Aidan Zamiri Is the Moment

When I met photographer, videographer, and hype man Aidan Zamiri a few years back, it was instant love. He seemed like a kindred spirit, a kid who takes on so many things, yet somehow manages to exude positivity, confidence, and sweetness—even under stress. He’s totally got it, so when I was asked to be in the Charli XCX film The Moment, Aidan’s directorial debut, my answer was an immediate yes. I had a blast on set, and again when Aidan called me a couple of days before our big Sundance premiere. The London-based director was eating breakfast in Beverly Hills, happy to be back in Hollywood with the camera on him this time.

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FRIDAY 10 AM JAN. 16, 2026 LA

AIDAN ZAMIRI: Hey, babe. I was just getting my room service.

MEL OTTENBERG: Oh, what hotel are you in?

ZAMIRI: They put me up at the Four Seasons. It’s kind of tacky, but the room service is good.

OTTENBERG: I love Beverly Hills.

ZAMIRI: Yeah, I’m feeling very L.A. right now.

OTTENBERG: Did you just wake up?

ZAMIRI: I woke up around about eight, did my 30 to 45 minutes of scrolling, and then I had to hop on a couple of calls. Charli also sent me her selects for the shoot.

OTTENBERG: Oh wow.

ZAMIRI: Mel, she was so good at directing. She made me feel so at ease. She also made it kind of horny. There’s a lot of her hand going in places and her foot going in places. It was really fun.

OTTENBERG: I love that. I hit her up and I was like, “What do you have in mind?” She’s like, “I’ve only been in front of the camera so I have no idea, but I’ll do it.”

ZAMIRI: I think 90 percent of taking photos is making people feel at ease. She’d be holding the camera and be like, “Oh my god, yeah!” She was doing the photographer thing, just yelling the whole way through. [Laughs]

OTTENBERG: I don’t understand why I’ve never picked up a camera.

ZAMIRI: I would love to see that. I’m surprised you haven’t done it already.

OTTENBERG: This summer I was at the beach with Ryan McGinley and I was like, “What digital camera should I get?” I can’t deal with photographers and their fucking film, as someone who runs a magazine and always waiting for it to get developed, so I got a Fujifilm X100.

ZAMIRI: Pretty good.

OTTENBERG: I’ll take a picture of you right now if it’s charged.

ZAMIRI: Should I get my light?

OTTENBERG: I don’t know anything about light. That’s the problem. I don’t even know how to get the lens cap off, babe.

ZAMIRI: [Laughs] There’s too much admin.

OTTENBERG: I think it’s dead. But Aidan, I do like being a man of many jobs, as you are.

ZAMIRI: Right, right, right.

OTTENBERG: You directed a movie. You also—do you have an official role in Timothée Chalamet and Charli XCX’s careers, with how you master their visual language?

ZAMIRI: I don’t know if we’ve landed on a specific name for it yet. We’ve got the livestreams, we’ve got the photo shoots, the videos. We’re all involved in each other’s careers. Once you build a language together and achieve that shorthand, that’s when you make the best work. You can also push things way further. The first time me and Timothée shot together for Rolling Stone, we went so hard so quickly because he put the time in. He put as much energy into that magazine editorial as other artists have put into their album covers. I care so much about everything I’m doing, and I know Charli is the same. She can’t stop going and everything is important. It’s the same with Timmy as well.

OTTENBERG: Yeah. That’s what’s fun about being the editor of a magazine, you create this language with the people you work with. When I first started doing interviews, I was scared to get canceled for just being myself. After a while you’re like, “Bitch, I’m around the right people.” I trust the team.

ZAMIRI: Yeah, you make good work when you let your guard down. You’ve all got the same intention, you’ve all got the same worldview. Hopefully that’s how you felt on the film as well. Part of the reason we all had such a fun time was we were all working towards the same thing, which was making a cool movie.

OTTENBERG: Being in the movie was so fun. When Jen Venditti [the casting director] called me I was like, “Okay, I want to do this, even if I’m terrible. No other bitch should do this role.”

ZAMIRI: I can say, for the record, that there was no other option. It was Mel or no one from the jump. Were you being the real Mel on set, or were you doing character Mel?

OTTENBERG: So when I read it, instantly I was like, okay, the reason I need to do this is because it’s so LOL and so fun, but also, that scene where Charli’s talking to her stylist, I was like, “That’s the moment where everyone’s loving the star, but then the star becomes a cunt and the air—”

ZAMIRI: Comes out of the room.

OTTENBERG: A real star, like Charli XCX, can turn it on and everyone will eat out of the palm of her hand, but when the princess is in a really rotten mood, they can take it all away.

