In the early 1990s, a traveling sound system and music collective known as Spiral Tribe coalesced a new kind of subculture in the U.K. As opposed to the urban acid house scenes or the nascent rumblings of a hugely profitable global electronic music industry, the Spiral Tribe were squatters, nomads, and anti-authoritarian ravers in crust punk regalia that roved the countryside in retrofitted military trucks, throwing free parties for thousands. Their ethos was radical: a wholesale rejection of British social life and the capitalist systems that structured it.

Three decades later, the Spiral Tribe’s descendants stacked enormous speakers in the northern Moroccan desert, preparing for another free party in the opening scene of Sirât, Oliver Laxe’s Cannes Jury Prize-winning and Academy Award-nominated film. The camera pans pensively over the vibrating cabinets, echoed by the striated sediment in the surrounding mountains. A crew of weathered European ravers trickle in, dreadlocked, draped in pashminas. Among them, a buttoned-down father searches for his missing daughter, his young son in tow. She’s not there, but a ragtag group of partiers suggest she might be at another event, deeper in the desert.

Over the next 90 minutes, Laxe pushes his characters to extremes—physical, emotional—in an increasingly combustive journey. As the motley crew of travelers plunge deeper into their wounded psyches, they also drive deeper into the desert—and Western Sahara, one of the most hotly contested regions on the planet. 

Often described as “Africa’s last colony,” the region has been under Moroccan control since the mid-’70s, an occupation that has quite literally fractured the landscape. This atmosphere of conflict and political violence suffuses every frame of Sirât, whether or not the characters are equipped to deal with its presence. The question of a colonial gaze in the film also arises: is it an indictment of the ignorance that impels the characters to seek transcendence in an embattled landscape they know little about? Or is the film mired in deeper, more troubling narratives about encountering violence and the unknown on the African continent?

Laxe, a Paris-born, Spanish filmmaker, lived in Morocco for much of his 20s. Several of his films are set there, including You Are All Captains and Mimosas, which both make use of non-professional local actors. Although he currently resides in Galicia, the cultural and religious textures of the country still inform the foundations of his work. But with Sirât, Laxe is more interested in the psychological or the spiritual (the film’s title comes from the Arabic word for “path,” in the Qu’ran, a narrow bridge stretched between heaven and hell.) As the feature heads to theaters across the United States, we spoke with the director about his influences—from Sufism to Sorcerer—and what he’d really say to his critics.

Do you like explaining your art, or do you prefer to let the work speak for itself?

I’m narcissistic, so I like to speak about myself. But I try not to explain too much. I can talk about my intentions, but I do prefer ambiguity. I have to trust the audience.

Sirât is quite ambiguous when it comes to the characters’ backstories or some of the images that you present. 

It’s about maintaining a balance between saying something explicitly and evoking something implicitly. If you say too much, you can’t evoke anything. But if you evoke too much, you can be too abstract. It’s always a cocktail. 

I would love to hear about your own history or relationship to raving and techno. It’s an incredibly varied community globally, but I think that very few films or pieces of art have been able to capture the specificity of the subculture that you’re dealing with.

I created the party, the rave in the film with some of the sons of Spiral Tribe. They were mixing during the rave we were shooting. I knew them because I went to a lot of raves. We were looking for the essence of this subculture. 

I’m not really into clubbing. I go to Berghain, but I identify most strongly with the free party scene. It provides a less neurotic dance floor. There is a lot of ego on the other dance floors. At a free party, I like that there often isn’t a DJ—rather you are in front of the sound system. This is therapeutic for me because you are more connected with your wound. I’m actually studying psychotherapy right now, and I’m discovering that dancing is good for you because it helps release the trauma that is etched into your body. 

Do you think of your film as therapeutic in that way? What do you want it to do to the viewer’s body? 

It’s shock therapy. The aim is to make the spectator [symbolically] die after watching the film. You die when you watch Sirât, and it’s a good, healthy thing. Because you have to die before actually dying. I was also really inspired by the idea of psychotherapy and Sufism. So yes, I think the film is certified as a good medicine. Sometimes the medicine is bitter. 

You deal with your shadows. Looking inside is painful, oftentimes it isn’t easy. So, ceremony music helps you to cross these shadows. That’s the heart of how ceremony music operates. It gives us strength in the moments where we need help to cross our shadows.

You lived in Morocco for many years, and several of your films have been set there. How has your experience living in the country informed the film?

When I made my first two films [You All Are Captains and Mimosas], I didn’t feel like Morocco was my country. So, it felt like I was trying to be creatively legitimized in a place that wasn’t mine. However, making Sirât was different. In fact, the film was released in Morocco and Turkey—places where I didn’t have to explain the film too much because they already understand it. Techno and the Qur’an. The film deals with these two subjects that I like, that are inside myself.

Do you think of the film as more personal or more external, more political? 

Art is always about looking inside. My cinema also belongs to a kind of spiritual practice or a self-discovery. So I’m connecting with my wound when I make my films with my fragility.

When I was raving, I was crying a lot on the dance floor. Sometimes, you are connected with your tribal strength. Sometimes, you are connecting to your vulnerability, your transpersonal or transgenerational wound. But obviously there are political dimensions in the film too.

Let’s talk about the political landscape of this film. The European characters are, unknowingly, driving deeper into one of the most contested regions on the planet—Western Sahara—between Morocco and Mauritania, which leads to them walking into a literal minefield. That very real political conflict is contrasted with another, more vague, fictional crisis happening elsewhere that reaches the characters only through radio transmissions. Can you speak a little bit about those choices?

Political issues, for me, are never the driving force of why I make films. Though, in my last film [Fire Will Come], there was a political dimension: We had real fires. My team and I were like firefighters shooting in the middle of flames. In Spain, fires are political because they are often caused, purposefully, for business gains. Not always, but I do believe there is a business.

The way we filmed Sirât was not inherently political, but, I actually think that there’s nothing more political than a poetic approach—to elevate the spectator’s level of consciousness. [Explicitly] political films are important, but most of the time, they are not actually deep enough. They don’t transform you. They’re not creating catharsis inside of you. So the key with Sirât was to evoke real feelings. Because I think that cinema and art can deeply heal the collective imaginary. 

You know, this all relates to Gaza too. A lot of people told me that by the end of Sirât. So, I think the film is connected to our time, to our fears, to our dreams.

In recent years, in light of what’s happening in Gaza, there’s been a lot of discussion about the politics of raving. In general, big questions have emerged about the global electronic music industry. Is raving inherently a political communal act, or is it a drive towards oblivion?

During Covid, I was doing interviews where they asked me, “How do you feel?” And I said, “I was never so happy till now.” I didn’t feel solitary, but the opposite [because I was dancing]. I think that our responsibility to avoid fear is to celebrate. Nowadays, everyone seems to have a lot of fear consuming them.

So we must dance, celebrate, and pray with our bodies. These are things that we’ve been doing for thousands of years—they really are spiritual practices. After all, the dance floor is a ritual space. It is a place where you connect—as I told you—with your wounds, with your fragility. You know, raving can be likened to art and spirituality. It’s all about pushing your limits. 

