Interview

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Change is an essential part of the life of any model. Their careers are generally made up of a seriesof revolving doors: They work in an industry that is not only driven by the power of change but also demands that a successful model continually transform herself by the hour, the dress, and the pose.

It is, however, an altogether different kind of transformation that is setting model Lily Cole, 21, apart from her counterparts. Born in Devon, England, the ginger-haired Cole was only 14 when she was scouted outside a burger bar in London’s Soho. Signed by Storm, she appeared in a career-defining Steven Meisel shoot for Italian Vogue in 2003 (since then, she’s appeared on numerous Vogue covers internationally). She’s walked for Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen, John  Galliano, and DKNY and is such a well-known face in her homeland that high-street chain Marks & Spencer did not drop the star despite calls to do so after she appeared on the cover of French Playboy.

Cole then shattered the general model stereotype of gliding through life on her looks by attending Cambridge University, where she is currently a sophomore studying art history. But perhaps Cole’s greatest transformation occurred when she decided to get into acting. In 2005, Marilyn Manson announced that he’d chosen Cole to star in his feature-film directorial debut,

Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll. While waiting for that project to start (as of yet, it still has no production date), she acted in her first movie, playing a dorky schoolgirl in directors Oliver Parker and Barnaby Thompson’s remake of St. Trinian’s (2007) and followed that up with a role as a model called Lettuce Leaf in Sally Potter’s bold, experimental catwalk murder mystery, Rage. This season, though, she takes her most high-profile turn to date, appearing as Heath Ledger’s love interest in the Australian actor’s final film, Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (out in December). As befits someone ranked on the Sunday Times 2008 Young Rich List, she has houses in both New York and London. We meet a stone’s throw from her London residence, at the Champagne Bar in St. Pancras station, watching people hop on to the Eurostar train to Paris.