Imogen Poots Hits a Career High

Imogen Poots has been working since she was a teenager, appearing in early-aughts hits like V for Vendetta and 28 Weeks Later before she turned 16. “It’s still quite unusual to me that any of this unfolded in the way that it did,” the British actor says of her long and steady career, which has included seven television roles and more than three dozen films. Her two recent projects offered new avenues for the 36-year-old to explore her craft. In Hedda, Nia DaCosta’s retelling of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Poots plays a foil to Tessa Thompson’s titular antihero. And in The Chronology of Water, Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut and adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir of the same name, Poots portrays a woman swimming for her life as trauma, abuse, and alcoholism threaten to drown her. “It was a true piece of art, which is the only thing [Kristen] was going to be able to make,” Poots says of the intimate, brutally honest film. “That’s just who she is. And I was completely obsessed with it.”

You are in every frame of this film. And you spend a lot of time submerged in water. Are you a good swimmer?

Before filming, I could swim—sort of float and splash around—but then I did intensive training. I became quite addicted to swimming. I left a birthday party because I was like, “I’ve got to get back in the water.”

You give birth in this film. Have you done that in a film before?

Always giving birth, always getting married, always dying, always covered in slime! Bloody hell! This is what I do.

Were you a theatrical child?

I was clowny, kind of silly and pranky. I was also quite slow, which would have been good to have solved earlier. But I’m also suspicious of anyone who has their vocabulary right there. The first job I booked was an episode of a show called Casualty. I was covered in Vaseline, just having a bad day. I was 14. My character had toxic shock syndrome. I thought, Welcome to womanhood—these are the stories we tell!

When you first started acting, did you think, This is going to be my life?

I loved it. I felt incredible relief and reassurance that this other thing existed alongside life, which I was trying to understand and fit into. To go into this magic place and meet other like-minded people was kismet. You don’t always find that.

Have you ever played a cartoon character? You have such a great raspy voice.

I should really lean into it. I would love to be a cartoon character, because being human doesn’t quite make sense to me. I would love to play a bug. They’re mystifying.

Where was your first kiss?

I was 18, and it may or may not have been with Michael Douglas in Solitary Man.

Growing up, who was your crush?

Leonardo DiCaprio was a big crush. And also the boy bands. Noel Gallagher from Oasis. There’s kind of a remove with Noel.

Not Liam Gallagher?

No, can’t be doing that. But bring the energy! We need that in this day and age. Everyone’s getting too well-behaved.

What sign are you?

Gemini. Split personality, right? We’re dealing with a sort of octagon of chaos. There’s a real projection onto a Gemini, especially a Gemini with blonde hair and blue eyes. They think they’ve got us down, but we’re steely motherfuckers.

Style Director: Allia Alliata di Montereale. Codirector: Frank Lebon. Director of photography: André Chemetoff. Hair by Jawara for L’Oréal Professional at Art Partner; makeup by Lauren Parsons for Sisley Paris at Art Partner; manicure by Jolene Brodeur for Dazzle Dry at the Wall Group. Set design by David White at Streeters.