Besides, you protect yourself from society by going to the dance floor. It depends on the kind of dance, but I think this is true in the film. I’m also someone who, ever since I was a child, understood that the world is not sustainable. So I’m also preparing myself for this era of change [by dancing more].

I’m curious about the central quest of the film. The father in search of his missing daughter. He obviously doesn’t get very far.

You think not?

At least not literally.

I don’t want to interpret the film for you, but I will tell you what a lot of spectators think: Thanks to what happened in the film, he feels her. He dances with her and he finds her in a subtle and spiritual way. 

What does it mean then to find family?

We have so many things to learn from our biological family. We are tested by them. But I understand that, for some people, this test can get too difficult, so they need to build another family to survive. As I did, in a way. 

As I get older, I like this concept [of building found family] more and more. It fuels a sense of hope. It’s been increasingly hard to live in this world, but a new family pushes us to take better care of others. This is one of the things I respect about the rave culture and techno travelers.

When I talk about raves and travelers, I’m not only referring to partying—the weekend is coming so I will dress as a punk and go dance. No, I’m talking about this new sense of community that is created. Raves open up an alternate way of life, and I think we were able to evoke that feeling in Sirât.

I’m curious if you’ve had any negative responses to the film in terms of it being too violent, too nihilistic, too cruel to its characters. How might you respond to that?

Yes, there are a lot of those responses. This film pushes you to die. So I totally understand that for some people this is too painful. But when I listen to them, even the more critical people, I know we did a good job. We know how images can heal, so we don’t care what the spectator says about the therapy. We know it works. 

Also, given the success of Sirât, I am inclined to believe that many people feel lighter after watching it. They feel that there is a reason for and a way out of their pain.

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At 20, musician Miles Caton has just one acting credit to his name, but the role shot him to the epicenter of Hollywood. In last year’s Sinners, Caton played the sympathetic heart of director Ryan Coogler’s vampire epic—earning him a Critics’ Choice Award and a SAG nomination. In 2026, he’ll gear up to release new soul-inflected music and reveal his next foray into film.

Name one film that got you through an important moment in your life. Why did you connect with it, and why does it stay with you?

Scarface. I watched it for the first time when I was 18 and on tour. I connected with it then because I was in the mindset of wanting to make a name for myself and chasing my dreams. Watching it always reminds me of that time. Tony Montana may have taken a very different path in chasing his dreams, but his confidence in himself is what turned them into reality. We don’t have to talk about what happened after that.

When did you learn what it meant to be an actor?

On the set of Sinners. I’ve been a movie lover since I was a kid. I always wondered how they made these worlds feel so real. Working with actors like Delroy Lindo and Michael B. Jordan showed me the importance of process and preparation. Being an actor takes extreme discipline and focus in order to bring truth and honesty to the character.

What’s one part of the craft that you still struggle with?

The schedule. Nobody told me there would be days when I would have to sleep ’til 6 p.m. and act until 5 a.m. The next film I do, I’ll be way more prepared for those long shoots and crazy hours.

What’s your on-set pet peeve?

To wait. Once I’m in character, I’m ready to go, but there are so many things that have to happen before it’s time to shoot.

When was the last time you surprised yourself on set?

While filming Sinners. Learning how to improvise while in character was new for me, but I realized that’s also when we have the most fun.

Whose career arc do you envy in the industry?

I have so much respect for people who have known what they wanted to do since they were kids. It’s really challenging to keep a dream alive from such a young age, and the ones that continue to strive for it and succeed inspire me the most.

This feature is part of CULTURED’s 2026 Young Hollywood portfolio. Read interviews with Odessa A’zion, Tyriq Withers, Iris Apatow, and more. Get your copy of the Entertainers issue here. 

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Plenty of actors find their first major role in a horror film. But few can say it was across from Marlon Wayans in a Jordan Peele-backed picture that spotlights the violence of America’s favorite bloodsport, as Tyriq Withers did with his breakout in Him last year. The Florida native, 27, returns to the big screen next month as the heartthrob of the Colleen Hoover adaptation Reminders of Him, before appearing in the revenge flick Family Secrets alongside Eric Dane and Thomas Doherty.

Name one film that got you through an important moment in your life. Why does it stay with you?

One Direction: This Is Us. Watched it in 3D. 10/10, no notes.

How do you manage rejection?

Remembering it’s all already done; time just hasn’t caught up yet.

When did you learn what it meant to be an actor?

Building characters forced me to look within. After each project, I become a better version of myself. I think acting is a nuanced look at every layer of humanity.

Tell us one thing you regret about your career so far. Why?

No ragrets—not even a single letter.

What’s one part of the craft that you still struggle with?

The art of release. Learning how to let go and show up regardless of where I’m at mentally.

What’s your on-set pet peeve?

When I forget my headphones. That’s truly tragic.

When was the last time you surprised yourself on set?

Honestly, I surprise myself every time I manage to walk properly on camera.

Whose career arc do you envy in the industry?

Cory Baxter. If you know, you know.

This feature is part of CULTURED’s 2026 Young Hollywood portfolio. Read interviews with Odessa A’zion, Miles Caton, Iris Apatow, and more. Get your copy of the Entertainers issue here. 

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Grace Van Patten’s first experiences on set rank among contemporary film and television canon—she slipped into The Sopranos and Noah Baumbach dram-coms and cut her teeth in Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone-fronted projects. Last year, the 29-year-old landed a lead role in the infamous limited series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, a performance hailed by critics.

What’s the single greatest challenge of being a young actor today?

The inconsistency and the unpredictability. Trying to balance the intense contrast of going from being really stimulated on a job to having totally open-ended time. Wondering when the next project is going to come and maintaining a sense of purpose and productivity in the meantime.

Name one film that got you through an important moment in your life. Why does it stay with you?

It’s a Wonderful Life. My dad showed it to me when I was a kid. It’s probably one of the movies I’ve seen most. My dad and I still quote it, and it just reminds me of watching old movies with my family. As I’ve grown up, what I take away from it changes a little every time.

How do you manage rejection?

I don’t have a perfect system. When I get a “no,” it makes me think about things I really want.

When did you learn what it meant to be an actor?

I learn something new about acting every day from the characters I play and the people I’m working with.

Tell us one thing you regret about your career so far. Why?

I regret putting pressure on myself to have everything figured out early on. I wish I’d trusted that it’s okay to not know exactly where things are going, and accepted “the unknown” as an opportunity for growth and discovery as opposed to something scary and daunting.

When was the last time you surprised yourself on set?

In The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, I had to deliver a speech in Italian, and I honestly didn’t know if I could do it. I’ve never been more nervous for a scene. As we were getting ready to shoot, I imagined how nervous Amanda must’ve been, and all of a sudden, those nerves made me feel weirdly safe and connected to her, and everything just came out. Completely blacked out, but I did it!

This feature is part of CULTURED’s 2026 Young Hollywood portfolio. Read interviews with Odessa A’zion, Tyriq Withers, Iris Apatow, and more. Get your copy of the Entertainers issue here. 

