Working with supportive, all-female teams like she did on Booksmart put stellar role-models right in front of her, which has had a significant impact. “Olivia Wilde [Booksmart director] saying, ‘I have bigger dreams than just being an actress. I also want to write and direct—there’s a world that lives in my head that I want to see out there, too’—that meant a lot.” She describes something similar in her recent Birds of Paradise collaborator. “Sarah Adina Smith has such an interesting mind—she very much has a whole world in there. It takes a lot of courage to say, ‘I’m ok with being vulnerable’ and putting it out there for other people to see. It’s about entrusting this vision that lives inside you to other creatives, like actors, to help externalize it. It takes a village to make a movie.”
Musically, Silvers’ references are eclectic and inter-generational. David Bowie to Simon and Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen to Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell share airtime with Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey. She valiantly covered LDR’s Norman Fucking Rockwell on acoustic guitar, crooning acapella, “Head in your hands as you color me blue.” One day soon she wants to bring an explosive rock diva to life onscreen. “My fantasy is to play some really cool 60s or 70s musician,” she enthuses. “If anyone wants to make the Linda Ronstadt, or the Stevie Nicks-slash-Fleetwood Mac biopic, I am available! And I’m classically trained, technically, if it helps—I studied cello for 10 years.”
We’ve amassed some serious momentum as it concerns acting goals. It turns out that underneath it all, Silvers has a longing for corsets and crinolines. “I really want to do a period piece,” she says. “I mean, I was a History nerd; I’d love to just travel through time as an actor.” Personally, I can see her in the 1960s—with her emotive brown eyes that wear winged eyeliner so well, she’s like a young Sophia Loren. Crossed with Bambi. I tell her that (without the Bambi part) and add that she should be working with today’s equivalents of Fellini, Pasolini, Bertolucci. She politely says thank you and, nary a second later, enthuses over the pasta-loving Italian icon. “Did you see the latest Sophia Loren movie?” This is The Life Ahead, the drama based on Romain Gary’s moving French novel, directed by the actress’ own son, Eduardo Ponti. She starts to look up the Oscar’s listings. “Was she nominated? I’m googling. No. It’s a shame—she didn’t get nominated. That sucks. That makes me sad. She was so good in it. I wept my little eyes out.”
I realize that Silvers and I could talk about movies forever. Instead, it’s time to wrap things up, and to relinquish her company to Canadian solitude. What’s planned for the rest of the day? “You know what I’m gonna do after this? I’m going to watch Best in Show. My boyfriend and I are going to watch the same movie at the same time—he’s in LA and I’m here. So we can talk about it. It’s with Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, and Fred Willard who plays my grandpa in Space Force.”
Signing out with a European “Ciao,” Silvers disappears from my computer screen. Later in the weekend, via the ever all-seeing two-way mirror eye of Instagram, she throws up a few seconds watching the Oscars on TV, congratulating Chloé Zhao, and reposting Anthony Hopkins’ acceptance speech. Red carpet gold-Croc-rocking Questlove’s new movie, Summer of Soul, gets her thumbs up as well.
This is one 21st Century Woman who’s got her eyes wide open, her heart in the right place, and her priorities in ethical working order. She alloys a true passion for the medium with innate old school class and an endearing effervescence to forge the kind of fresh viewpoint that’s much needed in The New Hollywood. Sharing is caring, and by gifting us little parts of her world, Silvers is powering and being powered by the tide in her own way. And the crest she’s riding? Well, it might have started small, but this November child’s got that Scorpio Super Moon energy backing her up, and it’s well evident her wave won’t be breaking anytime soon.