BACK IN PARIS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE SHE VISITED AS A LITTLE GIRL, WE FOLLOW AUSTRALIAN ACTOR MIA HEALEY AS SHE REDISCOVERS THE CITY—AND WINDS UP AT THE BEST PARTY IN TOWN.
FILM DIRECTION: CLAUDIA ROSE
WORDS: JESSICA BAILEY
he late afternoon light in Paris is very particular. Instead of looking simply golden, it shifts between shades of cream, champagne, peach and warm ivory as it hits the pale limestone of those famous Haussmannian façades, the Left Bank cafés and the
gardens, galleries and grand boulevards. Today, Australian actor Mia Healey is returning to Paris for the first time in 17 years—she’s in town to attend CHANEL Beauty’s Coco Mademoiselle party later this evening—and is it this soft, luminous afternoon light that is guiding our film director’s lens as its subject surrenders to the city’s rhythm, dashing towards everything and anything that catches her curious eye.
“You really feel like you can follow your instincts in Paris. You feel like it always leads you to something really beautiful,” Healey says with an easy warmth, her eyes darting about the scenery around her. “That’s the thing about this city: you turn a corner and think, ‘I just didn’t think it could get anymore picturesque.’ In other places around the world, you need a map and a plan, but Paris feels very fluid and flirty.”
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“WHEN I MOVED TO NEW YORK, I DIDN’T EVEN REALLY STOP TO THINK IF IT MADE ANY SENSE. I WAS JUST LIKE, ‘I LIKE THIS FEELING AND I’M GOING TO CHASE IT.’”
– MIA HEALEY
IT'S JUST A LITTLE CRUSH
Growing up in the Southern Highlands in New South Wales, Healey’s mother enrolled her daughter in acting classes when she was just four years old. After graduating from Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 2017, Healey landed the role that would change the trajectory of her career: Shelby Goodkind in Prime Video’s The Wilds. She was just 21 when the drama premiered in 2020, playing a seemingly perfect Texas beauty queen whose carefully composed exterior gradually gives way to a far more complicated story of sexuality, faith and self-discovery across the series’ two seasons.
“Shelby was my first role, my first job as an actor, my first time on a set. That whole project and that character taught me everything,” says Healey. “So much of developing a character is being willing and open to what could really happen… So, Shelby was a great teacher for me.”
Since, Healey has appeared in Nash Edgerton’s short film Shark, the romantic short My Heart Calls For You, and Prime Video’s coming-of-age series Motorheads alongside Ryan Phillippe and Michael Cimino. This year, Healey moved into darker territory with Twisted, a horror-thriller directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and starring Djimon Hounsou. When we meet, the actor has just wrapped a new project titled Unrest, a story “about forgiveness, radical acceptance and the lengths you go to for another person—and how much you’re willing to put up with or give up for that person and for yourself,” Healey says.
For all its glamour, the film industry is not for the faint-hearted. For Australian actors in particular, building a career often means moving abroad and taking on other work between auditions, all while being tough enough to handle the rejection that comes with the job. Trusting her intuition has always been Healey’s North Star.
“I moved to the States not really knowing where I was going,” she says. “I had a job in New York when I first arrived, but I had always imagined living in LA. I loved NYC and ended up moving there permanently on a whim, I didn’t know anybody. I believe it really was a calling, an instinct, and I didn’t even really stop to think if it made any sense. I was just like, ‘I like this feeling and I’m going to chase it.’
“There are so many growing pains that come with moving to any city in the world, especially New York because it can be so brutal,” she continues. “Finding community and a version of family was difficult, not to mention assimilating into American culture. But I’ve always been a very impulsive person. As a kid, I was always ‘act first, think later’ and that used to get me into trouble! Nowadays, that manifests as me saying yes to everything all the time. I try not to hold back. I’m naturally just very excited about life.”
“YOU REALLY FEEL LIKE YOU CAN FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCTS IN PARIS. YOU FEEL LIKE IT ALWAYS LEADS YOU TO SOMETHING REALLY BEAUTIFUL.”
– MIA HEALEY
And so, as the afternoon gave way to evening in Paris, Healey followed her trademark curiosity (and an invitation) to Le Trianon, the grand 19th-century theatre and concert hall in Montmartre, where CHANEL had taken over the historic venue to celebrate Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu. Inside, the Parisian spirit our heroine had been chasing all afternoon was turned up several notches: plush rouge-red velvet sofas, tiny gold lamps, tarot readers, magicians weaving between tables and stacks of The Crush Absolu newspaper creating the feeling of a particularly glamorous Left Bank café after dark. Among the 750 guests were campaign star and CHANEL House ambassador Gracie Abrams, Angèle, Petra Collins, Lou Doillon and Lux Pascal, but it was the sense of possibility, of not quite knowing what might happen next, that seemed to suit Healey best. “We’re in the birthplace of CHANEL. It’s so exciting to feel the history in the room,” she says. “Like New York, there’s that feeling tonight that literally anything can happen at any time.”
By nine, martinis were in hand, the ballroom doors opened and 30 dancers appeared through a haze of dazzling light, moving to Candi Staton’s “Young Hearts Run Free” under the direction of campaign choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Honey Dijon and Chloé Caillet followed with a back-to-back DJ set before Alissia brought the night to a euphoric close with funk and electro-soul, gold confetti cascading from the ceiling. For Healey, who had spent her first day back in Paris letting curiosity run wild, it felt like the perfect night: a little unexpected, a little intoxicating and completely alive.
CHANEL Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu is available now.
TALENT: MIA HEALEY
EDITOR + INTERVIEW: JESSICA BAILEY
FILM DIRECTOR: CLAUDIA ROSE
HAIR + MAKEUP: GILLIAN CAMPBELL
BEAUTY: CHANEL BEAUTY
FASHION: COURTNEY ZHENG
SPECIAL THANKS: KATE NIVEN