As the trailer for her first starring role drops, how did Cara become the most promising model-turned-actor of our generation?
Most models that dip a toe into the treacherous and unforgiving waters of acting usually end up drowning in their own shallow pools of talentless ego. We're still trying to Eternal Sunshine our minds back to a blank state after watching Gisele Bundchen's jaw-grinding box office flop Taxi (2004). Some, however, naturally possess a knack for the-A-tre (read: Tyra Banks in Life-Size).
This year, the model-to-actor transition is on the rise: Abbey Lee Kershaw and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley plan to hit hard in R-rated comic book blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road. Agyness Deyn electrified the screen late last year in Electricity. Then there's Cara Delevingne. The London supermodel has allured the fashion world with her marketable tongue-out selfies and wild child personality. It spurred a recent spate of models who ditched the pretty-face act and decidely spoke their minds. With her unbounding energy, she seems poised to play Margo Roth Spiegelman (as if Delevingne wasn't a mouthful) in Paper Towns. An adaptation of John Green's novel of the same name, it follows Quentin and his mates and they hunt out Margo Scooby Doo style. But how and when did Cara become such an acting tour de force? Let's rewind for a brief look at her capsule collection of a career in film.
SEPTEMBER 2012
Cara Delevingne made her crossover into acting in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as Princess Sorokina, her cinematic debut in Joe Wright's adaptation for Anna Karenina. Then her CV took a breather as she pursued a career in modelling.
SEPTEMBER 2013
She doesn't have a face for radio, but Delevingne was the voice of the DJ for the Non-Stop-Pop FM radio station in Grand Theft Auto V. So even if you haven't seen her act, chances are you've heard her vanilla vocals in a video game binge.
JUNE 2014
Last summer, Cara Delevingne appealed to her Great Gran in Sky Arts' Playhouse Presents: Timeless. It's a #serious chat, as she awaits a text from a loved one serving in the army abroad. Definitely some potential here.
MARCH 2015
In Michael Winterbottom's The Face of an Angel – inspired by the Amanda Knox murder case – Delevingne finally gets some hefty screen time. As English student Melanie, she plays the romantic interest of Thomas (Daniel Brühl), a struggling filmmaker documenting the case. While it didn't get great reviews, many made a note of Delevingne's turn as Melanie.
AUGUST 2015 & BEYOND
This year indubitably belongs to Cara D. In Paper Towns, she plays the seductive girl next door Margo, who bumps into new neighbour Quentin. He falls in love. She skips town, and he (and friends) follow the trail of breadcrumbs she's left behind to satiate his aching heart. Her audition for the role enraptured author John Green and her American accent has already been given a stamp of approval from BFF Taylor Swift. If you haven't yet wept through The Fault in Our Stars, the teen cancer romance adapted from a John Green novel, then get familiar. “Paper Towns hasn't really been a movie shoot so much as a 2-month-long 1989 singalong occasionally interrupted by someone shouting ‘ACTION’,” tweeted Green. Odds are it Cara was behind the mic at one point belting out her fav 80s tunes.
“John Green writes great stories and I’m lucky to get to be in it, that book’s awesome,” Nat Wolff told us earlier this year. “I read it while I was on set for The Fault in Our Stars and the producers of Fault were like, you should read Paper Towns. It’s a mystery-romance novel but in a way that’s never been done. It’s different than Fault, And then I’m going to be a heartthrob.”
This year Delevingne will also star in Tulip Fever, a film about an artist who falls in love with the model he's painted to commission. In an unexpected swerve, she does not play the model. That role goes to up-and-comer Alicia Vikander. In London Fields, she'll star opposite Amber Heard. The crime thriller centres on Nicola Six (Heard), who has a premonition about being killed, yet still gets tangled in a love triangle, one of whom will be her murderer. Later on, she'll put her 'tude to the test in Kids in Love, alongside Will Poulter and Alma Jodorowsky. Then she plays a mermaid in Pan. No rest for the wicked. Or in this case, the James Franco-in waiting, Cara Delevingne.