Why Meg From American Horror Story: Delicate Looks So Familiar
It's September, and that means it's time for the 12th season of "American Horror Story." For the first time in the show's history, the upcoming season will be based off of another property — the novel "Delicate Condition" by Danielle Valentine.
"American Horror Story: Delicate" follows actor Anna Alcott (Emma Roberts) in her quest to maintain a high-profile career while balancing infertility issues. She might be up for an Oscar thanks to her next role, and she's also undergoing a round of IVF procedures. When she at last becomes pregnant, Anna encounters a series of incredible and frightening incidents, which culminate in a miscarriage. Or do they? Anna remains convinced that she's still pregnant, while everyone around her insists that there's no baby. Is Anna experiencing a phantom pregnancy? Or is there a larger, darker conspiracy surrounding her, threatening her life, the life of her baby, and everyone in her orbit?
One of the people helping Anna on her quest to get pregnant — or, perhaps, hindering it — is nurse Meg (Cara Delevingne). The actress who plays her is generally better known for her more glamorous roles but has shown a previous willingness to tamp down her camera-ready look for other roles. She's been a troubled teen, a glamorous princess, and a supervillainess during her career.
Anna Karenina (2014)
Model-actor Cara Delevingne made her acting debut in 2014's rendition of "Anna Karenina." The Tolstoy tale follows the passions of the titular heroine (Keira Knightley), whose attempt at melding with Moscow high society in 1874 leads to disaster. While mending her brother-in-law's infidelity and smoothing over the social feathers he has ruffled, unhappily married Anna falls in love with Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who seems to be the cure for all of her ills. Unfortunately, the affair soon turns into a social disaster, which leaves Anna considering the unthinkable.
Delevingne plays Princess Sorokina, a wordless part that sees her flirt with Vronsky at a crowded theatre. Sorokina is used as a social marker by director Joe Wright: she is seen looking up at Anna and giggling derisively, hinting at how far she's fallen.
Delevingne later told Grazia Daily that making it into a big-screen costume epic was a fantasy come to life. "It was such a dream come true to be part of a Joe Wright film," she said. "I was so excited I couldn't sleep for the first few nights! Acting has always been my dream, even more than modelling. I tried to channel my experience of modelling but it's actually really different. When I was being filmed I found myself posing but it's not about that. I just had to really concentrate on the part and the character."
Her acting career continued apace alongside her modeling work. She had a brief part in the Kate Beckinsale action film "The Face of An Angel" and appeared in several music videos — including a cameo in Taylor Swift's video for "Bad Blood" as "Mother Chucker" – before returning to the film game.
Paper Towns (2015)
That's Cara Delevingne as Margo Roth Spiegelman in the 2015 adaption of young adult author John Green's novel "Paper Towns." Making a spur-of-the-moment, impulsive gesture, Margo involves her across-the-street neighbor, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen (Nat Wolff) in her revenge plot against her boyfriend. Margo doesn't know that Q has had a crush on her for years, but as they spend the night trying to pull pranks on Margo's cheating boyfriend, Jase (Griffin Freeman), they get closer. The day after their whirlwind trip through town, Margo doesn't appear at school. Q comes to realize that she's run away, and embarks on a road trip, following the clues Margo has left behind her to figure out where she's gone.
Delevingne admitted that the wanted to play Margo badly because her life and that of her character intersected in several interesting ways. "I wanted to be Margo so badly because I've said that exact thing to someone telling me they're in love with me. Like: Whatever you think I am is a complete projection of who I am. And I actually have no idea who I am! So how do you know?" she told The New York Times in 2015.
The romantic dramedy provided Delevigne with one of her first lead roles, and it wouldn't be her last. The film was a hit which would springboard her into even bigger roles.
Suicide Squad (2016)
Cara Delevingne entered the superhero game by taking on the role of Dr. June Moon, an archeologist who is eventually possessed by an ancient sorceress who refers to herself as The Enchantress in 2016's "Suicide Squad." The main villainess of the piece, The Enchantress brings together a wide array of jailed bad guys together under the quasi-command of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), The Joker (Jared Leto), and a host of others come together to stop The Enchantress before she destroys the world.
According to an interview with W Magazine in 2016, as archived by IGN, Delevingne harnessed her inner Martha to get the role; she read a scene from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" for director David Ayer to pass her audition. It was a character she last played as a 17-year-old high school student. "Somehow, when we were doing the scene, I became livid. I hadn't felt rage like that in years. And then I got the part!" she said.
Ayer's other suggestion to Delevingne was unique, to say the least. "David asked me to go and try and find a forest and, if it was a full moon, get naked and walk through the woods with my feet in the mud, which I did. There wasn't a full moon, but I howled like a wolf," she recalled.
While her feral performance couldn't save "Suicide Squad" from poor reviews, Delevingne moved on to play a supporting role in the historical drama "Tulip Fever" and the critical darling "Her Smell." She would also have a lead in "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets," which did poorly at the box office but has become a cult classic. She would concentrate on television to deliver her next spate of memorable parts.
Carnival Row (2022)
Cara Delevingne subsequently surfaced in another period piece. That's her as Vignette Stonemoss in Amazon's "Carnival Row." The series takes a look into a society formed by a group of magical creatures who have settled in Carnival Row after escaping the Pact, an army that has overtaken much land controlled by fae and other magical creatures after a full-scale war. Vignette finds herself keeping bad company while coping with her relationship with Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom), who had been presumed dead in battle.
Delevingne confessed that she enjoyed stepping into Vignette's hope-filled shoes, even if it meant battling freezing temperatures. "I always get an instinct with characters, when I see the way their spirit is ... I have to fight for the role and do everything I possibly can. And Vignette had this – as a woman she had this strength, [it] was unparalleled. But her strength was her vulnerability. No matter how much she gets knocked down or gets everything taken away from her, she still fights back," she told The Guardian in 2019.
After the program wrapped, Delevngne took on "Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne," a docuseries for Hulu. She then got to fulfill an important dream of hers.
Only Murders In the Building (2022)
The 2020s would prove to be a huge decade for Cara Delevingne's acting career. She appeared in the indie drama "Life in a Year" with Jaden Smith before surfacing in 2022 as Alice Banks in the popular Hulu mystery-comedy "Only Murders in the Building." The artist girlfriend of Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), Alice finds herself a possible suspect in the death of Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell) after Mabel and her friends are questioned but ultimately not charged for the crime. Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin) both seem to think Alice is the murderer. The final episode seems to prove this hypothesis true, with a house party turning abruptly chaotic, but the three podcast partners have a surprise in store for their guests.
Delevingne reflected on her character's behavior to Entertainment Weekly in 2022. "The sad thing about Alice is, as an artist, she felt not worthy of the art that she created," she said. "She very much is one of those people that uses people for her art — she uses the relationships in her life to make art, which gets in the way of her relationships."
Delevingne is a big fan of the series, which was why she picked up the role of Alice sight unseen. "I got a call from my agent and she literally said, "Only Murders," and I was like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. A hundred percent." No hesitation. No questions asked. I literally didn't even know about the character. I just was so ready."
Whether she's playing a fairy princess or an ordinary teen, it's clear that Delevingne has proven that she's much more than a pretty face.