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Rivaled only by the Skarsgårds and Streep-Gummer dynasty in the bid for Hollywood’s favorite family, the Apatows have unleashed another performer onto the scene. Iris Apatow, 23, is following supporting roles on television with one of the year’s most anticipated films, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, and Pretty Lethal, a bloody escape film set on the way home from a dance competition.

Name one film that got you through an important moment in your life. Why does it stay with you?

Broadcast News has brought me joy and comfort during many hard times in my life. Holly Hunter’s performance in this film is what inspired me to pursue acting seriously.

How do you manage rejection?

When I self-tape for something, I try to commit as much as possible to the scene and character. Then, after I send it in, I attempt to forget it ever happened. I’ve learned it’s generally good to have low expectations.

When did you learn what it meant to be an actor?

When I saw my sister, Maude, do Cabaret at our high school.

Tell us one thing you regret about your career so far. Why?

I thought my acting in Knocked Up was weak and came off as an amateur performance. [Apatow was four at the time of release.]

What’s one part of the craft that you still struggle with?

I’ve always struggled to cry on cue. I’m impressed when I see the people I work with do it so effortlessly.

When was the last time you surprised yourself on set?

I had the stomach flu while shooting Pretty Lethal, which can take you down. I was surprised I made it through that day.

This feature is part of CULTURED’s 2026 Young Hollywood portfolio. Read interviews with Odessa A’zion, Miles Caton, Tyriq Withers, and more. Get your copy of the Entertainers issue here. 

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Younger viewers likely met Ariana Greenblatt on Disney Channel, but broader audiences will recognize the 18-year-old from a constellation of roles opposite Cate Blanchett, Bryan Cranston, and Adam Driver—not to mention a turn in the 2023 blockbuster Barbie. Last year, she appeared in the Fear Street and Now You See Me series, cementing her as a Gen Z favorite for camp-inflected fare.

What’s the single greatest challenge of being a young actor today?

Growing up while being in the public eye—having almost every bad haircut and awkward phase documented.

How do you manage rejection?

I wish I had a ritual. I tend to cry, then make jokes to cope. I hang out with my friends and eat comfort food. I feel shitty about myself, then I move on.

Tell us one thing you regret about your career so far. Why?

There are interviews I did when I was younger that make me want to strangle myself because they’re so cringe. It’s odd to watch those videos and know that in those moments, I had no idea who I was or who I wanted to be. I kind of just see a lost puppy.

What’s one part of the craft that you still struggle with?

Recently, I’ve struggled with projection—I tend to talk too quietly.

What’s your on-set pet peeve?

People who complain all the time. Get a grip, we get to make movies!

Whose career arc do you envy in the industry?

I try not to envy anyone. Comparison used to kill me sometimes, but it’s a waste of energy. I just want to keep my head down and try my best. I’m in awe of others. It makes me insanely happy to see people win in life.

This feature is part of CULTURED’s 2026 Young Hollywood portfolio. Read interviews with Odessa A’zion, Tyriq Withers, Iris Apatow, and more. Get your copy of the Entertainers issue here. 

Hair by Takuya Sugawara
Makeup by Hadia Kabir
Nails by Eri Ishizu
Production and Casting by Dionne Cochrane
Lighting Tech by Dom Ellis
Photography Assistance by Tyler Brooks
Styling Assistance by Wiona Siedler and Johnny Langan
Hair Assistance by Haruka
Production Assistance by Brittany Thompson and Obi Nzeribe
Location: The Garibaldina Society

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Former adult star Chloe Cherry achieved instant fame alongside her fellow upstarts in Euphoria (as a drug dealer’s girlfriend—a role she’s reprised in season three, out this April). A string of experimental indies followed, including the 28-year-old’s forthcoming The Napa Boys, executive produced by Jerrod Carmichael, and a still hush-hush comedy with Adam Sandler.

What was the biggest “pinch me” moment of your career so far?

Any time people noticed my character in Euphoria at all. I couldn’t believe that anyone even cared. For years, my mother would tell me that the film and fashion industries wanted nothing to do with people who’ve been in adult films, so when I started working with major fashion houses and acting in mainstream projects, I was shocked. I really never thought it would be possible.

What’s one thing that the characters you gravitate to have in common?

They grieve. They have a God complex while simultaneously hating themselves. They usually live in their own fantasy world, and they’re obsessed with what they look like.

What’s the single greatest challenge of being a young actor today?

For me, it might be the identity struggles that can come with immersing yourself in a role. I give so much of myself to the character that sometimes I have to take a step back and question my real self: Am I really a party girl? When the world sees you as this one character, it can be hard to separate. But then I remember that I am only 28 and there are so many versions of me I can still become, and it’s okay to be inspired by those characters.

Name one film that got you through an important moment in your life. Why did you connect with it, and why does it stay with you?

What Dreams May Come brought me a lot of peace and hope after my father died when I was very young. It deals with death and the afterlife in a sad but beautiful way.

When did you learn what it meant to be an actor?

I always thought that if I couldn’t just, like, cry on command, I was a bad actor. But more and more, I’m realizing that being easy to work with—knowing how to take direction gracefully and respecting everyone and their work on set—is a huge part of the job.

What’s one thing you regret about your career so far?

Saying yes to too many things. I used to say yes because I felt like I had to if someone asked nicely. Now, I only take work that makes sense for me, and make all my decisions in collaboration with my team.

When was the last time you surprised yourself on set?

When I was down to do everything that Sam [Levinson] wrote for me in the Euphoria season three script. I I didn’t hold back—and it’s not all pretty.

This feature is part of CULTURED’s 2026 Young Hollywood portfolio. Read interviews with Odessa A’zion, Tyriq Withers, Iris Apatow, and more. Get your copy of the Entertainers issue here. 

Hair by Takuya Sugawara
Makeup by Yukari Obayashi Bush
Nails by Eri Ishizu
Production and Casting by Dionne Cochrane
Lighting Tech by Dom Ellis
Photography Assistance by Tyler Brooks
Styling Assistance by Wiona Siedler and Johnny Langan
Hair Assistance by Haruka
Makeup Assistance by Alisa Yasuda
Production Assistance by Brittany Thompson and Obi Nzeribe
Location: The Garibaldina Society

Acting is “a weird job,” says Odessa A’zion, who grew up steeped in the industry. But since appearing in 2011’s Conception—part of a cast that included Connie Britton, Jason Mantzoukas, and her mother, Pamela Adlon—the 25-year-old has turned the family trade into a calling. There was Am I OK? with Dakota Johnson, the Leslie Bibb co-led horror flick The Inhabitant, and the first season of Rachel Sennott’s sceney series I Love LA, which introduced A’zion to an unwieldy horde of chronically online fans.

Then came Marty Supreme. The Josh Safdie project was a last-minute 2025 blockbuster, in part through sheer force of will from its leading man, Timothée Chalamet, who spent months spreading the gospel of his ping-pong protagonist. As A’zion went toe-to-toe with Chalamet in shoot-outs and murky back rooms, she held her own in a project that’s already reigning over this year’s awards season.

