48 THECUTAUGUSTSEPTEMBER,
break from British period films to join the Ryan Murphy–verse
in his new Netflix show The Politician, about a student-council
election at a prestigious California high school.
While Boynton is hardly a household name, mention her in
certain fashion circles and the response is fervorous. “Lucy Boyn-
ton is every designer’s dream to work with,” says Saks fashion
director Roopal Patel. “She seems plucked from heaven,” gushes
New York ironic-prairie-dress designer Batsheva Hay. For Bohe-
mian Rhapsody, Boynton and her stylist Leith Clark riffed on the
film to design a series of inventive, ’70s-inspired red-carpet out-
fits; that, coupled with tabloid attention—she and Malek are pic-
tured in the Daily Mail every time they’re seen in public—helped
elevate her status. Now, as Clark puts it, “when we reach out to a
brand with an idea, nobody says no.” She doesn’t need a track
record, because she looks the part of the oldest showbiz archetype:
the white, young, thin, enigmatic Hollywood blonde. (Her natural
hair color? “I honestly don’t remember at this point,” she says,
laughing.) While the fashion world has praised diversity in recent
years, women who look like Boynton remain the default canvas
on which many designers envisage displaying their clothes.
Her breakout fashion moment was at the 2019 Golden Globes,
where she sparkled like a disco ball in metallic-gold Celine.
Instantly, Boynton became one of the first avatars of the brand’s
sexy new era, which began after Hedi Slimane took over from
Phoebe Philo (and dropped the accent from its name). “I’m a post-
accent girl! I’ve only ever worn Celine post-accent,” Boynton says.
At the time, Philo devotees clutched their cashmere cowl necks in
horror. What kind of woman would actually want to wear these
sparkly little things? These were clothes for dolls, not real women!
Indeed, doll is a word people love to use to describe Boynton. “She
represents that celebrity who wants to play doll,” says Lorenzo
Marquez of the fashion blog Tom & Lorenzo. Another equally
fraught word Boynton tends to inspire: muse. “She’s a quintes-
sential Miu Miu muse!” says a spokesperson for the
fashion house. Terms like this tend to strip women of
their agency, yet Boynton doesn’t seem to view it that
way. She wears couture gowns as if they were suits of
armor. “When they first sent me a picture of the
Celine dress, I said, ‘No, it doesn’t feel like me,’ ” she
explains. “And then I realized, when I tried it on, it
didn’t feel like me in the best way. It was the first
instance that I realized I could feel like some other
version of Lucy that I would never dress like day-to-
day. It made me feel protected.”
Boynton is wholly uninterested in letting fans feel as if they
“know” her (or even in having people recognize her from role to
role), which puts her in an uneasy position when it comes to her
mounting celebrity. “When I sent my mom a picture of me in my
full Mary Austin makeup and costume on the set ofBohemian
Rhapsody,she replied, ‘Who is that?’ So if my own mother can’t
recognize me from role to role, I feel pretty safe,” she says over a
carafe of dry white wine in the Morgan’s atrium.
It’s this elusive, chameleonic quality that has made her so popu-
lar in the fashion world. It also might serve as a clever way to
shield herself in an industry known for chewing up young women
and spitting them out. Yet in the age of the 24/7 Instagram confes-
sional, audiences demand a certain level of intimacy with the stars
they worship. Boynton’s taciturnity is deeply ingrained; she’s the
kind of person who is hesitant about opening up even to close
friends, let alone the whole world. “I have a lot of respect, and a
lot of questions, for those people who don’t seem to have any pro-
tective layer and who are absolutely themselves in every scenario,”
she continues. “When you are so exposed, the way that you are in
the publicity side of our work, I don’t know how you protect your-
self if you don’t keep something for yourself.”B
ut if you’re looking to sneak into Hollywood
without making a lot of noise, you should probably
avoid dating another celebrity. Especially if that
celebrity happens to play your onscreen love inter-
est in the most talked-about film of the year. When
Boynton started dating Malek, he was already a
famous actor and had been anointed “the internet’s boyfriend” by
his online fans—i.e., the male celebrity whom every social-media
user decided to have a crush on at the same time. Suddenly, ev-
eryone was itching to speculate about the mystery woman stand-
ing by the Best Actor front-runner’s side. “I had an interview re-
cently where I was asked such crude and candid questions about
my relationship,” Boynton tells me, pink splotches blooming like
flowers across her face. “It kind of forced me to pull way back.”
