Billie Lourd

BILLIE LOURD IN NEW YORK, APRIL 2015. STYLING: KARL TEMPLER. COSMETICS: DIOR, INCLUDING DIORSKIN NUDE AIR HEALTHY GLOW ULTRA-FLUID SERUM FOUNDATION. HAIR: JAMES PECIS/D+V MANAGEMENT. MAKEUP: PETER PHILIPS FOR CHRISTIAN DIOR. MANICURE: MEGUMI YAMAMOTO FOR DIOR VERNIS/SUSAN PRICE NYC. SET DESIGN: STEFAN BECKMAN/EXPOSURE NY. PRODUCER: SARA ZION FOR PRODN/ ART+COMMERCE. PRODUCTION MANAGER: ASHLEY SCOTT FOR PRODN/ ART+COMMERCE. RETOUCHING: GLOSS STUDIO. DIGITAL TECHNICIAN: NICHOLAS ONG. PHOTO ASSISTANTS: SIMON ROBERTS, HUAN NGUYEN, MARU TEPPEI, AND DEAN PODMORE. STYLING ASSISTANTS: MELISSA LEVY AND ALEKSANDRA KOJ. HAIR ASSISTANT: ADLENA DIGNAM. MAKEUP ASSISTANTS: EMIKO AYABE AND TALY WAISBERG. SET DESIGN ASSISTANTS: MAX ZINSER AND YONATAN ZONSZEIN. PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS: KAIA BALCOS AND JOHN DANIEL POWERS. SPECIAL THANKS: SOHO LOFTS.

Rebelling against one’s parents might be par for the course for any teenager, but for Billie Lourd, daughter of actress Carrie Fisher and super-agent Bryan Lourd, it was a way to enter the family business. “It’s been a secret dream of mine,” Lourd admits of acting. “My whole life, they said, ‘Do not act. You need to get a college degree.’ I went to performing arts camp, secretly taking classes—I got the lead in the musical, and my dad was like, ‘Wait, I thought you were going here for music and knitting.’ ” Lourd did get that degree—she graduated from NYU last year after studying religion and psychology—but the 22-year-old Los Angeles native is already forging her own career onscreen, starting with a role in J.J. Abrams’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, out this December. She’s quick to brush aside rumors about her character’s connection to her mother’s (“I’m not Princess Leia’s daughter,” she says), but concedes that the tightly contained production and top-secret scripts provided an invaluable learning experience. “This is the first job I’ve ever had—right into the fire.” Lourd will spend her summer in New Orleans filming the first season of Ryan Murphy‘s latest Fox series, Scream Queens, a darkly comedic, college-set murder mystery centered on a clique of Heathers-like sorority girls all named Chanel. Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis also co-star. “It’s scary, but there’s a lot of comedic breaks,” says Lourd, who plays Chanel No. 3. “She’s brought up my sass level for sure.” But for now, Lourd is currently out on the “hustle-grind,” as she calls it, auditioning and working on her own bluesy, R&B-inflected music. “This is what I’ve always wanted,” she says. “I’m living the dream right now.”

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