But the actor isn’t resting on any laurels just yet; she’s itching to play more “layered, interesting, dirty, gritty characters”—the kind of roles that made her want to act in the first place.

When did you learn what it meant to be an actor?

I’m not sure if anyone knows what it means to be an actor. What I love about it is having the chance to drop into these alternate realities. You get to have experiences that you might never have in your own life.

When was the last time you surprised yourself on set?

A lot with Marty Supreme. When that role came along, I’d just had a tremendous loss in my life. It felt like a gift from that person: It’s going to be okay. At that time, I also didn’t know where my career was going, if I was going to keep doing indies and horror movies. I’m so grateful to have been involved in those projects, but I really wanted more.

Then came Marty Supreme. It was an incredible experience to be on set with people I had always dreamed of working with—and getting such meaningful feedback from them. The struggle was just trying to strip away the fear of judgment while doing something super vulnerable on camera. It’s such a weird job.

“I’ve heard ‘no’ so many more times than I’ve heard ‘yes.’ What are you going to do—linger over it? I don’t know about you, but I ain’t got the funds for that. Move on. Prep for the next audition.” —Odessa A’zion

How do you manage rejection?

No ritual. Just get on with your day, because you’re going to hear it a lot. I have lost so many jobs that I thought I would get. I’ve heard “no” so many more times than I’ve heard “yes.” What are you going to do—linger over it? I don’t know about you, but I ain’t got the funds for that. Move on. Prep for the next audition.

Name one film that got you through an important moment in your life. Why did you connect with it, and why does it stay with you?

Harold and Maude. It’s always been my go-to. The performances are incredible, and their relationship is so beautiful. It deals with loss and death in a beautiful way—and I’ve returned to it a lot in the last two years as I’ve been dealing with that. That film reminds me that life isn’t so serious, that many of the rules that we have in place for ourselves are stupid. We’re here. We experience it. When we’re ready to let go, we don’t have to be afraid.

Whose career arc do you envy in the industry?

Jack Nicholson, just roles-wise. His characters always feel a little dangerous; they’re always on edge. I love that. I want to play characters with real depth and layers to them.

What’s the single greatest challenge of being a young actor today?

Criticism and assumptions. You don’t have to be a writer at Rolling Stone for people to listen to what you’re saying, which is what I think is really dangerous. People speaking about you when they don’t know you or what you’ve been through… that pisses me the fuck off. I’m like, Girl—what?

What’s one thing you regret about your career so far?

I don’t know—everything is learning. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of the projects I’ve done if I hadn’t done the one before it. Even if I sucked in it or if I think the project was terrible, you’ve got to build. Hopefully, I’ve gotten better over time, because I definitely don’t think I was a good actor when I was younger.

What’s your on-set pet peeve?

Assholes. Big, big, big, big pet peeve. Get off the fucking set. What are you doing here? It’s just so easy to be nice.

What do you think is different about the actor’s experience now, that previous generations didn’t have to reconcile with?

Everyone is a journalist now. You don’t have to be a writer at Rolling Stone for people to listen to what you’re saying, which is why I think it’s really dangerous. Social media is really dangerous because people spread misinformation online without knowing about a subject, assuming things, and then speaking on someone’s behalf when they can’t really defend themselves or even if they try to, people will not believe you. 

What have you done beyond one role after another that’s helped you strengthen your skills?

Non-acting wise? For Marty Supreme, I stripped all the hair color out of my hair. I’m allergic to hair dye, so I can’t use real dye. I have to use this weird dye that always makes my hair look a little green or purple, so we had to strip it all out while filming. I watched a lot of Hitchcock. I cut all my hair off. For the belly, I wore weights and a corset underneath, because I wanted to feel restricted, like I couldn’t breathe.

There’s some stuff like that per role, which I’ll do physically and emotionally. When I’m not acting, I do music as well. I haven’t had the time to really get into it recently, which sucks. Hopefully next year I’ll have some music out. 

What do you want next for yourself most of all?

I really hope to continue working with people, like the whole cast and crew behind Marty Supreme and I Love LA. Of course, Marty Supreme is extra special for me emotionally. I felt like that character came at a time where I really needed her. I feel really connected to that movie and those people. Hopefully, to continue working with people like that and playing really layered, interesting, dirty, gritty characters.

Can you elaborate slightly on why that character feels so resonant?

I really feel for her in a lot of ways, and think that she’s really special. I care about her. It’s crazy because she’s a made-up person. I don’t know, I feel like I really knew her. A big reason why was because I just had a tremendous loss in my life. It felt like a gift from that person, which said, “It’s going to be okay.” Another part was that I didn’t know where my career was going, and if I was going to keep doing indies and horror movies. I’m so grateful to have been a part of those projects, but also really wanted more and to play characters like Rachel.

This feature is part of CULTURED’s 2026 Young Hollywood portfolio. Read interviews with Tyriq Withers, Iris Apatow, and more.

Purchase your copy of the Entertainers issue featuring Odessa A’zion here. 

For this special issue of The Critics’ Table, Jarrett Earnest follows the boom clap of his heart, writing not about visual art, strictly speaking. Instead, he takes us to the final night of Charli XCX’s 2025 Barclays Center concert and then to the movies, where—with self-indicting savvy—the pop star’s fake/real tour documentary brings Brat summer to its long-awaited, triumphant end. 

Last year, one of my friends got a job painting the huge curtain for Charli XCX’s stage show, the “brat”-emblazoned backdrop that prolonged 2024’s “Brat summer” into the fall, then winter, then spring. My friend’s job was to cross out the four-letter word, applying faux dirt and graffiti to the banner, adding the appearance of wear and tear before each show, gradually transforming the pristine, digital-green expanse into an enormous, tattered rag. The pop star’s conceit was that the phenomenon was getting worn out—for her, if not for her fans. As a gesture by an artist at the height of success, this seemed both incredibly savvy and like the very essence of cool: Charli freeing herself to move on and do something else, all the while still giving the people what they wanted. 

When the U.S. leg of the tour culminated in four sold-out nights at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, my friend invited me to the final show. It seemed like it would be fun, even if I didn’t particularly care about the concert. After a few frozen margaritas and a half-tab of acid, I found myself in the center of the vast crowd. When the lights finally went down and Charli’s track began to play, there was my friend’s defaced “brat”—the scenic anchor for a stark performance concept. The stripped-down spectacle’s other visual elements included constant strobing lights, a glowing battle rope hanging from the ceiling that Charli would wiggle like a noodly lightning bolt, lots of fog, and—for the concert’s climax—a column of rain. Charli strutted from one side of the nearly empty stage to another, posing, stalked by camera people; she walked under the stage, the audience watching her, always, via live video feeds on Jumbotrons. 

My friend said his favorite part, night after night, was turning away from the stage and just looking out into the audience, seeing how fucking psyched the crowd was, the energy of thousands of people (at Barclays, around 17,000) singing along with every word. The other thing he’d see was a sea of glowing rectangles, virtually everyone filming, their phones raised high to capture Charli’s tiny, distant figure on stage, as well as big-screen close-ups of her.  

