“I have two young kids under five, so I’ll just sleep later,” Lee jokes of working and parenting throughout a pandemic.
‘The Morning Show’ Season 2: Greta Lee on the Series, Taking Cues From Elizabeth Holmes, and Her Character’s Anti-Heels Stance
There are a lot of reasons to love Greta Lee, from her early cameos on shows like Girls, High Maintenance, and Broad City; to her status as originator of the phrase “Sweet birthday baby!” on Russian Doll; to her absolutely immaculate Grub Street Diet. (It was as a direct result of reading about Lee’s food life that I discovered my absolute favorite family-style Thai place in Brooklyn, but I digress.) Onscreen, Lee is the best friend you wish you had, full of verve and never without a witty comeback; plus, her characters tend to be united by a keen eye for fashion.
These days, Lee can be found playing the ambitious, Gen-Z-literate former media-company president Stella Bak on The Morning Show, which returned for its second season last month. Vogue recently spoke to Lee about the series, avoiding social media in her own life, and Stella’s inimitable style. Read the full interview below.
Vogue: What originally drew you to the character of Stella?
Greta Lee: At the time that I read the script, I happen to be fully immersed in books like Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino and Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener, and I was obsessed with Elizabeth Holmes, just like everyone else. I happened to be in this place where I was absorbing a lot of material about the record number of young people in leadership positions, and the record number of women and people of color coming in to try and implement real change in the workplace. I was watching my peers navigate the corporate world, which is very different than mine, obviously, and then this role came along. When I read the description for Stella Bak, the first and only female news president in UBA history, I just thought, “Oh my God. If this is anything like what I hope it could be like, it could be really great.” I wanted to step up to the challenge.
Do you relate to Stella’s desire to appeal to the younger-millennial/Gen-Z world?
Well, I made it clear to the creatives on The Morning Show that, though I am technically a millennial, I’m much more analog in my identity. I’m not on social media. I think that gives me a bit of a different view in terms of someone like Stella, who is this wunderkind coming from leading an online media company that only caters to Gen Z.
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Emma Specter
