Last February, a group of fashion and art insiders met at the Core Club, in midtown Manhattan, stocked up on champagne and truffle oil popcorn, and packed into a theater for the premiere of a short film called “Here.” It was a perfectly pretty flick, even if it was largely an ad for the Luxury Collection brand of hotels, but the big draw was its star, Agyness Deyn. In the piece, the British model pursues the person behind a series of mysterious wax-sealed letters that she has been receiving. She runs through empty villas and remote cabins until she reaches her destination. It comes not at all as a surprise that she looks really fabulous while doing this.
Apart from a small part in the big-budget action film “Clash of the Titans,” the model has had precious little time on screen. That is about to change. After securing a part in Francois Archibald’s “The Leisure Society,” a play onstage earlier this year in London’s West End, and the role of the stripper in the 2012 remake of the drug thriller “Pusher,” Deyn will be making her first star turn. It was announced yesterday that she’ll be playing a farmer during World War I in “Sunset Song,” director Terence Davies’s adaptation of the 1932 Scottish novel.
“When I read the script I fell completely in love with the character and the story,” Deyn told British Vogue. “I’m so honored and excited to be working with Terence, he’s such an incredible director.”
Will she be as successful on set as she has been on the runway? It’s hard to tell from what we’ve seen, as “Home” didn’t really force her to dig into an emotional well. She’s following in the footsteps of Australian model Gemma Ward, who nabbed a part in “The Great Gatsby” after small parts in “The Strangers” and a “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel. And there’s Lily Cole, a muse to Jean Paul Gaultier who’s in the movie “Snow White and the Huntsman,” set for release this summer.
Another interview with British Vogue, which ran in April just a few weeks after “The Leisure Society” ended its run, may give some hints as to what we can expect from Deyn in the future, or at least her hopes for it. She wants to play an “archetypal strong woman” like Jane Eyre, or Joan of Arc.
Perhaps her burgeoning career in film will force her to come back to the States. After spending years as a fixture on American red carpets, she broke up with Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. and moved to London. New York might best be avoided, though: that rock star ex-boyfriend has apparently taken up with Deyn’s countrywoman, Alexa Chung. What would Jane Eyre do?