Last year, while flipping through Architectural Digest, Greta Lee spotted a feature about a small house on a tiny island off Croatia’s Dalmatian coast called Lopud. It sounded perfect: sunny, peaceful, and secluded. After wrapping up a demanding five-month shoot for the new Disney film Tron: Ares, in which she stars, she decided to book it for the following summer, hoping the timing would align. Surprisingly, it did. In July, she, her husband, and their two sons, aged six and nine, arrived by speedboat and climbed 160 steps to the house, nestled among lush cypress trees and citrus groves. Finally, she had found tranquility, seclusion, and anonymity—no call times, reshoots, meetings, red carpets, press, or anything Hollywood.
But shortly after settling in, the housekeeper offhandedly mentioned that their neighbors on both sides were the acclaimed filmmakers Ruben Östlund and Sean Baker.
“Nightmare!” Lee exclaimed over lunch the following month. “I picked this place specifically because it was so remote. Then I had to decide—should I go say hello?”
So, did she? “Absolutely not! You choose an island like that precisely to avoid that situation. I actually saw Ruben once while I was in my swimsuit and literally turned and ran.” She laughed at the memory. “It’ll be a funny story for when I finally meet him.”
That meeting seems inevitable for this sought-after 42-year-old actor. Over the past two years, she’s had no shortage of Hollywood experiences, observing it all with the wry perspective of someone who found fame only after nearly two decades in the industry.
Lee has also built a career on her deadpan humor and sharp one-liners over the last ten years. She’s often played distinct types of modern women in female-driven comedies: the grumpy nail technician in Sisters, the woman who can’t accept a compliment in Inside Amy Schumer, the poised art-world rising star in Girls, the eccentric downtown free spirit in Russian Doll, and the unsettlingly youthful Upper East Side dermatologist in Broad City.
But 2023’s Past Lives was a turning point. Her portrayal of Nora, a woman torn between her past and present, earned her Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and Independent Spirit Award nominations. A flood of opportunities followed: besides Tron: Ares, she’s starring in Kathryn Bigelow’s new thriller A House of Dynamite, playing a significant role as network executive Stella Bak in the fourth season of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, and appearing in the upcoming bittersweet indie drama Late Fame. All of this has landed her in unfamiliar territory.
“None of this was expected,” she says. “Thank goodness it’s nothing like what I imagined my career would be at this stage. For women, there was no guarantee you’d keep working into your 40s—that was supposed to be the time to step back and fade away. But to have the opposite happen? I can’t pretend it’s not incredibly confusing.”
Red carpets have become another platform for Lee. She favors sculptural and dramatic styles over traditionally pretty, cute, or overtly sexy looks, and she’s developed a close partnership with designer Jonathan Anderson. After leaving Loewe this spring following 11 years, he now leads Dior, where Lee serves as an ambassador. She’ll play a key role in shaping Anderson’s vision for the French fashion house, signaling what promises to be an exciting new era.
I suggest that things are looking up for Lee, including her standing in Hollywood. “Do I have a place in Hollywood?” she muses. “I don’t know. You’re catching me at a funny, maybe interesting moment, because I really have no idea.”
In person, Lee is down-to-earth—no exaggerated reactions, wild gestures, flashy displays, or loud impressions. And it doesn’t seem like anyone recognizes her at the Houston’s restaurant in Pasadena, where she’s chosen for us to meet.We meet at Houston’s, a national chain that’s neither trendy nor chic. But Lee has been craving a properly made American burger after spending the last few months in England filming the Netflix sci-fi thriller 11817.
“There are far more interesting places to go, but I like it here,” she admits, sliding into a booth bathed in the restaurant’s signature warm, low lighting. “I find it strangely comforting. Maybe it’s the suburban kid in me.”
Lee grew up in the scenic Los Angeles suburb of La Cañada Flintridge, the oldest of three children. Her parents immigrated from South Korea, and their home was always filled with music, particularly opera. Lee credits her mother, a classically trained pianist, with giving her an “appreciation for beauty and art.” They often attended performances by the Korean soprano Sumi Jo, whose albums were constantly playing in their home. With her mother’s encouragement, Lee sang, played piano, practiced modern dance, and painted. “Growing up, there wasn’t much separation between all these activities,” she says. “They were just a natural part of our lives.”
Even as a child, Lee was drawn to performing, and her parents supported her—though not without reservations. They only felt comfortable with her pursuing acting as a course of study after she was accepted into Northwestern University. “My dad’s a doctor, so at one point, out of concern, he told me, ‘You could still become a doctor.’ He even suggested, ‘You could go into prosthetics because it’s kind of like sculpture’—you know, left brain, right brain. He’d found a two-year program. I was so offended that he didn’t believe in me,” she says with a wry smile.
