Words by Marshall Heyman
In recent years, it’s been harder and harder to make a splash in showbiz without a famous pedigree. Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny), Zoey Deutch (daughter of Lea Thompson), Jack Quaid (son of Dennis), Deacon Phillippe (son of Ryan), Kaia Gerber (daughter of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber), Ella Beatty (daughter of Annette Bening and Warren Beatty), Lewis Pullman (son of Bill) and Eve Hewson (daughter of Bono) are just some of the new generation of hopeful stars crowding the red carpet and stealing roles from newbies who might have, in another time, been discovered at the famed Schwab’s Pharmacy.
So it’s even more remarkable that the 27-year-old up-and-coming actress Havana Rose Liu was discovered just walking through Washington Square Park.
Now Liu didn’t exactly fall off the apple cart or sprout from some cabbage patch in Nowheresville, U.S.A.
She’s a born-and-bred New Yorker. As a teenager, she graduated from Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn, an artsy private school known for such distinguished Hollywood alumni as Jennifer Connelly, Lena Dunham, and, more recently, Lucas Hedges (son of writer/director Peter Hedges) and Maya Hawke (daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman).
After a few semesters at Skidmore University, Liu transferred to the Gallatin School at NYU. She still lives in the trendy area of Dumbo, down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, where she grew up. Of course, Dumbo was even trendier in the early aughts. But blame that location choice on Liu’s mother and father, a forward-thinking couple if there ever was one.
Two years before Liu was born, her parents, David Liu and Carly Roney, co-founded the wedding website the Knot, which turned into one of the World Wide Web’s first big success stories. In a romantic story very on brand with an Internet mecca devoted to creative nuptials, Liu and Roney named Havana after a Cuban establishment in D.C. where they had their first date.
“It was called Havana Central or something along those lines,” says Havana Rose Liu, now. The “Rose” comes from her grandmother. “People think I named myself because it’s such a great name.”
Her younger brothers, Cairo and Dublin, are also named after capital cities the Lius had dreamed of visiting. On each Liu child’s 18th birthday, they plan a family trip to their namesake. When Havana was 18, they all went to Cuba.
“It was truly the most special place I’ve ever been,” she says. Dublin is still on the agenda. He’s only 17.
It should not come as a surprise that Liu’s parents have continued with their quirks. Since moving on from the Knot, they now farm oysters.
“But over the next few months, Liu will be everywhere.”
“I’m actually allergic to oysters, though we joke that it’s not yet clear if I’m allergic to marriage,” says Liu, who identifies as pansexual. Her parents were initially skeptical of their daughter dipping her toes into acting. “But they’ve given me a lot of room to explore my interests, which I really appreciate. Ultimately, they’ve been very supportive.”
They don’t have much of a choice. Liu’s train has left the station, and it’s moving at breakneck speed. You may have missed her in her breakout role in the 2023 raunchy teen comedy Bottoms thanks to the over-the-top presence of co-stars Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri. Liu played Isabel, the gorgeous crush of Josie (Edebiri), who joins a high school girl’s fight club.
But over the next few months, Liu will be everywhere.
Late August saw the release of the very good, very creepy thriller Lurker in which Liu plays a worldly-wise music manager protective of her client who has a tendency to increase his entourage with somewhat naive abandon. The New York Times described the movie as a “tight and wicked little film” and Liu’s performance as “steely.”
“There’s a lot of people who wish there were more of her in the movie. That’s how much she pops,” says Alex Russell, the writer-director of Lurker, who was especially taken with Liu’s emotional intelligence upon their first conversation about the role. “She’s definitely a special actor, and Lurker is just really scratching the surface of what she can do. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’ll have a lot to chew on, and I hope she gets projects that can really explore her range.”
In October, there’s the Mubi series Hal and Harper, with Mark Ruffalo, which premiered earlier this year at Sundance. There’s the independent feature Tuner, co-starring Dustin Hoffman, which Variety called the “discovery of the Telluride Film Festival.” IndieWire pronounced Liu “a revelation.”
