces of fashion history. I feel like these pieces were designed to be worn on the human form.
AJL: It sounds like you value function more than ornament.
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SP: I just took my shoes to the cobbler today and was thinking about how much I wear the crap out of my shoes. It was more expensive than I thought it would be, but it was much cheaper than buying a new pair of shoes. There’s something cool about things being worn in.
AJL: Speaking of less is more — what do you think of the old Coco Chanel adage: Before you leave the house, take one thing off.
SP: I think I’m in favor of that, but I tend to dress kind of simply, so there’s not much for me to take off.