New York, June 11th
ACTING OUT
Hari Nef: model, muse and new-wave actress
Hari Nef is known to many for treading the boards, hitting catwalks, red carpets and starring in fashion campaigns for the likes of Gucci, L’Oréal, Skims to name a few — and she is also known for being a trailblazer of her generation.
With a career that’s moved quickly and full of firsts it’s not an easy task to sum but Hari’s career, but we shall try. New York-based, this American actress, writer, model and muse to creatives naturally had plenty of get-up-and-go from a young age, and it was while studying for her degree in Theatre at Columbia University, that she hustled and became on the fashion radar. During her time interning at various fashion companies and design firms in New York City, she befriended the industry’s new guard of photographers and stylists who, over time, hired her as a model, including Adam Selman, Nicola Formichetti, and Robbie Spencer, as well as heavyweights Camilla Nickerson, and Joe Mckenna. Naturally, a catwalk was the next step, and Hari has her runway debut at New York Fashion Week Spring 2015 — the same year she graduated — and she walked for Hood By Air and Eckhaus Latta, in which proved to be a highly significant, and pivotal moment for her.
While modelling was fun, acting was her ambition and while on a roll and in the limelight, Hari experienced her first breakthrough role playing Tante Gittel in the 2015 Emmy-winning Amazon original series, Transparent. Here, she didn’t shy away from emotionally charged and heavy themes as she depicted a Pfefferman family ancestor who lived life as a cross-dresser in Berlin, Germany during the Weimar Republic and who was murdered during the Holocaust. It just so happens that the show’s creator, Joey Soloway, specially wrote the part for Hari after they digitally connected and attended a PFLAG party together. It was no surprise then, that a nomination was on the cards, and right on cue, Nef was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series — and bear in mind this is all a year after graduating.
Fresh from her critically acclaimed performance, Hari became the first openly transgender woman to appear on the cover of a British Elle magazine — a massive step forward for the industry, it made waves, and Hari was riding on them.
Further acting roles followed, from television to theatre, including Nef’s major lead role in Sam Levinson’s comedy thriller Assassination Nation, where she was alongside Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, and Abra. Then came the recurring role-playing Blythe on the psychological thriller television series You. A year later, another debut came, and it was in the form of her New York theatre first as a lead in Jeremy O. Harris’ Daddy – the critically acclaimed melodrama that follows the relationship between a white billionaire art collector and a young black artist and explores themes of race and exploitation; a role that Hari could really sink her teeth into.
In 2022, Nef starred in the comedy film 1Up, alongside Ruby Rose, Paris Berelc, Taylor Zakhar Perez, and Nicholas Coombe. And an announcement came — that Hari would portray Andy Warhol’s muse, the pioneering transgender actress and LGBTQ icon, Candy Darling in a biopic from Transparent writer Stephanie Kornick. A few months later, Hari worked again with Sam Levinson in the anticipated series The Idol for HBO alongside Lily-Rose Depp.
As a lover of theatre, she returned to the boards, and starred in Denis Johnson’s play, Des Moines, at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, and then performed in Thomas Bradshaw’s debut of his adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s classic play, The Seagull, alongside Parker Posey, Patrick Foley, and Nat Wolff last year.
With all this acting experience under her belt, Barbie was calling, and yes, Nef starred in Greta Gerwig’s film, the highest-grossing release of last year, in a supporting role alongside actress Margot Robbie. It doesn’t stop there — and flip-flopping between screen and theatre productions, Hari still found the time for another artistic outlet: writing. Nef has written on fine art, film, and gender, and wrote a sex advice and experience column for Sarah Nicole Prickett’s Adult magazine — plus she’s profiled creatives including director John Waters, singer and actress Cristina Ortiz Rodriguez, Javier Calvo as well as painter Nash Glynn, proving she is one multifaceted creative.
We just can’t wait for Candy Darling.
