Ellie Bamber on Playing Kate Moss in ‘Moss & Freud’: “I Was Terrified”

For Ellie Bamber, successfully capturing Kate Moss‘ effortless charm wasn’t just about nailing her voice, style, or any of the fashion icon’s mannerisms. What unlocked Moss — depicted for the first time onscreen by the rising star in Moss & Freud — was mastering her laugh. “Her laugh is so specific,” begins the actress to The Hollywood Reporter. “It was, weirdly, really important to me.”

Bamber, a former child actor, has slowly climbed the ranks of the British film and television industry to join a select group of young talent now making a name for themselves on a global stage, such as Masters of the Universe star Nicholas Galitzine, an old pal of Bamber’s, or The Little Mermaid‘s Jonah Hauer-King. She nabbed parts in 2016’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Nocturnal Animals, as well as the small screen’s The Trial of Christine Keeler. Then came one of 2023’s buzziest streamer adaptations: Red, White & Royal Blue, in which Bamber played fan-favorite Princess Bea.

Now, she faces what is almost certainly the most daunting role of her career so far: the supermodel of all supermodels and one of the most photographed women in the world, Kate Moss. In Moss & Freud, from director James Lucas and out in U.K. cinemas Friday, audiences are privy to Moss’ much-talked-about friendship with the late artist Lucian Freud (played by Derek Jacobi), whose nude portrait of the A-lister sold for around £3.5 million ($5.3m) in 2005.

“I was mostly terrified, honestly,” laughs Bamber about approaching the film, which Moss is an executive producer on. “But I would say that she has this confidence, so it was easy to step into her and feel suddenly quite empowered… She was thrown into the industry at such a young age, and had such a savvy way of moving through it [with] grace and poise,” she continues, “but she also had this deep vulnerability underneath.”

Below, Bamber gets candid about Moss-ifying herself. She discusses bumping into the model at a house party shortly after landing the role, what viewers might be surprised to find out about Moss (and her relationship with Sigmund Freud’s grandson), and a slew of upcoming projects, including Red, White & Royal Wedding, the Ryan Reynolds-starring Animal Friends, and Ti West’s Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol: “I’ve been really loving shifting from different genres.”

I read that Kate actually helped you get this role. Is that accurate?

I hear that as well. (Laughs.) I don’t know. I assume that she was a part of the process, because she’s a producer on the film. It was something that was sent to me by my agents. I think I was in my kitchen in my dressing gown, and I remember getting an email and them calling me, being like, “Hey, want to play Kate Moss?” And I was like, “Oh, wow.” And yeah, that was it. It was one of the most exciting emails that I’ve had.

Talk to me about your relationship with Kate before this happened. Were you a big Kate Moss fan? Had you grown up following her?

Like all teenagers, I think I probably had a picture of her on my bedroom wall at some point in my life. And obviously, just style-wise, she had quite an aspirational style and such a cool sense of fashion. As a young girl, I definitely was always like, “Wow, she’s so cool. I want to be like her.” So I had some knowledge, of course, and then I kind of dove into the world of her and Lucian Freud a lot more once I figured out that they had had this relationship and they had worked together in that way.

Did you know about their relationship, or much about the Freud family?

No. I mean, I really had always appreciated and loved Freud’s work, and, like, I kind of knew the Freud family a little. [I’d] seen some of Lucian’s work and stuff, and loved it, but I didn’t know that she’d ever been painted by him. There’s not too much online about it. And the picture, you can find [it] on the internet, but it was not something that I really knew about. So when I dove into it, I was so fascinated by by it and how it had come about as well.

Do you remember your first meeting with Kate?

We actually first met by chance. My friend [British designer] Jasper Conran was having a party, and I think I’d said to him on the down low like, “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m playing Kate.” He basically turned around to me and was like, “Oh, you’re never going to guess who’s going to walk through the door in a few minutes’ time.” And I was like, “Wait, what?” And we met. It was one of those moments where we were both like, “Woah. This is crazy.” And then there’s a picture of us online on a bed. We did this photo. That evening was just really serendipitous. Because I think instead of being like, “Okay, we’re going to go for a meeting to talk about film,” it just happened by chance and it was a really beautiful meeting, because I think it was so organic, and we were able to speak about things with Jasper. Some of my other friends were there. And so it meant that there was a real conversation. Then I met with her afterwards, just to ask her a few more questions and hang out with her and maybe watch her within her world and figure that out. I don’t know how involved with the script she was. I wasn’t really a part of those conversations. But I know that she was always there at conception with James when [he was] writing and stuff.

Playing a real-life person is always tricky — do you do an imitation? Do you weave in your own mannerisms? How did you approach this, and what research went into nailing that early Kate Moss?

I’ve been lucky enough to play real-life characters before, and I’ve always seen it as figuring out the essence of a person and translating that into a performance. And I realized with Kate being as iconic as she is, that this was going to be a totally different challenge in itself. It was so incredible because I worked with a movement coach called Polly Bennett for the first time, and that was a totally eye-opening experience. We [pored over] every single video we could find on YouTube and picked it apart and figured out where a movement came from, where it had stemmed from within her life, and what could have made her have a certain gesticulation, or something like that. So working with Polly was amazing. And we did a lot of work on the runway walk, which was just kind of a trip, I would say. (Laughs.) And then I also worked with a vocal coach, Louise Jones, who I’ve worked with for a really long time. With that, it was figuring out the exact year, because I think voices change so much during our lifetime. So her voice now is so different to how it was when she was 27. It was important for us to narrow down the videos and say, “Okay, these are the clips that we’re going to focus on. That’s the voice we’re going for.”