It’s a condition endemic to the arena show. For everyone there, not to mention everyone seeing clips online, the performance is for the screens. In this sense, the Brat tour’s austere art direction, which did nothing to distract from the raw effects of this hyper-mediation, seemed practical as well as critical, commenting on the relationship between the fans and the screen, the image and the person, and perhaps the artist to herself. Continuous, pervasive live filming seemed to grant ever greater access to Charli, while simultaneously erecting a barrier, a protection, in the same way her oversize dark glasses seemed to be a shield, holding the fantasies of intimacy and connection at bay, deferring the parasocial promise of such performances. You couldn’t help but feel she was totally isolated up there. 

At the end of the roughly 80-minute show, the screens flashed a sequence of text, a message from Charli: “I’ve been thinking a lot about / brat summer / and whether it’s / FINALLY / over????? / and I thought it was… / BUT ACTUALLY…”

It turns out that Brat would linger on, as long as people kept paying for it. Which is to say there was something deeply ambivalent, even conflicted, about the entire production. It seemed edged with an unavoidable cynicism, I thought, this drive to push insane commercial success to even greater returns, to wearily try to make “Brat summer” last forever. 

Suitably then, The Moment, director Aiden Zamiri’s debut feature—“a movie about Brat and Charli and a tour but none of it happened but maybe some of it did,” per its tagline—arrives in the dead of winter. “Based on an original idea by Charli XCX,” who stars as a fictional version of herself, it’s a mockumentary about the making of a concert film of an alternate-reality version of the Brat tour. Plausible stand-ins for her real-life creative team and record label reps are played by actors, pushing her non-stop to agree to “collaborations” with influencer-types, to paid posts for hotels in Ibiza, and to a Brat-green credit card aimed at ensnaring “a young queer market.” The result is a combination of the Spice Girls’ tongue-in-cheek Spice World, 1997, and the first two seasons of Lisa Kudrow’s proto-reality TV masterpiece The Comeback, 2005-2014, trading the former’s high camp and the latter’s deep cringe for a deadpan satire all its own. 

In The Moment, every person we see around the singer is on her payroll, with a vested interest in maintaining her non-stop schedule to some degree. She has no friends. Her longtime art director, Celeste (Hailey Benton Gates), attempts to make a concert very close to the one that actually happened but is undermined, thrown over for sleaze-ball filmmaker Johannes (Alexander Skarsgård) and a vision antithetical to her concept. When surveying Celeste’s proposed intensive strobe lights and large flashing signs, one reading “CUNT,” he advises that they consider family audiences. Celeste retorts, “She’s literally singing about cocaine.” Johannes asks, “literally or metaphorically?” (It should be noted that “CUNT” did not appear on the screens at Barclays Center, and the show was in fact family-friendly—literal or metaphorical blow notwithstanding.)

Charli, overwhelmed and unsure, basically defers creative responsibility, allowing the record execs and filmmaker to create the production they want, replete with a giant bedazzled cigarette and lighter on stage, high glam costumes, lots of smiling, no sunglasses. Almost no Brat songs appear in the movie except in shattered fragments; they’ve been replaced with an electronic score, undulant and discordant, by her longtime musical collaborator, producer A.G. Cook.

For the one song we do get, Charli is dressed in a short green glittering dress, like Kylie Minogue as the green fairy in Moulin Rouge, absurdly hoisted in a harness and wires high above the stage. The track “I might say something stupid” plays, her self-doubting pop lament (“I don’t feel like nothing special / I snag my tights out on the lawn chair / Guess I’m a mess and play the role…”). In a perfect feat of physical comedy, she’s totally still, her feet flat as though she’s standing on an invisible floor, while she calls down to her team, repeatedly, asking if she looks stupid. Hanging in a void, literally and metaphorically, she receives only obsequious assurance. There’s no one she can trust. 

The smartest thing about this movie, the key to why it works, is that everyone is made to look bad. Each character is shallow, delusional, and self-serving. Charli herself is shown firing her longtime collaborator and capitulating in desperation to the demands of her career machinery. The Moment is very funny, but the humor is razor-edged, and it’s never totally clear which way it’s cutting. In a scene where the characters representing the film’s production team consider that a temporarily missing Charli might in fact be dead, they almost eagerly bring up Amy, 2015, the “powerful” cinéma verité documentary about Amy Winehouse, which won its director, Asif Kapadia, an Oscar among other accolades. For many around her, she might prove as profitable dead as alive. 

Near the end, Charli leaves a long voice memo apologizing to Celeste, saying she knows the new version of the tour is artistically bankrupt, and yet she’s going on with it, joking, “You should come.” And for the finale, we get a sizzle reel for the concert film-within-the-film, a montage of Charli vamping with backup dancers, awkward faux-sexy chair-ography à la Eras Tour, the pumped melodrama of her spotlit and suspended midair. Brand logos flicker subliminally in lightning-fast edits, and product placements are peppered throughout. It’s like a rhinestoned, laughing inversion of every decision that the real-life Charli made. The effect is as searing and self-indicting as it is hilarious, showing the contrast between her actual tour, the one in the film, and the compromises they both entailed—different in degree but not in kind. In playing a fictional version herself, Charli dramatizes not only her own lose-lose predicament as a celebrity, but an essential aspect of contemporary life. It’s a depiction explicitly pitched against the pandering “authenticity” and “accessibility” of both social media and the behind-the-scenes concert-film genre.  

That a celebrity of her status could get away with making something this slyly subversive and authentically fun is astonishing. This is as close to art as pop gets, its achievement greater precisely because Charli and The Moment wage their critique far from the siloed and symbolic realms of the art and literary worlds, on the largest stages of culture and capital. And, most radically, they leave their own ambivalences intact, exposed. The Moment enacts an autopsy of “Brat summer” and its aftermath from the inside out, delivering on what that soiled curtain promised: “brat” scratched out, torn asunder—a conclusion. It is an artistic declaration of independence. And it makes undeniable what has perhaps been long apparent—that Charli, with her closeknit collaborators by her side, is the most intelligent and interesting pop star of our moment. May the long season of Brat finally end. May Charli XCX do exactly what she wants, forever.

More of our favorite stories from CULTURED

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“Tessa Thompson is everywhere,” Janicza Bravo says when the pair sit down for a rare Zoom call in January. Their friendship typically takes place in person; Thompson can be spotted waiting for Bravo—who is known for running late—at restaurants around Los Angeles, where they both live.

The director’s not wrong. Though Thompson has been in Hollywood for over two decades, this is shaping up to be her busiest season yet. She made her rounds on the award circuit for Hedda, Nia DaCosta’s reinvention of Henrik Ibsen’s 19th-century play about an aristocratic woman defying every norm imposed on her. (Her role as the titular Hedda Gabler has won her a Critic’s Choice award and a Golden Globe nom.) His & Hers, the mystery thriller limited series she leads with Jon Bernthal, hit 19.9 million views on Netflix within days of dropping in January. She’s brought her new production company, Viva Maude, roaring to life with both of those projects.

Next, she’ll be making her Broadway debut opposite Adrien Brody in The Fear of 13. The production, which begins previews this March, tells the story of a man who spent more than two decades on death row before being exonerated with new DNA evidence. “I’m really in these streets and for the streets,” Thompson tells Bravo, when reminded of the deluge of projects set before her in 2026.