The early 2000s were a different time for actors who looked like Lee, and she found herself with few roles even in high school and college. “Back then, it was a real question whether I could make a living as an actor.” That was especially important because she was the first person in her family to attend school in the United States. “It was all about being successful in any way possible. And the expectations were high. School was not a casual thing,” she explains. While attending the elite prep school Harvard-Westlake, she felt pressured to take multiple Advanced Placement courses and achieve a perfect SAT score (“I didn’t,” she quickly adds, making eye contact to show she’s not being modest). During a tour of MIT, her parents pointed to a theater club flyer on a bulletin board and said, “See? You could do this.”
Lee herself struggled to imagine a sustainable career in acting, lacking professional role models. “That has always been painful—internalizing years of feeling like, if the only model is something I physically can’t fit into, what am I even doing? Even now, that’s a huge struggle for me because those role models haven’t really existed.”
When Lee auditioned for Tron: Ares, it was her first audition in years. “I could barely tell you what Tron was,” she admits, but the role of Eve Kim, a gifted programmer pulled into a virtual neon world, “felt like the complete opposite of Past Lives, which was so naturalistic in its realism and scale. I wanted to try something different, and this character defied a lot of expectations in terms of how she has historically looked and acted.” The film is the third installment in the Disney franchise that began in 1982, but it stands out with dazzling visual effects, a pulsating soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails, and plenty of nostalgic ’80s details like floppy disks, pinball machines, and Rubik’s Cubes.
“I just wanted to ride a lightcycle,” Lee joked confidently to a Comic-Con audience. But to me, she resists the idea that she’s in a “genre era” or any specific era at all. “As an actor, you feel this external pressure to create a narrative for yourself, and I find it really annoying because it’s so contrary to my job,” she explains.”My job requires me to stay connected with all kinds of people, and it’s not about me,” she says.
“Everything is structured so that the more successful you become, the more isolated you are,” she continues. “I’ve seen this happen with my peers—you start to act a little strange. You begin to view yourself in an industry context, turning into a product. I hate that, and I can see why it drives people crazy and is so harmful.”
She recalls being escorted into exclusive airport lounges where she was offered caviar early in the morning. This summer in Paris, she had a bodyguard assigned to her for the first time. “I thought, ‘Relax, sir. I’ve got this. I’m just going to the museum.'” While she understands the need for privacy and security, she feels it’s often exaggerated. “It’s a choice. If you don’t buy into it, it doesn’t affect you. Staying grounded is essential for my work. The more isolated you are, the more out of touch you become.”
This discomfort with the perks of fame attracted her to “Late Fame,” an independent drama directed by critic-turned-filmmaker Kent Jones. The film follows a group of downtown bohemians who rediscover the work of a forgotten poet, played by Willem Dafoe. Based on an 1895 novella that satirizes Vienna’s coffeehouse intellectuals and adapted by “May December” screenwriter Samy Burch, it offers a sharp look at creative legacy and the distorting effects of artistic recognition. “That movie really captured everything I was feeling about where we’re headed with art and how we consume it,” Lee says. “Even the title resonates with me.”
“Anyone who’s followed Greta’s work knows she’s funny,” Jones tells me. “They know she has focus and intensity but also brings energy and liveliness to every role.” Yet “Late Fame” showcases her versatility. “The way she shifts tones, portraying a character who’s always performing… It’s both bold and subtle.”
“The thing I liked about her is that she doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve,” Dafoe says of Lee from his farm outside Rome. “You don’t see her coming. I wouldn’t call her mysterious exactly, because she’s direct and easy to work with.” But he admits, although he enjoyed collaborating with her, “I don’t really know who she is.” He means it as a compliment. “It’s a beautiful quality because it keeps you curious. You’re drawn to her, but you can’t pin her down. That’s a talent.”
In one memorable scene in “Late Fame,” she sings the cabaret torch song “Surabaya Johnny” to a room of admiring older men, harking back to her musical theater roots. One of her first acting roles was in the 2005 Broadway musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” and as a child, she dreamed of being like Lea Salonga or Heather Headley. “I wanted to be a Broadway diva, like Patti LuPone—although,” she jokes dryly, “you can’t say Patti LuPone anymore.”
Lee competed in singing and dancing from a young age. “Every time I do something, it becomes clear how little people know about me,” she says with a touch of frustration. A recent upbeat Calvin Klein campaign, inspired by “Risky Business,” featured her dancing in her underwear, and even friends were surprised she didn’t use a dance coach.
