Kaya Scodelario
KAYA SCODELARIO IN LONDON, JULY 2014. DRESS: MOSCHINO. GLOVES (VINTAGE): FOUND AND VISION. EARRINGS, NECKLACE, AND RING: BULGARI. STYLING: KAREN CLARKSON.
Kaya Scodelario came to prominence in the notorious U.K. TV series Skins, a show that took the morality out of young adult dramas. But the 22-year-old actress does have her limits: “I love watching Game of Thrones, but I keep seeing my friends naked on it,” she says. “I’m like, ‘I don’t need to know what you look like.’ ” It’s a philosophy she applies to her own career. “I believe there are some things meant only for you and the person you love. In any case, my mom is too traditional—she’d get the wooden spoon out and smack me up!” Scodelario, who was raised by her Brazilian mother on a North London housing estate, calls her mom the strongest woman she knows. “We come from a very humble background. A lot of my paycheck from Skins went to paying the bills and getting us a new sofa,” she recalls. “My house now is a shit-hole, but my mom’s is lovely.”
Scodelario’s sense of reserve initially made her question her first big Hollywood role. When the script for the highly anticipated teenage blockbuster The Maze Runner thudded onto her doormat, she wondered, “Am I going to be in some weird love triangle?” Luckily, that’s not part of the adventure story. “It’s purely about survival,” she explains. “These young people are trying to work out where they are and who has put them in this forest.” Scodelario was slightly intimidated when she first arrived on set and realized that she was the lone female among eight men, but it didn’t take long for her and her castmates to become friends. “I like to have fun,” she says. “I’m also a bit of the crazy one. All my friends are boys. I was bullied a lot by girls in school. There was also too much drama and demands.”
Scodelario recently wrapped production on the 18th-century fantasy drama The Moon and the Sun, in which she plays the princess daughter of Pierce Brosnan’s Louis XIV. “Brosnan is one of the greatest people I’ve ever met,” she says. “He set me up with my boyfriend, telling me that my co-star liked me.” That co-star is American actor Benjamin Walker, who, along with plenty of plum film roles, keeps bringing Scodelario across the Atlantic.
COSMETICS: MAC, INCLUDING MINERALIZE MOISTURE SPF15 FOUNDATION, EYE KOHL PENCIL IN TEDDY AND LONGWEAR PAINT POT. HAIR PRODUCTS: BUMBLE AND BUMBLE, INCLUDING PREP SPRAY AND HAIRDRESSER’S INVISIBLE OIL. HAIR: SOICHI FOR BUMBLE AND BUMBLE/SAINT LUKE. MAKEUP: NAOKO SCINTU FOR MAC PRO/SAINT LUKE. MANICURE: IMARNI FOR ESSIE/SAINT LUKE. SPECIAL THANKS: RIDA UK.
