Photographer - Hannah Sider
Creative Director/Stylist - Nico Amarca
Hair - Chika Nishiyama
Makeup - Ayaka Nihei
Photo Assistant – Kendal Steensen
Stylist Assitant – Eddie Lee
Location - Roll-N-Roaster
Designer - Jade Chung
Ralph Lauren jacket
Tom ford blazer and pants, Agent Provocateur lingerie
Saint Laurent dress, Tom Ford footwear, Versus Versace earrings
Prada dress and footwear, Alexander Wang jacket, CMMN SWDN x Ace & Tate eyewear
ALYX sweater, No.21 skirt, talent’s own sunglasses
ALYX jacket, Ralph Lauren pants, Nike footwear
The rising star talks lobster dogs, path numbers and Gucci shows.
How Bria Vinaite’s Stardom Began With a DM
Drake Videos to Red Carpets:
Do you want to do anything besides acting?
I’m writing a book with my best friend. It’s a self help book. Just on like how to be positive and like how to creatively problem solve all of your situations instead of reactions with emotion. I feel like I’m writing the book that I needed someone to write for me when I was younger.
I’ve been reading a bunch of scripts, doing a bunch of auditions, I’m working on my own sativa blend strain with my favorite cannabis line. I want to write scripts, I want to produce movies, anything that I want to do… I will. And I finally have the platform and the tools and resources to do it in like a great way.
Lastly, Bria’s take on the number 23.
I turned 23 right before we started filming, on June 23 and Halley’s room number was 323. My life path number is 11 and I recently realized 11 is 23 in military time. My two numbers are fully tied together in the universe and have been working magic for me my whole life.
Tell us about the filming for Drake’s “Nice For What” video.
I was in LA like a week or two ago, and I was walking and someone was like “OMG you’re the girl from the Nice For What video” and I was like “I’ve passed The Florida Project and now I’m the girl from the nice for what video.” It just made me laugh so hard.
Drake is the best. We had met in Toronto at the film festival, through Sean Baker and The Florida Project, but it was so crazy. I was in LA working one day, and his team reached out and the song was so good, and the message was so good. It was so beautiful, and I just felt like it was such an empowering song and video.
You’ve gotten a lot of embrace from the fashion community. What’s been your favorite fashion moment so far?
Going to the Gucci show in Milan was really iconic. It was such a beautiful show, I couldn’t believe it. I think that that’s the highlight as of now. I’ve always loved fashion, and it’s so crazy. I don’t like to shoot, but I just feel like it comes with the territory, and it’s really nice when I love a shoot because like I’m not a model, I don’t think I’m like good at taking pictures. It’s crazy how one career can come with so many different things. It’s really fun.
Did you know on set the movie was going to blow up?
We didn’t know what anyone was going to take away from it. But we were in this environment for a whole summer, and we built really special relationships, and we felt the magic every day. But I don’t think any of us could have guessed the reaction that anyone would have had.
How did playing the role of a young mother affect you?
Brooklynn [Prince] taught me a lot about so much and it’s so crazy to learn from a child, and she’s the first child that I can say I love as if she were my own. I don’t feel like I ever need kids because I have her. It’s really lovely, and it’s really nice to have that experience with someone. We used to nap on set in-between takes, and play all day and have lunch together everyday, it was just so sweet and wholesome.
How have you dealt with the newfound attention?
I don’t feel famous, that’s like a really weird and unnatural feeling. Like the weird thing is when people stop me when I’m getting coffee and looking crusty and then I’m always like “I’m so sorry, I don’t usually look like this.” But the feeling to need to explain myself is annoying and weird, you know?
If anybody makes me feel any type of way about anything I get that I feel is great in my life then I will never talk to them again and not feel bad about it. And that’s why I have like five friends. But you feel me? If I feel any sort of negative or jealousy or angriness towards me, I am very protective of my energy and I feel the reason I’m getting good things is because I support everyone in my life with full love and full support.
Tell us about how you landed your role in The Florida Project.
I had a clothing line, and my lease was up in New York and I felt like I just wasn’t working as hard as I could because I had a lot of friends and distractions. So I was like if I don’t give it a 100% and sort of take myself out and focus then I’ll never get it done.
So I moved to Miami just to focus on that, and I did for 8 months. But I was just working alone all day and I had no friends there; I didn’t like the environment. So I got really depressed and I was like this just isn’t for me anymore.
I moved back to New York and less than two weeks later is when Sean Baked DM’d me, and a month later I was filming a movie. It was the transition I didn’t know I wanted.
What was the filming experience like as a first-time actor?
I flew in two weeks early to do classes on set, I had never acted before. It was intense and scary. But I really enjoyed it and I really just felt like everyone believed in me and supported me so much. I realized how important that was: to have a full team of people who always had no doubt that I could do it, you know?
Bria briefly takes her seat before jolting up. She forgot something. “Can we just peep my jeans? Let’s just have a look at them. Let’s all take a moment,” she says, posing and smizing table-side at a seafood restaurant in Brooklyn.
We take our time to honor Bria’s floral print denim and it quickly becomes clear that in front of us stands a person born with the rare skill of creating moments. And if she wasn’t born with it, she learned quickly, landing front row seats at fashion week, starring roles in feature films, cover shoots and a cameo in Drake’s “Nice For What” music video.
The word “moment” is itself having a moment and Bria seems to know that. It’s one of the many buzzwords she yields with such confidence you begin to think she came up with the words herself — and that’s probably because she did. She also might be one of few people that can pull off using “fully dead,” “yas,” “iconic” and “hyped” in one sentence.
A spit-fire polyglot, Bria bounces back and forth between words as easily as she sways the topic at hand – from existential contemplations on energy to dissecting the anatomy of a lobster corn dog. Within a minute, we’ve discussed Oprah, pugs, the CFDA, jackfruit, cheese-fries and fawned over a surfboard depicting a bald Britney Spears.
“That is the most iconic thing I’ve ever seen. I need that for my home.”
Bria embodies the new American Dream: social media cannabis-themed clothing designer turned movie star. Her breakthrough role in The Florida Project as young mother Halley came to her through an Instagram DM from director Sean Baker. While the unconventional casting is often pointed to as a serendipitous big break, it seems more likely Bria manifested the role by bending the world’s energy in her favor.