To prepare for her role as Jessica, a social-media influencer struggling with body dysmorphia in Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers, Samara Weaving got to scrolling. “I won’t name any names, but there were a couple [influencers] that I followed very heavily and tracked,” she says. Weaving’s character is the walking, talking, spray-tanned embodiment of a Facetuned Instagram post. “It made me look at myself and how I judge other people’s social media. We never know what someone else is going through,” Weaving says. “Just kind of Sesame Street ideals. We don’t know, so maybe don’t judge.”
Strangers is the latest binge from producer David E. Kelley, who is responsible for hits Big Little Lies and The Undoing, putting a schadenfreudey magnifying glass on the problems of the one percent. (Like Big Little Lies, Strangers is adapted from a Liane Moriarty book; all three star Nicole Kidman.) The story centers on nine, well, strangers who gather at an idyllic retreat for 10 days of soul-searching led by a Russian guru meets cult leader named Masha, played by Kidman.“She has this presence that I can’t quite put my finger on,” Weaving says of her costar. “I don’t know if I’m projecting it or if she’s producing it, but there’s something going on, and it’s very magical.”
Bobby Cannavale, Melissa McCarthy, Regina Hall, Michael Shannon, and Luke Evans round out the all-star ensemble. Filming over five months in Byron Bay, Australia, the cast developed a close bond, quarantining together and spending days off gathering for barbecues at Evans’s home and exploring local waterfalls. Never mind that Weaving’s uncle is the actor Hugo Weaving, of Lord of the Rings fame—the 29-year-old Adelaide, Australia, native was giddy in the presence of her castmates. “I still get starstruck by every single person. I was so weird around everyone,” she says.“I was freaking out when I saw Melissa, and I couldn’t speak when I met Michael Shannon. It’s something I need to work on.”
Weaving began acting early; her parents put her in classes when she was a child, with the hopes of combating her shyness.“I remember feeling the sense of freedom in it,” she recalls. She was the drama captain in high school and acted in student productions, and she says the real turning point in her decision to pursue acting came after seeing Pirates of the Caribbean at age 12. “I was exported out of this world,” she says. “I was just so filled with curiosity, and I knew I wanted to be a part of whatever just happened to me. I wanted to know how to get an invitation to that party.”
Weaving came up following in the footsteps of so many boldfaced Aussie names, starring in more than 300 episodes of the long-running soap Home and Away. (Chris Hemsworth, Naomi Watts, and the late Heath Ledger are all alums.) She joined the cast when she was just 17 and immediately became tabloid fodder. She remembers the Daily Mail running a story about her that sent her into a spiral. Her parents, she says, have always been there to keep her grounded. “I was making such a big deal out of it,” Weaving says. “My parents were like, ‘No one cares. Stop this behavior right now. You’re not the center of the universe. Do the dishes; pull your head in.’ So I’m very grateful that they’ve instilled that humility in me, because I could easily have gone the other way.”
After Home and Away, Weaving moved to London to look for more work. But it wasn’t until she teamed up with drama coach Leigh Kilton-Smith that things began to click. The change, Weaving says, “was like night and day. She taught me everything that I know now.” Within one month of working with Kilton-Smith, Weaving booked her first part in the States, quickly followed by the leading role in The Babysitter, director McG’s 2017cult horror film.
And now, with the recent announcements of Weaving’s next projects—she’ll star alongside Brad Pitt in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and as Holly Madison in Down the Rabbit Hole (“It’s going to blow the socks off of what people think of Playboy and Hugh Hefner,” she says)—it’s safe to say her invites to the Hollywood party will be rolling in for years to come.
Hair: Rachel Lee Wright for Oribe Hair Care; Makeup: Natasha Severino for Nars; Production: Viewfinders.
This article originally appeared in the September 2021 issue of Harper's BAZAAR, available on newsstands August 31.
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Andrea Cuttler is the Entertainment Director of Harper’s BAZAAR , where she oversees all things film, television, and celebrity. When she’s not watching her DVD of Indian Summer for the 27th time, you can likely find her at one of the same three restaurants in the West Village.
