Zoë Kravitz must be tired of people talking about her parents, but they are the unspoken, unavoidable backdrop to her every career move: actor Lisa Bonet and musician Lenny Kravitz, looming from their lofty perches on the twin planets of Beautiful and Cool. “My mother’s a beautiful woman, and I think, in some way, I felt intimidated by that sometimes,” Zoë Kravitz said in a recent interview. You’ve got to be tough not to grow up cold in that shadow.
I first saw Kravitz perform in 2007’s The Brave One, in which she plays a prostitute opposite Jodie Foster. She held her own in an unshowy performance and, since then, she’s appeared in a number of indie films, as well as the Divergent teen movie franchise. This year, she’s already starred as Toast, one of the “five wives” in Mad Max: Fury Road; later this summer she’ll appear in Dope, a darkly comic coming-of-age story that’s already a critical darling.
With her high forehead and strong jaw, she plays aloof very well. “Chill,” her face always seems to be saying. “Just chill out.” She has several tattoos, a septum piercing and a laid-back fashion vibe. “People think we’re so cool and hippie and wear velvet,” she has said of her family; but they do, don’t they? The facts on the ground are hard to ignore.
That ineffable coolness has manifested itself in other ways: Kravitz is in a well-received synth R&B band, Lolawolf (named after her younger siblings), and at last month’s AfroPunk Paris festival hung out with fellow Hollywood scion Willow Smith, whom she calls “lil sis”. Is it OK to want to be her? Too late, because I already do.
