Film
Cara Delevingne: looking ahead to the next adventure
As a teenager she suffered from depression. As a model she had a global career. Now Cara Delevingne, 28, is a Hollywood star.
Here she tells us about the action heroine who inspires her and why a trip to Uganda gave her life new meaning.
Ask Cara Delevingne what she wanted to be when she grew up and she’ll give you three answers straight away: “Actor, musician, psychotherapist.” And what were her expectations of life? A surprise bag full of opportunities and adventures. She tells us that she was a child who just had great drive.
It’s fair to say that the adventurous part of those expectations really took off in 2012. As Karl Lagerfeld’s muse, the Briton became one of the world’s best-paid and most-recognised models, and she even set a trend with her strikingly full and natural eyebrows. She followed this by displaying her acting skills in dramas such as Paper Towns (2015) and now we only really see Delevingne on screen, because she has hung up her modelling boots. She tells us that she finds her cinematic role models in strong Hollywood women such as Sigourney Weaver, who, as the heroine in the Alien series, set the benchmark for female action figures.
I feel connected to young people who are struggling to find their place in life
Delevingne was born into a well-to-do family in London in 1992, yet battled with depression while a teenager. “I felt useless and worthless,” she says. She turned her life around on the back of long conversations with friends — many of whom practically represent a who’s who of the global fashion and film industries. They include fellow Brit and Burberry chief creative officer Christopher Bailey, French film director Luc Besson and American pop wizard Pharrell Williams. “I was lucky to meet people who encouraged me,” says Delevingne.
However, it took a long time for the young model to build up her self-confidence. To start with she had been too “other-directed”. “When you have no feelings of self-worth, you look for validation from others,” she says. “You accept every offer. It’s exhausting. Now I know when I need a break and I take one.” So how does she relax? “By being alone in the woods for hours at a time,” she says. Yoga has also been key to her self-discovery.
Yet Delevingne has proven time and again that her life is about much more than practising yoga and in-depth discussions with stars. After all, she has engaged in projects that are far-removed from the world of glamour. In 2017 she travelled to Uganda as part of the United Nations’ Girl Up initiative to raise awareness of the situation facing girls fleeing South Sudan. “That trip changed my life,” she says. “They did everything that they could to help strangers in their country to build a new life. Whereas we shut ourselves off from refugees even though we’re much more prosperous. It’s madness.”
Delevingne, who has 43 million followers on Instagram, knows how she wants to use her voice in the future. “I feel connected to young people who are struggling to find their place in life,” she says. “I can help these people to believe in themselves.”
Instagram: @caradelevingne