Bravo—who has ventured further into television since her 2020 film Zola with directing credits on episodes of The Bear, Poker Face, and Too Much—witnessed Thompson’s work ethic, and some of her newfound executive skills, firsthand when the two teamed up to produce Is God Is, this May’s debut from playwright Aleshea Harris, about a pair of twin sisters out for revenge against their father.

“The image for me is you’re in the garden,” says Bravo, noting the years Thompson, now 42, spent sowing the seeds that brought her to this moment. “You’re doing somewhat of a harvest right now, actually.” Here, the pair revel in the abundance.

Janicza Bravo: I’m going to jump in. Where are you?

Tessa Thompson: New York, my favorite city in the world. And I say that with some measure of embarrassment—

Bravo: Worth noting that you do live in Los Angeles.

Thompson: At the risk of sounding like Mary Tyler Moore, I feel really alive in this city. And at the risk of sounding saccharine, I feel most like myself. The things that I love to do, I do more here. Even last night, I flew in, and I was so tired. I’d been with you the night before, and then I went home and had to pack.

Bravo: For the reader, you actually pack your own bags. Guys, the stars are just like us.

Thompson: And I’m a terrible packer, so I really shouldn’t be in charge of packing.

Bravo: You’re an over-packer.

Thompson: Hugely. Don’t know an edit.

Bravo: Can’t handle an edit.

Thompson: So I was busy overpacking; I didn’t sleep. I arrived here so tired, but tempted to leave the hotel. To do what, I don’t know. I took a bath, I started Heated Rivalry because that’s what you do in these times. But I think what I like about being here is I feel, even if I’m not participating, that all the things that might bring me joy or excitement or curiosity are possible.

Bravo: Since we are talking about New York, you’re going to—drumroll—debut on Broadway in just a few months.

Thompson: That’s also maybe what I feel—a sense of this impending excitement. I’ll be here doing a thing that I have long dreamt of one day getting to do. It’s been a circuitous route to get there. And here I am. And Coltrane is here.

Bravo: Coltrane the dog, not the musician. Just in case someone’s like, Is that his ghost she’s with? What was the last play you did?

Thompson: The last play I did was called Smart People by Lydia Diamond. And we did it here with Mahershala Ali.

Bravo: Humblebrag. That was when?

Thompson: You know what, Janicza, I don’t know. What is your relationship with time? I think I know because I’m waiting for you sometimes for like 45 minutes when we have dinner, and I’m like, Wow, she never met time.

Bravo: Time feels like a Western construct, and while I do inhabit the Western world in my day-to-day and in my business practice, I think that I actually am from another plane. My relationship to time is that I am there when it is the right time for us—

Thompson: For you! I’ve known that about you for a long time. This is what it is to know and to love you. “It hasn’t reached my desk,” as Ayo [Edebiri] said on the Golden Globes red carpet. So many things never reach my desk. Everyone’s posting photographs from 2016, for example.

Bravo: Why is this happening?

Thompson: I don’t know, it hasn’t reached my desk yet!

Bravo: Sometimes I like not knowing. Is it a year of the horse? Was it a horse before? Are we horse again? It made me realize my relationship with time.

Thompson: When you asked me how long ago that play was, I thought it was at most seven years. Then I spoke to Mahershala Ali— humblebrag, name drop—and he was like, “Ten years ago we did this play.”

Bravo: So either seven or 10 years ago, according to Mahershala—and I hope his name appears three times in this article—this play happened. What does it mean to be returning to Broadway? I imagine Ms. Tessa Thompson is booked and busy. Many things do come across your desk.

Thompson: Maybe it had to do with having done Hedda, which is an adaptation of a play. Making that piece felt like making a play, even though we were making this cinematic work. This real hunger emerged, though I’ve always been drawn to the stage. It was the first thing I imagined I would do—TV and film felt like, not even an afterthought.

Even though I was born and raised in Los Angeles, I did not understand how people came to be in movies because no one in my world was in movies. When I would come to New York and visit my dad and my family here, I would see plays. When my father [a musician and singer-songwriter] would work in the theater, I would be on the stage. It was always something I dreamt about, because I understood how to dream about it, I suppose. Soon, I started to think, Geez, it’s either been seven or 10 years, according to me, and Mahershala.

Bravo: That’s the fourth Mahershala mention. On the sixth time, does he suddenly appear on Zoom?

Thompson: I hope so… I started to think, Goodness, this is a muscle that might atrophy, and it’s the thing I want most deeply. This is a newer piece of work, and I’ve done so much classical work. I’ve done so many adaptations of things, and I’m really interested in new work too, cultivating a relationship with this generation’s writers who are making work that hopefully we’ll look back on. It’s also based on a real-life story. I think a lot about the utility of story—why do we tell the stories that we tell? This particular story takes place inside the carceral system, and I know that’s something that we need to talk about more in America.

Bravo: One of the things I wanted to ask was essentially how you go about picking the work that you want to sink your teeth into. Also, from a producing standpoint, I want to make sure that we’re bringing up Viva Maude and what you’re building there.

Thompson: Viva Maude is something so integral to the way I want to work. When you’re making films at any level, but particularly at the indie level, there’s so much work to get it there. I wanted to feel like I was a part of that work that. You and I have done that in the form of Is God Is.

[Viva Maude] gets its name from a character in a film that I really love called Harold and Maude. I love that character so much, because it feels like she kind of created a trope—the manic pixie dream girl—but also upended it by being 80 and suicidal. Which is why I fucking love your work, Janicza, and was such a fan and admirer of yours before I became a dear friend, because I feel like you offer the kind of protagonists that feel both of their time and ahead of their time. They feel impossible to define, they feel singular, and they feel like they usher the audience into a new space and a new way of seeing. Viva Maude came as an experiment in creating architecture and infrastructure around doing that in real time.

Bravo: This isn’t a company started by an actor basically to launch more of their own work that they’re in.

Thompson: No. In some ways, I felt this anxiety around the first two projects, Hedda and His & Hers, coming out with me in the center. That felt like a real misdirect in terms of what the company wants to do and how it wants to establish itself. Never mind that. As an actor, personally, the thing that has always guided me is, Is there a spark? I still really am dying to be in one of your frames. I wanna say that here in the hopes it’ll be in print.

Bravo: Do you find yourself thinking about the audience and the reception?

Thompson: I would be lying to say I don’t, particularly with starting the company. I can never trust that the director I’m producing for is gonna know. I need to know, so I know how to protect them. I’ve read like the top line of stuff, for example, with His & Hers.

Bravo: Are people sending you things, too?

Thompson: Yeah, of course.

Bravo: Why are we sending people anything? Have I told you that twice I’ve accidentally sent the wrong link? And it was a link that was, like, emotionally damaging. An it’s-time-to-walk-into-traffic kind of link.

