Alma Jodorowsky
Most American audiences first got a glimpse of Alma Jodorowsky in 2013’s controversial coming-of-age film Blue Is the Warmest Color. Though she only appears in a brief supporting role, Jodorowsky is impossible to miss as a perfectly insouciant French teen who casually smokes a cigarette with Adèle Exarchopoulos‘s character and kisses her on the lips. It’s a pitch-perfect turn from the 22-year-old French actress, who is not unlike the chic naïfs she has come to portray on screen. When asked about her experience with Blue, Jodorowsky remains nonplussed. “I saw the movie for the first time at Cannes with everybody else,” she says. “I didn’t know how it was going to look because we shot so many scenes over such a long period of time. I wasn’t shocked, though. The movie is about love and how universal it can be. I think that’s why most people enjoyed it. Everyone can see themselves in it.”
Given that her grandfather is the iconic avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky—the man behind such classics as El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973)—one might assume that Alma inherited a penchant for the psychedelic or spent her childhood wandering around surrealist-movie sets. Such was not the case. “My grandfather made most of his movies before I was born,” she says. “My parents did more theater, so I grew up in the theater world. I hadn’t been on a movie set until I was there as an actor.” Though Jodorowsky has dabbled in modeling (including high-profile stints for Chanel and Opening Ceremony), she prefers performing. “I get bored very quickly,” she admits. She recently wrapped her latest film, Kids in Love, another story of youthful rebellion, this time set among the wealthy, posh hedonists of London; Jodorowsky acts opposite model Cara Delevingne and Skins actor Sebastian De Souza. Next up is the French TV series Avec le Temps, where she plays a 1970s miner’s daughter living in the north of France. A committed Parisian, Jodorowsky is thankful her current gig allows her to stay home and focus on her other love, making music with her band, Burning Peacocks. “My friend and I started the band nearly two years ago,” she says. “At first it was just for fun, but then we started to write songs and work hard at it. I was too lazy to learn to play guitar well, but I write the lyrics and play keyboard. We play shows in bars and little venues. It’s very scary for me to sing in front of people, but like everything else, it gets better each time.”