ZAMIRI: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

OTTENBERG: For the record, I’m not talking about one specific person, but I’ve been there. So when I got to set, I was just trying to be real.

ZAMIRI: And no one else would have the knowledge about that kind of experience. I think that’s why Jen’s casting decisions are so smart, because we didn’t even have to talk about the scene too much. You knew the context of it. It’s the same with how she cast Hailey [Benton Gates] for the role of Celeste. She understood that headstrong, tough director who cares about integrity, who cares about art.

OTTENBERG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ZAMIRI: Do you know what’s funny? Timothée saw the movie, and he was like, “I love the scene with Charli and her stylist.” So you got the Chalamet thumbs up.

OTTENBERG: I really appreciate that. [Laughs] Thanks, Timmy.

ZAMIRI: Have you seen the film yet, Mel?

OTTENBERG: I haven’t, but I recently watched Annie—have you ever seen Annie?

ZAMIRI: As in Orphan Annie?

OTTENBERG: Yeah, Little Orphan Annie.

ZAMIRI: I’ve seen Little Orphan Annie.

OTTENBERG: Okay, major. So when Daddy Warbucks buys out the movie theater, I was like, I don’t want that to be me seeing The Moment for the first time in a screening room. I’ve only done one movie my whole life, and I’m thrilled that it’s this one, so I want to see it at Sundance. [Laughs]

ZAMIRI: Genuinely, Mel, it feels like a crazy glitch that we’ve made a movie. The whole thing top to bottom is bonkers.

OTTENBERG: How did the idea come up? Were you partying? Did she text you?

ZAMIRI: We were hanging out all the time because we were making a bunch of videos together. Charli and I became proper friends over the course of making the film, but we were already close collaborators. We just got each other, and I think we really connected on a creative level.

OTTENBERG: Is “360” the first video you guys did together?

ZAMIRI: The first thing we did was a branded photoshoot at the end of 2023, and then we made all our music videos. So it hasn’t been that long, but it’s been intense. I’ve seen Charli more than anyone else over the past two years. But yeah, after we did “360” she was texting me being like, “We should make a movie together at some point.”

OTTENBERG: Wow.

ZAMIRI: And I was like, “Yeah, one day.” And then she started getting a lot of people wanting her to do a concert film. It was the classic formula: you have a very successful album, here’s how you capitalize on it. And that became one of the main narrative ideas for the movie. Doing a concert film didn’t feel interesting to Charli or me, not that they’re all bad. Music docs are really fun to watch, but we wanted to do a fresh take on it, something unexpected. So we started talking about the movie at the end of September. Bertie [Brandes] and I wrote the script over 10 days in December, and then we were shooting it in March. Honestly, it was insane. It happened so, so fast. And now I want to do it again. The only downside was that I couldn’t get to do all the photo shoots and music videos I wanted to do during that time, but in hindsight it was worth it because you get this big mountain that you’ve made.

OTTENBERG: Back to the concert films concept, which ones do you love? When I think about that I’m like, “I fucking love [Madonna:] Truth or Dare.”

ZAMIRI: Truth or Dare is incredible. I also love Gaga’s Monster Ball doc [Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden]. I haven’t seen it recently, but I remember feeling so affected by it as a teenager.

OTTENBERG: Are you a little monster?

ZAMIRI: Of course. I was really into Green Day and Black Eyed Peas when I was younger. And then I discovered Tumblr and Lana Del Rey and Lady Gaga. That obviously made the bisexual scales tip in various directions, unlocking another side. Another doc that both Charli and I really loved was Isaac Mizrahi’s Unzipped. Have you seen it?

OTTENBERG: Of course, babe. I’m obsessed beyond.

ZAMIRI: I remember finding it so magical and so cool and so unbelievably funny. I’m not a big movie buff, definitely not the way Charli is, but shooting was one of the funnest months of my life. It was so collaborative and loose and free. I was laughing so much of the time. Even the writing felt fun and generative. The way Bertie and I write, it’s like we’re improvising. We’d go to some bar or cafe, and all the tables around us would slowly leave because we’re talking and typing and laughing.

OTTENBERG: Love that.

ZAMIRI: The writing is social, the filming is social, and then you go into an edit suite and you’re there all day, every day. And even though I loved the editors we worked with, it’s just so isolating. Eventually you lose perspective completely and you’re like, “Is any of this funny?” The hardest thing about writing comedy is that you go from it being a joke in your head to writing it and revising it, and then doing five to 10 takes of it on set. Then you watch all those five to 10 takes 400 times, put it in the edit, and then change the timing of when the joke is delivered. So it’s like, there’s no way you could ever find that joke funny ever again.

