(upbeat music) - I can't always memorize my lines for every audition, especially if it's a short notice, but when it's something I wanted as badly as "Barbie," I was not playing around.

(upbeat music) - [Sophie] You look amazing.

- Hi, Sophie.

- I love it.

Look at you.

- Thank you.

- That looks great.

So I think what we'll do is start here, if you're good with that.

- Yeah.

- For a photo.

And I'll sort of shoot you from here big like wide backdrop.

- Sure.

- And then we'll move potentially over to the swing.

- Okay.

- If you're up for that.

- I can swing.

- All right.

Oh, I always like to ask people, what angle you prefer, if you have one that you prefer over the other?

- My left side is my good side, but I found myself in certain situations drifting to expose the right.

- So maybe we'll expose some right side today.

- I think my subconsciousness is telling me to get over it.

- We can explore.

So let's just kind of get started doing just right in here.

- How does the coat look like coming off the shoulder like this?

- I like it off the shoulder, right there.

That's great.

And then try it with the legs, like, both straight.

Let's see.

Yeah, I like that.

Almost like a pillar.

(camera clicking) Beautiful.

Right there.

- I'd be giving more right side, but my light's over here now, isn't?

- [Sophie] Okay.

Yeah.

Right.

(chuckles) You're a writer.

- Yeah.

- You're an actor.

- I would say actor first.

I would say writer after, and then I would say model.

But I've probably done as much modeling as I have acting.

- [Sophie] But it's an evolution?

- Now that I'm writing films, which have not seen the light of day, and producing films, one of which is hopefully about to see the light of day, that's been shot, I'm experimenting with sticking filmmaker.

- Okay.

- Into it.

- I think that's appropriate.

- I said I was an actress and model long before I worked as an actress and model.

So I am a fan of the manifesting powers of just calling yourself something and waiting for people to catch up.

- Well, it's clearly working.

I'm gonna take a couple snaps.

I wanna do similar, but I'm doing it on film, which I think is very appropriate for this look.

- Oh yes.

- Like a film situation.

- Should I like point my toes outward like this?

- Yeah, you know what, it's a little weird, which I like.

(camera whirring) That's good.

I like that with the head.

That's a good one.

I'm gonna use the Rolleiflex for this one.

I'm going really old school.

- I could go full profile or kind of- - Yeah, I like the full profile.

And then put the head back in sort of, so it's a little dramatic.

(camera clicking) And let's let the jacket drop a little bit.

Beautiful.

(camera clicking) We'll look just really fast.

I kind of like the really big frame of the window behind it.

But I wanna hear your, like what you gravitate toward.

- [Hari] Ooh.

- You like side?

- The great Diana Vreeland, former editrix of "Vogue Magazine."

She said the eye has to travel.

And I love when there's interest, like, (imitates whooshing), and I love the shape.

You see the hair.

- Mm-hm.

I'm gonna mark that one.

- Yeah.

That's cool.

That's fash-on.

- Fash-on.

- Yes.

- That one.

- I love.

- That one.

- I love.

That's sweet.

- I love that one.

- I'm never getting my teeth done.

I love my vampire fangs.

- So you're feeling happy?

Are you feeling like, are we getting you?

- These are beautiful.

This is the way I wanna look in pictures.

I look like myself.

- That's really, that's the biggest compliment for me.

(upbeat music) So what was it like to get cast in "Barbie"?

What was the process like?

- It was one audition, one tape, one NDA-protected side.

A scene that wasn't even in the movie, I had to decide what the scene was even about.

The note in the audition was grounded and real.

This is a real world to these dolls.

So I feel like looking back on that tape, I kind of gave it my best like Elle Woods, like the way she's kind of perfect, but knows exactly what's going on and it's not that big of a deal because that's just what her life is.

- Was there something specific that drew you to be in this film?

To be in the "Barbie" film?

- What girl doesn't want to step into the world of feminine perfection and ambition?

That's the world that "Barbie" represents.

I don't know if you wanna step into it and swear by it or be a part of it, and maybe you wanna mess it up and burn it to the ground, or you want to interrogate it with a magnifying glass or anything in between.

But the context of "Barbie" is magnetic and ripe for exploration and explosion.

And I think Margot and Greta really understood that, which is why they made such an incredible and timeless film.

- And my heels are on the ground.

