Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2025 i Vanity Fair

The series, which debuted on Netflix in 2016, is one of the streaming era’s most popular shows ever, and its star, Millie Bobby Brown, has grown up on it. She was 11 when the first season started filming a decade ago, and now she’s starting a whole new chapter of life that includes husband Jake Bongiovi, a farm, an animal rescue sanctuary, and a movie, The Electric State, directed by the Russo brothers—plus more of the delightful Enola Holmes. Photographer Sølve Sundsbø captures Brown’s chic side with portraits shot in New York, while Suzy Exposito visits the star in her natural habitat, in Georgia, to learn more about how she handles the limelight from an iconic role and her dreams for what’s next. (Somebody cast her in a musical ASAP!)…

MILLIE BOBBY BROWN was 11 when she began playing the icon known as Eleven. By the time she shot her final scenes as her fierce, loyal, and telekinetic character on Stranger Things this past December, she was 20, newly married, and living on a farm in Georgia. Some days she bottle-fed a baby goat in her trailer. Many days she brought her foster dogs to work, which the cast and crew lovingly welcomed. There was also a lot of Wicked—“I’m a big musical girl,” Brown says—which the show’s creators recall a little less tenderly. “She asked us to play ‘Defying Gravity’ while she was hovering midair in a harness so she could pretend to fly like Elphaba,” says Matt Duffer, who created the show with his brother, Ross. “Not just…

IT WAS THE “HOTTEST TICKET” IN CHICAGO, DESIGNED TO SPAWN A THOUSAND PIECES ABOUT WHAT THE PARTY MEANT. Two thousand people RSVP’d. “I am not kidding when I say this is the best political party I’ve ever been to,” the anti-gun youth activist David Hogg told a reporter. “This is where Gen Z is.” He was speaking at the “Hotties for Harris” event, held at a polished warehouse space midway through the Democratic National Convention last August. When I got there around midnight, a giant screen displayed floating images of Tim Walz’s head, and hundreds of free condoms reading “Fuck Project 2025” were scattered and discarded all over the floor. At least a couple hundred people were still dancing. Every third person was wearing one of those ubiquitous camouflage Harris-Walz…

Deborah AFSHANI “THE POWER & THE GLAMOUR,” P. 80 “In many ways, it felt like costume design,” says the stylist of her approach to VF’s entertainment portfolio. “I suppose we are all engaging in some form of costume design when we choose what to project to the world. You just have to find the right note to strike so that it feels honest.” Sølve SUNDSBØ “THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE,” P. 58 “I wanted to tell the story of a child star who is now a sophisticated, powerful woman, and I knew we would get along when I learned that Steven Gerrard is her favorite soccer player,” says the Norway-born, London-based fashion photographer and filmmaker of Millie Bobby Brown. Michael RIEDEL “SECOND ACT,” P. 116 The theater columnist has chronicled Broadway’s behind-the-scenes…

THE TV CREATOR Justin Simien doesn’t waste any words: “It’s still quite dangerous and diffcult to be Black in Hollywood.” We’re talking about how the television world vowed to change after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the protests that followed. Entertainment conglomerates promised to slay systemic racism and knit diversity, equity, and inclusion into the fabric of the industry. We are now closing in on the fifth anniversary of those vows. So how’s that going? “It not only didn’t change, but in some ways it kind of got worse,” says Simien, who created Dear White People and directed Haunted Mansion and the recent docuseries Hollywood Black. “Because of my experience as a Black person trying to get Dear White People made, I knew not to expect much, but…

ON A CLOUDLESS September afternoon, I stopped by 1 Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan to see Rebecca Ulam Weiner, an enigmatic figure who occupies one of the most consequential and improbable perches in America’s national security hierarchy. As the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, her chief mission is to “counter terrorism and mitigate targeted violence, fight crime, and protect people, places, and events in New York City.” And that’s not the half of it. As part of her sprawling portfolio, the 47-year-old mother of two relies on a mind-boggling suite of assets that Americans might otherwise assume are controlled by the CIA, FBI, DHS, Secret Service, or other agencies. Weiner has access to a legion of intelligence analysts, counterassault and dignitary-protection teams, a flotilla of boats, radiation-sniffng and…

Reprinted with permission from Baglietto: The Art of Yachting Since 1854 by Antonio Macaluso, Rizzoli 2025.…

BENITO SKINNER KNOWS his way around a disguise. As his online alter ego, Benny Drama, he got famous for spoofing celebrities like Lana Del Rey and Kourtney Kardashian while also creating original characters like Kooper the Gen Z intern. Skinner’s sharp but never cruel content was rewarded with a massive audience on YouTube and Instagram. When he began, Skinner was a Georgetown undergrad who’d grown used to wearing a different type of camouflage. Raised in Boise, Idaho, he spent much of his time and energy worrying that the whole world might discover he was gay. “I just remember the sense of doom anywhere I went,” he says. But at 31, all of Skinner’s masks are finally off. His new Prime Video show, Overcompensating, centers on a former high school football player…

(THE ICON) MICHELLE YEOH Two years ago she made history by becoming the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best actress in a leading role. Today she’s captivating audiences as Madame Morrible, the grande dame of Wicked. Yeoh’s genre-smashing career has spanned Hong Kong action films, the Bond franchise, and the hit rom-com Crazy Rich Asians. It’s no wonder she commands every room—and scene—she’s in. GWYNETH (THE TASTEMAKER) PALTROW A whole generation has grown up since Paltrow won her Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. Now the hugely influential titan of Goop is returning to film in a major (non-Marvel) role for the first time in years, starring in the Safdie brothers’ Marty Supreme opposite Timothée Chalamet. It’s a testament to Paltrow’s ability to do anything and everything…

IN MAY 2022, theater writers Bob Martin and Rick Elice organized an informal reading of their stage adaptation of the television series Smash. More than a decade before, Smash had debuted on NBC in a prime slot: February 6, 2012, the night after Super Bowl XLVI. The show was a handsomely produced comedy-drama about the making of a Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. It had original songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who wrote the musical Hairspray, and lavish production numbers staged by Joshua Bergasse, who would go on to win an Emmy for his work on Smash. Initial reviews were terrific, and all of Broadway was thrilled that their crazy profession, always a bit of a backwater in the entertainment industry, had inspired a…