OTTENBERG: Right.

ZAMIRI: It’s a weird experience of losing perspective and then doing everything you can to find it again. A lot of the time that was me trying to get other people to come and watch the film with me so I could see it through their eyes.

OTTENBERG: You told me you did a test screening in New Jersey, too, right?

ZAMIRI: Yeah. I’d shown it to a couple of people at a time before that, and then we went to New Jersey and did it at an AMC. I went in with the A24 squad, but the audience doesn’t know who we are, so you’re getting this genuine reaction. You’re hearing when people laugh or when they hold their breath or feel tense or whatever. It’s super helpful. Then you get a focus group at the end and sometimes someone says something that makes you want to beat them up, and sometimes someone says something and you’re like, “Oh my god, I love you. You get it.” But that’s going to be the way it is when it’s out in the world.

OTTENBERG: Is it going to be in movie theaters?

ZAMIRI: Yes. Our limited release is the 30th of January in New York and L.A. and then we’re going to widen out. We’ve got Sundance next week, which you’re coming to, and then these New York screenings on the 26th. We’re also doing Berlinale.

OTTENBERG: Wow, fun.

ZAMIRI: We’re going to do our best to try and get a Berghain after-party happening. And then we’ll do a London one on the 17th or something.

OTTENBERG: Oh, I’ll be in London on the 17th.

ZAMIRI: Perfect. We have to start planning our Sundance looks.

OTTENBERG: Babe, I don’t have a look anymore. Oh, you know what I did confirm? Alex Consani’s iconic tiger print Gucci jacket.

ZAMIRI: La Bomba.

OTTENBERG: Yeah. I pulled it for a shoot and texted Demna being like, “Look at me in this jacket. I’m going to wear it to Sundance.” He’s like, “You must.” I got it confirmed. But I can’t wear it.

ZAMIRI: Wow.

OTTENBERG: It’s like $38,000. I’m like, what if I lose it at the after-party—there’s an after-party, right?

ZAMIRI: Yeah. I can’t remember the venue, but it’s going to be fab. I mean, Park City is a strict town, there’s a 1:00am curfew, so we had to request an extension.

OTTENBERG: Oh wow. I’m assuming I’ll be drinking lots of Red Bulls and you guys will be doing coke—I don’t do coke anymore, but I love that there’s cocaine in this movie. I thought that was fierce, Charli XCX doing coke with Rachel Sennott.

ZAMIRI: I mean, you don’t see them do it, but they’re doing it. They use the credit card to cut some lines, et cetera. We tried to make it feel as real as possible, even if it’s all heightened and over the top. But I’m proud of that party scene for how real it felt. We cast a whole squad of party kids and they were all really going for it. It felt like a real club.

OTTENBERG: And Charli XCX is the queen of the club.

ZAMIRI: Exactly. But coming back to Sundance fashion, at first I was going to try and do a little bit of GORP-y techwear, hiking stuff. But then Taylor McNeill styled me for the Interview shoot and I looked quite sleazy L.A. sexy. I had a lot of popped collars and chest showing. I was like, “Maybe this is it for Sundance.”

OTTENBERG: Wow. Wait, we haven’t talked about the most important thing—Charli XCX. The people need more. When did you first show her the movie?

ZAMIRI: She saw a really, really early cut. I wanted her to see it but I was also like, “It’s not right yet.” Until it was right, it was wrong, and it felt wrong for so long. I’d be sweating and pulling my hair out and being like, “Why is this not right?” I don’t want to speak for Charli, but I think it also took a minute to get used to seeing herself in that way. With a music video you get to pose exactly how you want and approve every shot—oops. Sorry, I just got a message. Oh, shit. I was meant to be on a call with A24.

OTTENBERG: Okay. Well, we love you Charli XCX. More later.

ZAMIRI: I think it was a funny combination of her getting used to seeing herself in this way, grappling with the idea of being real but not real—but she loves the film. She’s stoked on it. Yeah, they’re harassing me.

OTTENBERG: Okay. Well, go do your A24 call. Thanks, Aidan!

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Hair: Fitch Lunar using Airlight Pro at Opus Beauty.

Makeup: Yasmin Istanbouli at The Wall Group.

Photography Assistant: Andres Castillo.

Fashion Assistants: Erin Clement, Milli Dawson, Loulou Brazill, and Emily Glennon.

On-set Production: Cecilia Alvarez Blackwell.

Location: Petit Ermitage.