(girls gasping) - Flat feet!

(girls screaming) - I know you brought something with you from the film.

- I did, a small offering.

This is a horse.

I stole this from the "Barbie" set.

This is from when the Kens took over Barbie land and turned the Dream House into the Mojo Dojo Casa house, and decorated everything with horses and black leather couches.

I stole this horse.

(camera clicking) - [Sophie] That's so good.

- And if I could go back in time, I'd steal a lot more.

- Like I would steal more.

(bright music) I'm gonna ask you some rapid fire questions.

- Bring it on.

- What's going through your head when you're walking a runway?

- Everybody wants to have sex with me.

- Go-to karaoke song?

- "Rehab" Amy Winehouse.

- Amazing.

Favorite line of yours from "Barbie"?

- "Flat feet."

- Favorite person to follow on Instagram?

- Lushious Massacr.

- Hidden talent most people don't know about?

- I am hypermobile in my shoulders and I can do this.

- Wow.

- I shouldn't though.

It's like really bad for my shoulders.

- First play you ever saw?

- Oh, probably, "Cinderella," I wanna say.

The musical.

Rodgers and Hammerstein.

- Favorite it girl?

- Chloë Sevigny.

Edie Sedgwick.

Chloë Sevigny and Edie Sedgwick.

- Two.

You can have two.

That's okay.

All right, now we're gonna do this or that.

- Okay.

- Film or television?

- Film.

- Vintage or new?

- Vintage.

- Ken or Barbie?

- Barbie.

- Lead role or ensemble role?

- Lead.

- Uptown or downtown?

- Downtown.

- Heels or flats?

- Heels.

- New York Fashion Week or Paris Fashion Week?

- Paris Fashion Week.

I'm sorry, Anna.

- Designer dinner or after party?

- After party.

- That's it.

- Oh my God.

I want like 10 more.

- So Hari, you've been many firsts in your career.

What are some of the firsts and are there any other firsts to come?

- I try not to think about the firsts because it makes me feel scary.

I get a lot of comfort in precedence.

I get a lot of comfort in looking at people in the past and seeing what they did and how they did and being like, oh, I can do that too.

And when I think about myself being the first of something, I'm like, oh my God, like, are they gonna let me get away with anything else?

I don't know.

I was the first trans woman signed to IMG models.

I was the first trans woman with a global fragrance contract for Gucci.

I was the first trans woman on the cover of a major British publication, that was Elle UK.

I feel like these things just happened because there's so few people like me in show business.

And I was really lucky to have entered the scene directly, literally right at the moment where those doors began to swing open for people like me.

I remember so distinctly Laverne Cox being on the cover of TIME Magazine with the words, "The trans tipping point."

That was the moment where I decided that I wanted to go for this.

Prior to that moment, prior to "Orange is the New Black," I was like, "They're never gonna let me be a professional stage actress."

There's no precedent for this.

There were exceptions to the rule, but I was like, no, no way.

And I immersed myself in the queer underground of New York City.

I was doing avant-garde punk drag.

I was performing in warehouses.

I was like, I'm gonna be in the warehouse.

I'm gonna be an artist.

I'm gonna maybe work in an institutional art context.

They're more open to this kind of thing, I guess.

But then it shifted and "Transparent" went on the air, and then I was on a plane seven days after graduating to go shoot that show.

- That is wild.

- It is wild.

- Now that you're in a position of influence, how does that impact which roles you do take?

- Well, I'm actually trying to be less selective and choosy about my roles.

After I broke out in Hollywood, people didn't really know what to do with someone like me, explicitly with a trans actress.

And a lot of the things that came in were poorly written or plain offensive.

And I felt kind of a huge chip on my shoulder to instruct and demonstrate to people the way I could be cast or should be cast outside of this thing, which took up a lot of space in the way people see me.

I said no to a lot of things and probably jeopardized aspects of my career trajectory in momentum out of principle, self-protection and an idea of taste.

I think it did have some upsides holding out on not just wanting to play trans roles.

The last big cycle I was in, I played a Barbie, and I played a journalist on an HBO show.

Neither one of them, to my knowledge, were trans.

Show business loves to pluck us out of obscurity and give us a huge platform, write us a role that's influenced by our own life and our own experiences, but it remains to be seen whether we're really gonna be booked and rebooked and booked again on the merits of our talent.