The other thing with the voice was [that] her laugh is so specific. And the laugh was the first thing that I felt would unlock the rest of everything, which was weird. The laugh was, weirdly, really important to me. Physically, I wanted to do a bit of transformation. So I worked with a [personal trainer] called Luke Wellington, which was important just [because of] the fact that I was going to be nude for the film as well. It just entailed a lot of me looking at videos, reading things about her, looking at images as well — because she’s one of the most photographed women in the world — and maybe seeing what I could glean from that. Then also, I had the chance to work with James Brown, who’s been her really, really close friend since they grew up together in Croydon. With him it was amazing because he was able to spot things and be like, “Oh, she does this when she dances,” [or], “When she first puts a dress on, she shimmies her shoulders a bit.” All the things that, as a friend to someone, I think we pick up on throughout the years.

This is not just any model. This is supermodel Kate Moss. Was that daunting? Or did you see it like any other job?

I was mostly terrified, honestly. (Laughs.) But I think that’s also the exciting thing. The terror is a good thing and it pushes you and it challenges you to step outside of something that is comfy. So yeah, I was mostly terrified, but I would say that she has this confidence, so it was easy to step into her and feel suddenly quite empowered. Because she was thrown into the industry at such a young age, and had such a savvy way of moving through it [with] grace and poise. But she also had this deep vulnerability underneath. So I think, in playing her, I was able to just leave those terrors at the door.

What did you find you had in common with Kate?

I think we both started working when we were 15, 16. That was a big thing — understanding that we’d both been thrown into a creative industry at quite a young age, and we’d had to grow up during that time in a strange way. That was something that I immediately was able to relate to, being in the public eye from that age… I don’t mean to compare […] but it’s true. To be working from your teenage years, that takes a toll, and I think it sets you up for life in a different way compared to people that don’t work that young.

Did you learn anything about her that people would be surprised to find out about Kate Moss?

I always say that she’s a really amazing storyteller. As a storyteller myself, seeing her tell a story in a room is one of the most enigmatic, incredible things I’ve ever seen. She knows exactly how to tell a story beginning to end with moments of fun, and then also moments of… She’s just an incredible orator. And I remember she came on set one day, and I think people were so drawn to her, and we were all in my dressing room, just crowded around, listening to her tell these stories of things that happened during her life. It was quite extraordinary.

Did you get the sense that this was an important story for her to tell as well? Her and Lucian’s relationship has maybe never been depicted on screen. There were rumors at the time that it was romantic. It’s nice to see how wholesome it was.

I think that the painting meant a lot. I imagine that it was really something she had quite fond memories of, and it’s empowering to see [a] woman in quite a transitional point in her life, figuring out where her life is going to go.

I want to ask about your chemistry with Derek, which was incredible. What conversations did you two have about the dynamic, or was it all there in the script?

We had lots of conversations. We went to lunch, and I think it was immediate that we struck up a friendship. Similarly, I was so enraptured by his life and what he’d experienced as a person and as an actor. At one point during our lunch, he mentioned something about Laurence. And I was like, “Are you talking about Laurence Olivier?” And he was like, “Yeah.” And I was like, “Woah.” It was such an eye-opening experience. I wanted to learn everything I could from him and what he’d done in his life. And so then when we moved on to set, we had more of a cheeky relationship with each other, which I think then, hopefully, translated to the movie.

There’s a lot happening in this film — empowerment in motherhood, in age-gap friendships and what that offers you, and then also, at the same time, enjoying the making of art rather than the final product. What was the overarching sentiment for you?

I think all of those things, honestly. I feel very, very strongly in the making of the art being so, so important. Like, every job that I feel lucky enough to do, the experience has been the important thing to me. And of course, the end result is important in so many ways. But I think that I’ve always held on to [the process] more than anything else. [With] the age-gap friendships, it’s what we can learn from people who are at a different stage in their lives. I’ve got friends who are older than me, and I’ve always felt I’ve learned so much from having those friends and learnt so much about life and life experience. Kate learned so much about discipline and what it is to be an artist in [the art] world. One of the things that James and I spoke about was it being a coming-of-age story in a lot of ways. The difference in Freud’s journey, he’s reaching the end of his life, whereas Kate’s just about to begin a new chapter… That’s where I felt really empowered, and felt like I could be the leader of my own journey and make those decisions.

You’ve got so much coming up and, as we’ve discussed, you’ve been working for a long time. What roles get you excited these days?

There’s so much out there, and I feel like there are so many new stories that are so exciting, and so many directors that I would just adore to work with. I’ve been really loving shifting from different genres as well. Like, obviously Red, White & Royal Wedding, Ebenezer, The Face of Horror, [they] are very different tonally. I’ve been loving discovering that and being able to do a bit more comedy as well, here and there, and going into the drama space too.

What can you tell us about those projects?

I’m really excited about all of them. I absolutely adored working with Ti West on Ebenezer. I think that he is just the most amazing [filmmaker]. He’s a real visionary. I just think he’s insane, and I loved that experience so much. And then working with Anna Biller, who has such a distinct, unique voice that I think is really exciting and fresh. [The Face of Horror] was just a trip, a really wild ride, and I’m so excited to see what that creates. I got to work with my friend Jonah [Hauer-King] again on that, so that was really nice. I don’t know how much more I could say about it, [but] I want to say so much more about that film. And then, Red, White & Royal Wedding… Obviously, it was so fun to come back and do the sequel to that. I love Bea as a character. Like, I think being able to explore her more is so exciting because she’s so fun and also she’s super strong. Being on that set again, I got to be with [Nicholas Galitzine], who is one of my oldest friends from the industry. I think we met when we were both just starting out. I was 17 or something. Then Animal Friends is coming out fairly soon. That was just fantastic. I loved working with Peter Atencio, the director, on that. Dipping my toe into the comedy space was really fun.

Moss & Freud is out in U.K. cinemas and is available in the U.S. on VOD now.