If you don’t know about Tallulah Haddon, you’re missing out. The British Jewish actor and performer might only be a 20-something. However, their career already runs the gamut from Holocaust drama “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” to weird (not derogatory), kinky explorations of Jewish identity in their own art.
Here are 18 things to know about them.
1. Tallulah Haddon was born on April 2, 1996 in London to a Jewish family.
2. They’re an Aries!
3. They grew up in a “culturally Jewish household” where ritual was important.
4. Tallulah has a sister, Mirabelle.
“I led my sister’s alternative bat mitzvah ceremony, which included rituals we had created together that were specific and important to us as queer siblings,” Tallulah told Hey Alma. “At one point we created an arc of six tallits, all held by family and friends, which she walked under. The family and friends were asked to hold the tallits and whisper blessings into them beforehand. The whole ceremony was really significant for us to create our own space and esoterism within an ancient Jewish ritual.”
5. They attended Emmanuel School and received an MFA from Bard College. Tallulah’s thesis for their MFA was directing and starring in a short film called “I’m Asking You to Eat It,” which explores Jewish Holocaust trauma, kink and cannibalism.
6. In addition to film, their artist practice spans photography, drag and non-drag performance. In the performance below, Tallulah whips a microphone against what appears to be butter, inspired by the story of an inmate at Auschwitz rationing butter to make a candle for Hanukkah.
7. Their breakout acting role was in Netflix’s “Kiss Me First.” The role required Tallulah doing CGI motion-capture work, which is not as exciting as it sounds.
“We went to a studio in West London and were there at about 7 a.m. in a blank gray room with dots all over our faces and these huge head cameras and these really unflattering gray jumpsuits with Velcro polystyrene dots on them. So that was fun!”
8. They’re queer!
9. In 2018, they said their dream role would be a giant spider.
“I’ve just always liked tarantulas and I think it would be fun,” they explained to Wonderland Magazine.
10. They once recreated the painting “Judith slaying Holofernes” by Artemisia Gentileschi, portraying biblical Jewish hero Judith. The project was with surrealist photographer Natalie Lennard.
11. In “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” they played Kitty.
12. They were nominated for a British Independent Film Award for their role in the short film “Justine.”
13. Tallulah’s vampire queen look for the premiere of “The Last Duel” is extremely iconic.
In “The Last Duel,” Ridley Scott’s epic historical drama film about a duel in medieval France, Tallulah plays Marie.
14. One of Tallulah’s upcoming projects is inspired by “The Last Duel.” Named “Dual,” the short film will explore imagined queer duels in medieval England. Jewishness will also play a role.
15. Tallulah has mixed feelings about portraying Hanna in “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”
“I had a really good experience with the director of ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz.’ [Tali Shalom Ezer] is incredibly talented. And I was kind of having a queer baby moment where I was like, ‘You’re queer and Jewish and a woman… Wait, I’ve never worked with all three of those identities in the same person,'” they explained.
They added, “But then I definitely felt very strange about making entertainment about [the Holocaust]. Because that’s our job [as actors]. It is entertainment at the end of the day. It’s education at the same time, but there’s so little that you know about how something’s going to be edited when you’re an actor.”
16. During the filming of “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” Tallulah and fellow Jewish actor Jonah Hauer-King led a Passover seder on set.
“At one point, when we did the plagues, [the director’s] mother, who doesn’t speak English well, motioned for me to do it on a plate. Normally I do it on the page of the haggadah. And then she was signaling just to me, like, ‘We have to go outside,'” Tallulah told Hey Alma. “So then I went, and she was telling me basically throw the plate, we don’t want those things inside. So there was this really witchy moment where I threw this plate and it smashed and then we were on the set of Auschwitz. It was very charged.”
17. They took numerous self portraits while filming “Tattooist.”
18. Their next project will include more Jewish cannibalism.
“I want to make a short film that’s set at a bris and the main character is — I’d be playing her — a cannibal who’s trying to be a vegetarian,” they explained. “And she meets someone that she went to school with, some family friend, who’s now hot and queer. And they both end up eating the foreskin together in this very weird scene.”