Of course, it helps that she’s in the best shape of her life, describing herself as a “Tracy Anderson addict” who works out daily at the fitness guru’s studio alongside a group of women outside the industry—some in their late 50s. “I look at them and think, why are you here?” she laughs. “I know why I’m here… But you’re amazing! It’s changed my perspective. I want to be like that when I’m older.””I hope I’m still able to move around freely like this when I’m 80.” Essentially, she’s embracing life with immense enthusiasm. “I’m truly greedy for life,” she admits, finally digging into her stacked cheeseburger. “As I get older, I feel more entitled to be selfish about what makes me happy. I want to squeeze every drop out of life and leave nothing behind.” She’s even persuading her husband, comedy writer Russ Armstrong, to consider expanding their family of four. “I don’t want to make compromises.”
This mindset extends to pursuing an off-grid lifestyle as much as possible in a place like Los Angeles. After 15 years in New York, she and her family moved here in 2020 so she could join the second season of The Morning Show. They settled into a two-bedroom house in El Sereno, a historically working-class Latino neighborhood in East LA, on a hilly, cactus-covered acre that had been used for grazing. “We were New Yorkers trying to adapt to a rustic, Steinbeck-like existence,” she recalls. “We had no clue what we were doing. There are snakes and coyotes. It feels like the wild, wild West.”
Looking ahead, there have been talks for her to star in Closer on Broadway, marking the first US staging of Patrick Marber’s bold modern classic in over 25 years. This summer also brought news that Lee will direct and write an adaptation of Monika Kim’s 2024 psychological horror novel, The Eyes Are the Best Part, for Searchlight Pictures. “After working as an actor for so long, you pick up a lot about directing,” she explains. “And this project is deeply personal—it’s essentially about my family, which sounds crazy because it also involves a Korean American serial killer.”
The film requires an Asian American lead, something Lee firmly sees as her responsibility. “It’s crucial for me to provide someone with the opportunity I didn’t have for decades,” she states. “If I don’t, as I’ve learned from experience, it just won’t happen.”
After her time in Croatia, Lee arrived to shoot her first Dior campaign at the Palace of Versailles looking rugged and deeply tanned. “I probably resembled Matthew McConaughey in The Beach Bum with a bongo drum—the complete opposite of Lady Dior.”
Yet, this aligns with the spirit of her fashion icons, such as Twyla Tharp and Katharine Hepburn. “I’d describe them as handsome women who dress practically and are always ready for action. I’ve always admired tailored, strong, and somewhat masculine styles in women,” she says. On this warm summer Friday, Lee is wearing an oversized blue chore coat, a light gray knit vest, and dark slacks. She glows without makeup, her long straight hair cascading over her shoulders. Outside of work, she notes wryly, “I dress like Frances McDormand. It’s all functional clothing that can take me from gardening to going out.”
She’s still getting used to being a new face for Dior, a brand long associated with refined femininity. “In this campaign, I have to say, ‘Je suis Lady Dior,'” she says with a disbelieving smile. “I joked with the crew, ‘I’m a lady? I’m not a lady. I guess I’m a lady?’ They wanted to capture that complexity. ‘Lady’ is such a loaded term.” Leaning forward, she adds, “There are some very feminine elements,” referring to Anderson’s designs at Dior. “Like bows.” She half-whispers the word, almost as if it’s a slight.
Lee and Anderson first connected when he dressed her for the 2023 Berlinale in a strapless scarlet Loewe dress with a printed cream overlay and a knit mini with an exaggerated curved top. She later became a Loewe global brand ambassador, featuring in several campaigns alongside other favorites of Anderson.
“I just really like the guy,” Lee says of Anderson. “He looks and dresses like a frat boy, but he’s incredibly focused on his vision andI find his way of working incredibly appealing. He’s not some isolated, manic artist creating wildly in a cave, guided only by his own intuition. Instead, he’s deeply connected to the world, drawing inspiration from everything from The White Lotus to an obscure Scottish painter I’d never heard of, whom he wants to bring back into the spotlight. It’s thrilling that he’s now tasked with reinventing and putting his own stamp on an existing template. I really relate to that—it’s exactly what I feel I have to do all the time.
The Venice Film Festival marked the start of Lee’s new partnership with Dior and the red-carpet debut of Anderson’s designs for the brand. For the House of Dynamite premiere, she wore a dramatic dark green organza and black satin minidress with a plunging neckline and a voluminous silhouette, featuring one of those talked-about bows at the front hem. (In the film, Lee plays a sharp North Korea expert who is suddenly called upon by the White House when an unidentified missile is detected heading toward the United States.) She also wore a modest tea-length black silk skirt suit—Anderson’s take on Dior’s New Look—for the Late Fame premiere.