“Closeups of [Liu’s] face in various states of puzzlement, affection, or frustration dazzle, and remove any doubt,” continued the review. “Liu is a star.”
Liu’s family proudly sent her the IndieWire rave while she was at Telluride. “It was so flattering; I haven’t really processed it,” she says. “It’s the kindest thing I’ve ever read. I’m so grateful.”
“There are some roles where the actors show up, act for a few weeks, and then leave. For Tuner I needed someone who would first immerse in piano training for four months, then show up, act, and leave,” says Tuner director Daniel Roher. “The extra step is really hard, but Havana kicked ass. She mirrored the character she was playing in her drive, commitment, and work ethic. I thought that was really cool.”
The momentum builds this December when Liu appears with Felicity Jones, Eva Longoria, Michelle Pfeiffer and Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) in Oh. What. Fun., a Christmas comedy and her biggest film to date, directed by Michael Showalter for Amazon Prime.
After that, things start to get really interesting.
Upcoming projects feature a who’s who of some of the industry’s most dynamic filmmakers and actors.
There’s No One Cares, written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, opposite Julianne Moore.
Her Private Hell, with Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton, marks the first full-length feature Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) has made since 2016’s The Neon Demon.
Then there’s Power Ballad, with Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, written and directed by John Carney, the musical movie genius behind Once, Begin Again, and Sing Street with a talent for spotting up-and-coming young talent.
“I’ve just been in go-go-go mode, but I’ve deeply enjoyed it, the highs and the lows,” says Liu, from the couch of her Dumbo apartment. She apologizes for any noise. Her building is being fireproofed. Being back in New York after so much work away on set “feels like a vacation. I’m actually in a pretty strong love affair with New York again.”
But being away has had plenty of upsides, she explains. “It’s just been working with incredible people, the most amazing cream of the crop. I’ve been really thinking about the past year. It’s been so fulfilling and so intense, and I’m just wrapping my head around it. I never thought I was going to be an actress, and now I’m fully committed.”
Of course there have been moments of doubt, not to mention breakouts in hives, which Liu experienced for the first time from stress in college.
“There’s a lot of people who wish there were more of her in the movie. That’s how much she pops.”
“There’s always hives in the mix,” she says. “But it’s all about ‘Feel the hives but do it anyway.’”
Her “imposter syndrome” as she calls it, however, is slowly abating. “Every time I’d be cast, I was like, ‘Are you sure?’” she says. Still, she insists, “That part really never goes away. That seems like something I have to manage. You do these jobs where you feel scared, but you have to innately let go of your bullshit and be your childlike brave self.”
Of course it all had to begin somewhere. For Liu, it began like this: “I was walking on the street,” she says.
“Actually, before that even happened, Vogue slid into my DMs,” Liu recalls. “Well, I don’t even really remember the timeline myself.”
It went something like this. Liu posted a selfie, her first, on Instagram. That led to some e-commerce work with the New York fashion designer Nikki Chasin. “I was fascinated about making money like that in college,” Liu says. Then she was cast in a feature for Vogue, and “that was the real start of modeling.”
Growing up, Liu practiced a steady diet of dance and performance art. She found modeling to be a surprising extension of that study. “Working as a model was really fun, and I’ve grown to appreciate it even more,” she says. “I see it like another art form. I like the idea of my body as a sculpture, and we’re creating compositions together.”
It’s also helped her define her relationship with fashion. “I think clothes impact me more than I would like them to,” Liu explains. “What I wear often dictates what I feel like. I wish I wasn’t so weak! But if I feel comfortable in something, I can take on anything.” She’s developed a close relationship with Chanel and wears the French brand quite regularly at events. “I do feel powerful in Chanel,” she says. “Their clothes are incredibly well constructed and well made.”
But back to how she became a movie star and the runaway train. Liu had done a little modeling, and then, well, she was walking near NYU. An agent specializing in street casting approached her in the park wondering if she was interested in acting.