Boynton and Malek met at Abbey Road Studios just before
Bohemian Rhapsody started shooting. It was an intense day, and
Boynton was dealing with her anxiety as she always does—by read-
ing in a corner. (During filming, it was Anna Karenina; she
showed up to her shoot with the Cut toting a hardbound copy of
Clarice Lispector’s The Chandelier.) She recalls how Malek came
over to her and made a plan for the scene, and she instantly real-
ized what a key ally he would be. “Rami felt so much the leader of
that set,” she says. “The cast became so close going through that, as
you always do when going through a particularly stressful experi-
ence, to put it politely.” (It’s difficult to imagine her putting any-
thing impolitely.)
After being dogged by rumors of on-set chaos, director Bryan
Singer was fired weeks before the end of shooting, allegedly for
refusing to show up to work. Three days later, news broke that a
man had filed a lawsuit accusing Singer of rape; soon
after, other men came forward with allegations of
sexual assault. “It was a shock,” says Boynton, despite
the existence of similar allegations dating back 20
years. (Singer has denied all such claims.) Previously,
she’d had a “stupid philosophy” not to Google people
she was collaborating with and instead focus on their
body of work, so that she’d come to the job without
preconceived notions about them. Now she plans to
be “as informed as I possibly can” going forward. So
she wouldn’t work with Woody Allen? “No!” she says firmly.
Bohemian Rhapsody ended up winning four Oscars, yet a lot
ofcritics hated it. They panned it as trite and poorly edited, with
a paint-by-numbers script that treated Mercury’s sexuality with
kid gloves. Boynton bristles when I bring up this last point. “If
the reason you don’t like it is because you didn’t get the intrusive,
seedy version, well, I don’t want to be a part of a story that takes
advantage of the fact that [Mercury] isn’t around and can’t
stand up for [himself ] or draw barriers,” she says. The idea that
superstars should have control over how they are represented,
even posthumously, seems surprisingly naïve. Or perhaps it’s
just wishful thinking from an actress who feels ambivalent about
her own rising profile.
Since Bohemian Rhapsody, Boynton has made some
changes. “On that set, I neglected my book much more than I
usually would and got much more involved, and I want to do
that going forward,” she says. “That was one thing that I
learned from Rami. I was always just trying to keep out of
everyone’s way, and I’ve realized maybe that’s not the best.”FEATURES | Lucy Boynton
PHOTOGRAPHS: SET DESIGN BY SOPHIE HART AND VICTORIA TAM; HAIR BY ADIR ABERGEL AT STARWORKS ARTISTS FOR VIRTUELABS.COM; MAKEUP BY JO BAKER AT FORWARD ARTISTS USING CHANEL BEAUTÉ; MANICURE BY ASHLIE JOHNSON AT THE WALL GROUP; LIGHTING DESIGN BY GREGORY LEFEVRE; SET DRESSING BY HENSEL MARTINEZ, RACHAEL WRIGHT, STEVAN CABLAYAN; GRIP BY CAMILO LARA JR., JENNY TRINH; PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANCE BY KRISTI NEILSON; STYLING ASSISTANCE BY CHRISTONYA KINSEY; RETOUCHING BY VENICE POST. SPECIAL THANKS TO BOTTEGA LOUIE.PRADA coat, at
saks ifthavenue.com;
HERMÈS scarf, at
hermes.com; MARK CROSS
bag, at saks ifthavenue.com;
CLYDE gloves, at
clyde.world; ERDEM shoes,
at erdem.com.