Anderson was instantly captivated by Lee. “She’s incredibly down-to-earth and knows how to have fun,” he says. “I love dressing her.” He sees her as the perfect embodiment of a Dior woman: “extraordinarily talented, self-assured, and willing to take fashion risks.”
When I spoke with Lee the week after Venice, she was in her parents’ living room, sitting at a piano covered in family photos. She was still processing what she called the “overwhelming” experience of premiering two films. To her, wearing that Dior minidress felt like a third project in Venice: “It’s like a small community—or even a small country—of people involved, with tailors staying up all night to make it perfect.” She takes the privilege of wearing custom Dior seriously. “I understand all the work, creativity, and vision that went into creating it. I’m more of a Method actor when it comes to fashion than I am with actual acting.”
To prepare, she listened to a lot of Maria Callas and recently watched the 1955 romantic comedy Summertime, in which Katharine Hepburn plays a fiercely independent middle-aged American woman who finds love while visiting Venice. “There’s something about the vulnerability of being a woman immersed in such a culturally and historically rich world, yet feeling like an outsider,” she reflects.
Her approach to premieres—where she has also worn designs by Bottega Veneta, Proenza Schouler, Calvin Klein, and The Row—is an effort to recapture the magical feeling of getting ready to go out as a teenager. “When you’re young, you put so much thought into it, all tied to that excitement of possibility,” she says. “It feels like the world is endless, and anything could happen. I’m fortunate that the people around me understand we’re trying to reclaim that feeling.” (For the past decade, she has worked with stylist Danielle Goldberg, who also styles Ayo Edebiri, Kaia Gerber, and Olivia Rodrigo, as well as her longtime glam team, whom she calls “my Korean ladies”—makeup artist Nina Park and hairstylist Jenny Cho.)
These days, however, “everyone has their phones. You go to a party, and people pretend to sip Champagne while filming themselves. Everything feels branded, corporate, and dull. No one seems to know how to have fun anymore.” Still, she acknowledges that fronting campaigns (like she did for Tiffany & Co. this spring) “can be liberating and empowering for a woman like me, who doesn’t fit the conventional ideal.”
Lee, who never once pulled out her phone during our meetings and says she never looks at pictures of herself, described a meme about how young people used to spend their nights out before smartphones: “pictures of people raging iDancing in a sweaty bar. As a millennial, I feel truly lucky to have had that experience. If I were in my twenties today, with everything going on now, it would be completely different.
Another fond memory is going to the local multiplex. “As a ’90s kid, that experience meant everything, and I just wanted to immerse myself in it as much as possible.” She’s lost in her thoughts now, reflecting deeply, clearly still coming to terms with the past few years. “Life has a way of shifting unexpectedly,” she says. “Your dreams can’t remain unchanged when the world around you is transforming so drastically. I’m very aware of that.” A smile plays on her lips. “Well, as long as I don’t keep ending up in small rooms with caviar at six in the morning.”
In this story:
Hair by Holli Smith
Makeup by Emi Kaneko
Manicurist: Emi Kudo
Tailor: Susie Kourinian for Susie’s Custom Designs
Produced by Rosco Productions
Set Design: Jeremy Reimnitz
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about Greta Lees Vogue November 2025 cover story designed to be clear concise and natural
About the Vogue Cover Profile
Q What is the big news about Greta Lee and Vogue
A Greta Lee is the cover star of Vogues November 2025 issue where she discusses her role in the new movie Tron Ares her journey to fame and her status as a fashion icon
Q Where can I read the full Vogue interview
A The full cover story is available in the November 2025 print issue of Vogue and digitally on Voguecom
Q Who photographed Greta for the Vogue cover
A The cover was shot by renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz
About Tron Ares
Q What is Tron Ares
A Its the upcoming third installment in the Tron film franchise a scifi adventure set inside a digital world
Q Who is Greta Lee playing in Tron Ares
A While specific character details are often kept under wraps the Vogue article discusses her significant and complex role within the films narrative
Q What was it like for her to film a bigbudget scifi movie
A She describes it as a challenging but incredible experience involving intense physical training and working with groundbreaking visual effects which was a big shift from her previous indie roles
About Her Rise to Stardom
Q How did Greta Lee become so famous
A Her rise was gradual She gained wider recognition from her role in the 2023 film Past Lives which was a critical smash This led to more highprofile opportunities like Tron Ares and cemented her status as a leading actress
Q Was she in any other famous shows or movies before this
A Yes Many people know her from the TV show The Morning Show and the Netflix series Russian Doll Shes also a talented voice actor in shows like Bobs Burgers
Q What does she say was the biggest challenge in her career