“I was definitely very skeptical. I didn’t respond the first couple of times,” says Liu. She was studying a self-created program at the intersection of arts, activism, and wellness at the time, something having to do with the “culture of masochism” and visual art as a “therapeutic process.” But, they kept running into each other and, eventually, says Liu, of the casting agent, “I felt comfortable filming auditions in her Williamsburg basement.”
That led to some commercials, music videos, short films, and eventually, her first movie. “It was a domino effect of small projects,” Liu says. Then Bottoms happened. “It was clear to [co-writer] Rachel Sennot and me from the first five minutes of watching Havana’s audition tape that she had to be in the movie,” says Bottoms director Emma Seligman.
“One hundred percent my life changed,” says Liu. “‘Bottoms’ is a movie for everyone.”
“One hundred percent my life changed,” says Liu. “Bottoms is a movie for everyone, and a powerful community circulated around it. It was such a powerful mirror of the moment we’re in. People really saw it and loved it. It definitely opened up my world to more opportunities, one hundred percent.”
Part of what’s been exciting for Liu is the varied projects she’s gotten to work on since. “I always want to stretch in new directions,” she says. “I love that I’m really being seen from this angle, and I really love the opportunity to stretch in different ways. To show a new color or try to grow.”
She didn’t watch that much film or television growing up. Her cultural touchstones include the work of Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and musical movies like Singin’ in the Rain and Sound of Music, “which I’ve seen a hundred million times. That film is just so epic, it sticks with me.” For Liu, the singing family of the von Trapps “always sounded incredible. Art was deeply in their lives.”
Liu’s parents took their daughter to performances at St. Ann’s Warehouse and the New Victory Theater. They’d gone to film school but never ended up pursuing a career in the field. “They’re very well film-educated,” she says. “I’m playing catch up.”
Occasionally, she’ll tape an audition with her dad. “It’s very sweet,” Liu says. “He has a perfect monotone.” Her younger brothers—Cairo is 21, Dublin is 17—“They’re little babies, and I love them”—are equally circumspect about Liu’s impending stardom. “They think it’s hilarious,” she says.
In August, after months of working nonstop, Liu and a friend went to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for a few days. It’s a place where hundreds of performances go on at once. It’s not unusual for a man to sing and dance naked, but as a penguin. (Yes, that happened this year.) Even if Liu didn’t get to see as much as she’d like, “I think I just love a spicy, creative swing,” she says. “It was so refreshing.”
Going to Fringe helped Liu get back in touch with her artistic principles and her background in performance art and dance: “It was a gentle return to the roots of what I love. Performance and the body and art. Seeing people being able to vulnerably present their work. It reminded me that entertainment takes so many different forms.”
It made her want to make art more, even if it’s just for her. “I used to keep a running sketchbook and do a lot of collage,” she recalls. “That helped my creative process.”
She’d like to start reincorporating dance back into her daily life. She goes to dance classes in the city, particularly modern dance classes. “I used to be in a modern dance student company,” she says. “It’s part of my core being.
“At the risk of sounding insane, it’s also good for me to wake up every morning and dance in my apartment. Dancing can be little. It can be around one square foot. It just adds more magic back into your life.”
The truth is, for Liu, there’s likely lots and lots more magic ahead.
“You’re catching me in an interesting moment,” she says. “I’m basically surprised about every step my life has taken, but I’m really reflecting on the areas I want to grow. I need to have a conversation with myself about it.”
Liu already has begun that inner talk. “I’m looking forward to more skills, more bravery, more stretching and trying to take some steps towards things that feel hard, even if I’m scared to do them,” she says.
Words by Marshall Heyman, Photography by Jem Mitchell, Styling by J. Errico
Hair by Lacy Redway, Makeup by Ralph Siciliano for Exclusive Artists, Manicure by Taku Okamura for Exclusive Artists
Styling Assistance by Amber Rana and Remi Fischer