Thompson: I sort of do that to myself, though, because I am famously like, Stay off the Internet, stay off the Internet, stay off the Internet. But then I’m like, Don’t click on that. Oh God, I just clicked on that. The fortress around you is interested in sending you the good shit. And I go, Well, what about the bad, because it must exist? In creation now, I do think not about reception, but I think about the audience in ways that I didn’t before.

Bravo: Is this with age, or is this with producing?

Thompson: Maybe it’s a function of both. Maybe it’s also a function of the times in which we live. I used to have a bottomless appetite for things being dark or cynical. Maybe I will grow to appreciate that again in the things I watch and create. But I’ve always been interested in things that are audacious in some way, and to me, what’s most audacious in the times we live in now is to make something that is optimistic.

Bravo: You’re looking to evoke more pleasure.

Thompson: I think so. I certainly felt that with His & Hers or Hedda. They are characters that might be unsavory, but ultimately, there’s something in it…

Bravo: Both with great clothes, though. The most important thing about both those characters—the clothing is really fantastic.

Thompson: Which is its own kind of optimism. Times are tough, but you can look fab.

Bravo: Times are tough, but tailoring is key. I remember when we were at the beginning of the pandemic. There was this question of, what is the value? Somewhere inside the muck, there became some clarity around all these people at home watching. People need some form of escapism.

Here we are six years later in this moment where things feel murkier than they’ve felt maybe in quite some time, and there’s a larger disparity between people and where they’re coming from and what they desire. The work feels, again, invaluable. You have a film that we are orbiting around in this conversation called Hedda. You’ve got His & Hers that just came out. And now you’re about to do Broadway. There isn’t a place that I can look where you’re not gonna be. How do you take care of yourself amid all of this making?

Thompson: It’s coming off a period where I’ve been the least visible I’ve been in a really, really, really long time. It was a period of deciding intentionally not to be in spaces, not to be hyper-visible, because I didn’t have something to promote.

Bravo: Not to be in these streets.

Thompson: It’s interesting returning to the streets. Then also the hyper-visibility that comes from being on a platform like Netflix, which is very different than the spaces I’ve been on before. I feel like I’m reengaging with my relationship to it. Just being on a carpet and feeling like you’re ready for consumption, I suppose, that I belong to an audience in a different kind of way. I think I have a better approach to being in these streets than I used to, having some break from it.

Sometimes I have these sorts of out-of-body experiences, where I feel like I’m hovering slightly above or below myself, but I’m not in my skin. What I’ve experienced recently is feeling really in the room. Maybe it’s also a function of age, and also the culmination of so much thought and labor. Particularly with building this company, it’s felt for a long time now like things are kind of hypothetical. So now, to be able to bask in and live in the reality of it, good, bad, whatever, and for the reality to feel, by and large, pretty good, that people are watching, people are engaging, that does feel like the restoration.

Bravo: I want to close with something that you started this conversation with, which was that you’re in New York and you feel most like yourself. And as someone talking to you from LA, I’ll try not to take it personally. Could you, in a handful of words, define what you are, especially right now?

Thompson: In this current moment, I am ever reaching towards that which does not yet exist, you know? Continuously trying to wrestle myself into a kind of divine discontent, which is not to say that I don’t appreciate all of the fantastic things. But I’m striving in this world, in this little time, relatively speaking, that we all have, to try to make the spaces that we exist in more beautiful than they were when we arrived in them. Whatever that looks like, whatever that means.

Pre-order your copy of the Entertainers issue, with Tessa Thompson on the cover, here.

Creative Direction by Studio&
Makeup by Alex Babsky
Hair by Lacy Redway
Nails by Stephanie Stone
Casting by Tom Macklin
Set Design by Romain Goudinoux
Project Management by Chloe Kerins
Creative Production by Katie Binfield
Fashion Assistance by Cydney Moore and Chiara Giangola
Lighting Assistance by Phil Sanchez
Second Lighting Assistance by Talisa Choi

When you think about it, it’s surprising that A.G. Cook hasn’t done a film score yet. The 35-year-old sonic mastermind behind many of Charli XCX’s best tunes—including “360,” “girl, so confusing,” “Track 10,” and last year’s surprise resurgence hit “party 4 u”—as well as the cult hyperpop label PC Music is known for his unhinged, sugar-blasted take on pop music. When Cook arrived on the London scene, some critics and listeners had trouble taking his music—too pop for the club, but too experimental for the charts—seriously. But two Brat summers, a Beyoncé collaboration, and several expectation-defying solo albums in, A.G. Cook’s sound isn’t just accepted—it’s the moment.

Cook has been an integral collaborator and producer for Charli XCX since the mid-2010s when the two of them, frustrated by the creative limitations imposed by Charli’s record label, churned out ecstatic mixtapes like 2017’s Pop 2 and Number 1 Angel. Those projects hinted at an obsession with artifice, the performance of fame, the commercialization of basically everything, and the endless horizon of digital sound—all of which eventually burst forth in 2024’s Brat and its cinematic shadow self, The Moment.

The film, directed by fellow Charli acolyte Aidan Zamiri and in theaters now, leans into Cook and Charli’s cheeky collision of high and low, reality and fantasy. You won’t catch Cook onscreen—save for a cameo as the DJ in a nightclub scene that finds Charli cutting up lines with a Brat credit card and dancing with Shygirl—but his fingerprints are all over it. Part of Brat’s power was the ability for its universe to be both inescapable and somewhat elusive, and The Moment and its soundtrack have been no exception. Cook mixed in early snippets of the score during his sets at Coachella and Glastonbury, which started spawning almost instantaneously on TikTok. His final soundtrack, 40-minutes of pulse-pounding dance music that could be Brat’s more sinister sister, is a through-the-looking-glass response to a pop persona gone haywire. (Go watch the “Residue” music video for a taste.)

CULTURED caught up with Cook to talk John Carpenter, why he’s anti-worldbuilding, and what his own autofictional movie might look like.

What are your favorite movie soundtracks? Did any inspire you this time around?

All my favorite soundtracks are ones where there are really big, important musical moments and then also a lot of silence. A great example is Mulholland Drive. Obviously everyone loves David Lynch’s music and Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks work, but rewatching Mulholland Drive, there’s such good music but also really long bits where there’s important soundscapes and other things. Like a lot of Lynch movies, it’s not constantly hitting you with music. 

Another example is the collaboration on The Thing between John Carpenter and Ennio Morricone. Carpenter has his very lo-fi thing—the single keyboard note Halloween sound—which is amazing. But then for one of the big masters like Morricone to come in and do his take on that John Carpenter sound was really interesting. It’s a really famous score with important moments, but there’s also all this dead space in between and this awkward contrast between synthy sounds and a more extended classical feel.

I prefer those scores as opposed to the constant drone. A lot of modern cinema leans toward filling up the space all the time, and that’s never really how I like to experience music in any form.

This is your first full soundtrack. What was that experience like writing it? It must be really different than writing for Charli or for one of your albums.

I’ve done short scores or fashion soundtrack things—those tend to be like 10 minutes. A full feature is totally different. It’s funny it took me so long to get around to it. I’ve just been worried about the amount of time those projects take, when I’m finishing albums with people and how big a job it is to score something.