- Yeah.

- That kind of feels like the battle I'm fighting with grace and a smile on a good day.

(chuckles) - You brought a special object with you today.

Could you tell me the story behind it?

- I did.

I brought my first place trophy from the 2010 Yale Invitational High School Speech and Debate Tournament in the event of dramatic interpretation, which is basically competitive acting, tear-jerker edition.

- I saw you come through the elevator with that and I was like, "This is, I have no idea what's happening, but I'm very excited."

- I was the captain of the speech team when I was a senior in high school, and I did a 10-minute cutting from this really intense piece by Martin Moran called "The Tricky Part."

It's about his experience with a counselor at a Christian overnight camp, who he later confronts.

That was kind of edgy for me to be doing in 2010.

I fully thought I was gonna go to the Yale Invitational, the first big prestige national tournament of the Year and like flub.

But I was gonna do it on my terms.

I was gonna be queer, and I won.

- But it's so good because it's also a lesson at such a young age, you decided to stand up for what you wanted to do and do what you thought was right, and it worked.

- Yeah, I literally just stood there and cried, and it was fierce.

- That is amazing.

I wanna take your picture with this.

Remember we had that really nice column.

I almost wanna like make it part of you.

Was it too heavy?

- No.

- I kind of love it.

That's amazing.

(bright music) You brought a photo.

I wanna try to recreate it today, but I also wanna hear what the photo is.

- This is a photo of my senior year of college, performing on stage in Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" as Irina Arkadina, the matriarch kind of grande dame role.

This was the first time I performed in a women's role on stage after I began my gender transition.

It's in my head that the beginning of the career I have now I became a better actor when I got to play these roles.

- It's really special.

- Yeah.

- How can we recreate it?

Let's see.

We have a shawl- - I think no blazer.

I don't think she would wear a blazer.

- It's good to know your character.

You're kind of gripping it and then you're looking, it looks like out.

And you're kind of a little more distressed.

(camera clicking) (upbeat music) All right, let's go take some photos on the swing.

- Yeah.

- Oh my God!

You have to let the derriere kind of hang off the back, and that balances everything out.

Will somebody push me?

- (laughs) You need a push?

- I need a push.

I can't do it.

- Hold on.

I'll give you a push to get you started.

How's that?

- Oh, that's great.

- Should it go like this?

- Yes.

Oh my gosh, yes.

Exact.

Oh, I love that.

Where you're just all long 'cause now you're almost upside down, which is kind of amazing.

Yep, yep.

There it is.

I'm gonna do super eight.

Oh my God.

It's so good.

(shutter clicking rapidly) That's really nice.

(shutter clicking rapidly) That's great, that's beautiful when you drop the foot.

- Should I go all the way?

- Yeah, let's do it.

(shutter clicking rapidly) Really nice.

And back up.

Gorgeous.

All right.

I think we got this.

(upbeat music) You're so great in front of the camera, and I was wondering if you would be willing to turn the camera around on me and direct me for a minute since I've been directing you the whole shoot.

- Yeah, let's do it.

- Tell me what to do.

- Go, yeah, over there in the corner.

Okay, you're Katharine Hepburn at Howard Hughes' studio, and you're just a powerful sexually ambiguous, four-time Academy award winner.

And I'm a photographer and you hate me.

- I hate you.

- But you have to do this because it's a part of your studio contract.

- Shit, can I grab my camera first?

- Hey, I thought I was driving- - You are but you look so good there.

- I'm working here.

- I'm sorry.

I have to do this.

Wow.

(upbeat music) Let's go outside and take some photos.

All right, let's go over here.

Oh, I feel like this could be your runway.

Wait, can we do a runway walk starting here?

- Sure.

- And action.

(upbeat music) Oh, that is fierce.

(shutter clicking rapidly) - Oh, and then in the nineties they'd take off the coat.

Then they'd go.

(shutter clicking rapidly) - [Sophie] Oh, I like the spin.

That is amazing.

(horn honking) - Yeah, I hear you.

- Okay, a couple film stills.

Spin.

Yes.

Love.

Put the jacket on.

Don't kill yourself.

- Put the jacket on.

- [Sophie] Put the jacket on.

- Woo.

- All right.

We got it.

Thank you so much.

You're amazing.

You're a star.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)