InStyle USA - 11.2019

BADASS WOMEN

Why She’s a Badass Bush’s fame is tied

primarily to her acting roles (One Tree Hill, Chicago

P.D.), but activism has also played an important part

in her life for as long as she can remember. While

growing up in Pasadena, Calif., she would organize

fund raisers, protests, and clubs in school to tackle

issues that were important to her. Now she’s focused

mainly on empowering women and protecting the

environment. To date, Bush has raised nearly

$500,000 for charity through her social-media

channels (including Instagram and Twitter), built

three primary schools in Laos and Guatemala,

co-founded an inclusive nontoxic finishing salon in

Detroit that helps fund grants for budding

female entrepreneurs, and signed her

name to Time’s Up’s founding letter. “I feel

the most capable, curious, and badass

when I am active in my community,

educated about current events, and using

my voice,” she says.

Media Maven Bush was hesitant to

embrace social media until BP’s 2010

Deepwater Horizon oil spill, one of the most

devastating industrial disasters in history. The

accident made her realize how she could galvanize

her accounts’ followers to help protect the planet.

She has since promoted many other causes—most

recently the #EndPeriodPoverty initiative from

Always after learning that nearly one in five girls

in the U.S. misses school because she can’t afford

feminine hygiene products. “The fact that we

live in a country where wealth disparity creates

barriers for girls on the basis of their biology is

crazy to me,” she says. “Especially since there’s

not a person on earth who would be here if it

weren’t for a menstruating woman.”

Pressing On Bush attributes her drive to the

resilience she acquired working as a full-time

actor since the age of 21. “It’s funny—the world

only sees your successes,” she says. “They don’t see

the thousands of auditions actors go on for jobs we

don’t book, the hundreds of hours we spend in

It doesn’t

matter

how many

hurdles

you have

to jump

over.

It just

matters

that you

keep

going.Ó

84 InSTYLE NOVEMBER 2019

meetings we take in support

of something that might not

happen, or all the times we

miss a wedding, a birthday,

or the birth of someone’s

child because we’re away working.” She also admits

that being a young star wasn’t always a plus. “My

naïveté put me in positions I wish I hadn’t been in,

but the good and the bad add up to the sum of your

life. It doesn’t matter how many hurdles you have

to jump over. It just matters that you keep going,”

she says. “That’s pushed me over any obstacles I’ve

faced—whether or not I’ve always done it in the

right way is sort of irrelevant.”

Talking Points The culmination of her life’s

work has been distilled into what she considers her

most gratifying project to date: her new podcast,

Work in Progress with Sophia Bush (inset), which

is described as “frank, funny, personal, profes-

sional, and sometimes even political conversa-

tions” with guests like Gloria Steinem and Chelsea

Handler. “It is the most fulfilling and fun thing

I’ve done in a long time,” Bush says. “The podcast

feels like such a wide-open runway for curiosity,

inspiration, and possibility.” —SHALAYNE PULIA

G etting

It Done

ACTRESS AND ACTIVIST

SOPHIA BUSH ON USING HER

PLATFORMS TO EFFECT CHANGE