Deadline’s annual Ones to Watch panel at Cannes is made up of actors and filmmakers who all bring something new to the festival. The accolade isn’t always reserved for new faces; instead, we have selected people who are diversifying or who find themselves in waters where they are likely to make waves. Cannes can be a place of reinvention, after all.
With his non-crazy-sufferers, rock-chic attitude, Devon Ross seems more at home in the Runaways than on the catwalk, but the 22-year-old has become one of the most sought-after models in the fashion world, representing Gucci, Mulberry and Valentino. And now she’s going to make her acting debut. Directed by Olivier Assayas, working from his 1996 film of the same name, she appears in the HBO miniseries Irma Vepwhich screens in the Cannes Premiere section and stars Alicia Vikander as Mira, an on-point actress.
“Mira is a movie star, and she’s going to Paris to make a movie called The vampires“, says Ross. “She’s a bit disillusioned with her fame and her connections. I guess she’s been traveling for a really long time and has nowhere to go. I play Regina, Mira’s assistant. She’s a big movie buff, she’s obsessed with movies and working on making her first feature film, so she’s in the right place at the right time.
The same could be said for Ross herself. At 15, she remembers: “I said to myself: ‘I want to do something with my life.’ So I went to a modeling agency and I was like, “Take me or leave me. They signed me and it all started from there. My mom was a model, so I grew up looking at her portfolio and always thinking to myself, “This seems like the best job ever.” You just had your picture taken, and there’s nothing better than that.
Unlike her peers, Ross has very different ideas about glamour. “I’ve always adored Elizabeth Taylor, she’s just gorgeous,” she says. “But I also love the Rolling Stones and Keith Richards: I grew up listening to them, they’re like my uncles in my head. I feel like I know them, but I don’t. And if the acting job keeps coming, she’d like people to know she’s a big fan of Patti Smith’s 2010 memoir just children. “I’m waiting for someone to make this movie because I would love to play Patti.”
“It’s my dream,” she said, “so put it out there. Let people know.