This was not just a nice opportunity to work with people I knew well, but also one I couldn’t really say no to. It was such a bizarre setup anyway, with Brat being such a crazy thing to work on and then see out in the real world. To have a bit of commentary or a bit of fun and games with what Brat even is, and to revisit it for a completely different purpose, was very tempting. It let me reflect on it even while being in the middle of all of it. 

I insisted on making most of the music up front, before they were shooting, really once I had the script. I wanted to be able to not just have a kind of gut response and work quickly, which is something I’m always trying to catch in the Charli workflow, but also to give them material to live with, shoot with. I was already trying to make pieces that were quite bold, but could then morph, evaporate, and go silent. 

It ended up being the intro and outro for Coachella, the soundtrack for the Brat backdrop going on fire at Glastonbury, all those things. It would pop up in my DJ sets before the film was out. People were already snatching parts of it from livestreams, putting it on TikTok, even illegally uploading it to Spotify. So it was a very intentional way of playing into what The Moment is already doing, this sort of unreal reality, this slice of life. There’s a joy to the red herrings. I wanted to enjoy being quite an active participant.

It’s notable to me that in the soundtrack there’s not many themes from Brat or any of your older music. We don’t even hear Charli’s singing voice until the end.

That was very intentional. I knew that it would be exploding Brat in some way. Very immediately I was like, “There can’t be any Charli singing in the actual score.” It would muddy the waters and take away the effect of feeling her vulnerability when she is performing, and I wanted to be able to draw a line. I think that’s why it was really fun with the “I Love It” sample at the end. It’s the credits, but it’s also the first “single” we did in the rollout. It’s a callback to Coachella as well. So it felt like a nice way of suddenly giving in. But even with the Icona Pop stuff, it is and isn’t Charli’s voice. It’s a sort of Schrödinger’s Charli, where it is that Charli song but it’s also a pop song she gave to a different group. 

Can we talk about the one big needle drop, “Bittersweet Symphony,” at the end?

That was pretty much in the script, at least the version I saw. It was weirdly an obsession Aidan and Charli had. They needed something that felt like it wasn’t a Charli song.

It’s interesting from a meta-textual point too. The Verve weren’t able to cash in on that song’s massive success for a long time because of an unlicensed sample, so they ended up feeling like outsiders despite their cultural pervasiveness, which I think resonates with the movie.

I think all that’s playing into it. The video is so famous and such an influence on the “360” video and Aidan’s work in particular. It’s my favorite bit of the score, the minute before “Bittersweet” comes in. I had a completely different part of the score underpinning Charli’s monologue, different tempo, different key, and then I had to make it melt and turn into “Bittersweet.” That was definitely the trickiest part of the whole thing. 

All the score had to be volatile. Even the dread theme in the credits intrudes on the “360” remix at the very beginning of the film. I knew all these parts would have to be very flexible and in dialogue with themselves or something like “Bittersweet” or “360.” It has a slight DJ quality in terms of elasticity and overlapping.

Were you ever going to be part of the movie?

Very briefly. I think it’s intentional that you never actually see Charli make music in the film. That would be something very different. There are very specific omissions that focus on it in a certain way. There’s no George figure. There is an emotional life, but it’s not the focus. There’s no locked-in music nerd Charli writing a song. It’s about what happens after the music is made.

Watching The Moment made me think of these old tour diaries Charli has on YouTube from the Pop 2 era when she was opening for Taylor Swift on the Reputation tour. They’re very candid little home videos. You’re even in some, with her listening to “5 in the Morning.” I was wondering if working on The Moment made you nostalgic or reflect in a different way on the last 10 years.

What’s funny about 2017 is that Number 1 Angel and Pop 2 happened in the same year. Charli was really busy. We were doing little bits of sessions where we could catch them. There’s some sweet footage from around then. Not that Charli hadn’t already found success, especially as a songwriter, but we really remember that time as being full-on. We’d go to the studio between everything else going on, finish something immediately, get with featured vocalists, track them down. We were doing tiny DJ shows for ourselves or for the mixtape rollout where it’s just Charli with a mic and me with CDJs and no other production. 

There was a definite DIY quality considering she was technically signed to a major at that point. The notion that whole year was doing as much as possible ourselves, on our own terms, not really being part of a campaign plan. That’s after Charli’s already played that game with her first couple of albums. You can really hear it in the chaos of the mixtapes. They have a charming quality. Even the way the features sound—different genres, people coming in and out—you get this feeling like anything could happen. 

I don’t think the film itself changed my perspective. What really changed things was Brat going down the way it did. And also in a time where there’s constantly interesting music happening, the culture is polarized in a way. Before Brat, there was this feeling that there were no more water-cooler moments, no more mass culture moments. Then something quite experimental by pop standards becomes a very widespread water-cooler moment and still has legs. Around the remix album, people were still engaging with different versions of things. The longevity and dominance of that—that’s the turning point.

I was curious about your thoughts on this wave of artist-created soundtracks—Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Oneohtrix Point Never, Jonny Greenwood, Nala Sinephro.

So many of those soundtracks are great. In the A24 context it’s become a selling point. Personally, my own music as A.G. Cook has become more long-form. I’ve been doing ten-minute tracks, even since 7G. I was playing around with Britpop and longer instrumental tracks, and people started asking about putting them in movies. Even my music videos have moved toward longer-form or ambiguous narratives. 

I sometimes reject the word “world-building.” Even though there were tracks I left off the vinyl to make it work, I like the idea of presenting it as something quite confident and poppy and in your face. I enjoyed the multiple lives a score can have—live shows, LP versions. This project leans into that heavily. Even the video release for “Residue,” with all the mini Charlis, sits in a strange zone. Is it a movie promo? A single? Part of the score?

Why do you say you’re resistant to the word “world-building”?

The thing that I don’t love about it is it has a very literal implication. Going back, I think of someone like David Lynch as an amazing world builder, because it’s so atmospheric. He’s not telling you everything. The world building I don’t like in media that overexplains. But I really appreciate this sort of dream logic; that’s what makes it feel larger than life. 

When doing these zoomed-out projects, I just don’t want the audience to take away something literal from it. I want them to be able to feel it and then dig deeper. It somehow makes it more lifelike rather than giving someone a key and barraging them with detail.

If you were to make a The Moment-style movie about your own career, what would it be like?

I’m quite different from Charli, there’s that. It would be quite funny to make it more dreamlike. Obviously I did PC Music for a long time, and it’s still this entity that I run in the background. It would be almost impossible to make a PC Music movie because there’s so many aesthetics. The whole thing I wanted was for every artist to have their own lane. Group interviews sort of start to break reality, as everyone has their own niche thing that they do. 

Because I’m so into contrast, I think it’d be really funny for it to just go between different mediums. Like at one point I’m showing someone how to make a synth sound on a podcast, and it’s incredibly dry. And the next moment it’s like some animated thing of me constantly turning up in the wrong place. Something really high and low, with moments of true boredom and then insane set design. Some sort of Michel Gondry kind of stuff that happens. Making a total dream-logic chaotic thing where you’ve no idea what happened, but you might have some insight into what I might be about.