Digital Cover: Keeping up with Kristine Froseth

It’s midway through an unusually sunny London Fashion Week and Kristine Froseth is sitting front row at the JW Anderson show. Flanked by a well-curated crew of popular, attractive stars – Hari Nef, Charli XCX, Ashley Park – the Norwegian actor fits right in, dressed by the brand in a grey asymmetric frock, styled over a crisp white shirt buttoned all the way up. To her immediate left, also in a well-tailored grey JWA look, is Guy Remmers, the co-star of her smash hit period series The Buccaneers, who also happens to be her boyfriend.

The models, in their granny-chic grey wigs, walk their finale, Anderson takes his bow and, as the other guests begin their leisurely exit, I rush over to Froseth (from my less glamorous seat across the aisle) and inform her I’ve already called us an Uber (Remmers will be taking their JWA-provided town car back to his East London flat). Call time for our Vogue Scandinavia digital cover shoot is at a studio across town in half an hour and in London traffic, it isn’t a matter of if we’ll be late, but rather how late.

She hurriedly says her “congrats” to Anderson and snaps a few pictures with Remmers before we head out into the street where Froseth is swarmed by fans and street style photographers. She smiles and poses while I attempt to find our vehicle, looking like her not-super-organised assistant. At last I locate our ride and Froseth politely waves goodbye as she follows me into the car. “Do you mind if I grab some Pret on the way?” She asks, referring to British grab-and-go staple Pret A Manger. There will be lunch on set, I assure her. “Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

That’s Froseth in a nutshell: busy, charming, professional, almost comically down to earth.

A couple of weeks later, Froseth logs onto our Zoom from her apartment in Brooklyn, her hair in braids (an emerging signature look), her face framed by the leaves of a thriving Monstera. “I just made some cold brew for the first time, which was an exciting little experiment,” she says, taking a sip of the beverage. I ask how she manages to keep the plant alive amidst her rigorous schedule. “Bless my friends,” she replies.

Since I saw her in London, Froseth has been to Paris Fashion Week (where she attended the Miu Miu show – another major cool-girl moment) and screened her latest film, indie sci-fi thriller Desert Road, at South by Southwest in Austin (it was met with glowing reviews). Now she’ll enjoy some rare downtime in New York before she reunites with Remmers and the rest of the gang to pick up filming season two of The Buccaneers in Scotland. “I was hoping I would get to do a project before, but it hasn’t worked out, which is sad,” she says. “But I’m going to embrace vacation.”

Froseth says her evolving aesthetic and front-row forays exist in a space outside of her acting career (though she doesn’t rule out a corseted, Buccaneers-themed press tour for season two). However, levelling up one’s look is a well-established cornerstone of an It girl era (just ask Zendaya) and there’s plenty of evidence that Froseth is firmly in hers (see: buzzy projects, rabid fandom, this Vogue cover). “I’m still exploring what fashion is to me, how I want to express myself,” says Froseth, noting that she recently ended a significant brand contract, allowing for more experimentation. “I’m coming into more of a grungy, bold, colourful moment – I’m making different choices. I always wanted to be invisible or wear something that I knew was a great, safe option. It’s fun to try new things.” Take, for instance, the powder pink Simone Rocha rain coat paired with bedazzled Crocs she wore to the brand’s latest runway show or the oversized pinstripe shirt and relaxed trousers she recently wore to a Gucci event.

The new look is thanks in part to her new stylist, industry powerhouse Sandra Amador (who also works with Lady Gaga and Austin Butler), and thanks in part to Remmers, who was by her side for most of London Fashion Week in complementary if not coordinated looks (at Simone Rocha, he wore powder blue). “He has very much had an influence on me because he loves fashion. He really knows about collections, textures, designers,” says Froseth. “And maybe it’s one of those things that we’ve been together and we’re starting to like the same things.” There is an effortlessness to the way in which Froseth carries just about anything. As her Buccaneers costar Imogen Waterhouse puts it: “She makes dad trainers look chic.”

The evolution of Froseth is most evident on screen. Born in Ås, a rural town in Norway and raised in New Jersey, Froseth worked for several years as a model (she was first scouted at her local Norwegian mall, Viken County’s Ski Storsenter) before breaking through in teen drama series Looking for Alaska (she played the titular Alaska). However, in recent years, Froseth, 28, has seamlessly moved towards mature, complex and unexpected roles – a transition not all actors manage successfully.

Take, for instance, Sharp Stick, a tongue-in-cheek Lena Dunham film in which Froseth’s sweet, sheltered Sarah Jo has a sexual awakening by way of an affair with an older, married man, played by Jon Bernthal. Bernthal, a beloved character actor who over the years has worked with some of the greats (including Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie in Wolf of Wall Street and Jeremy Allen White in The Bear), developed a charming friendship with Froseth over the course of filming. “I genuinely love Kristine and loved working with her,” says Bernthal. “She has this hunger about her. For life and for art. The best always do. She is enormously wise while also being fully curious. She is a bold and brave artist, attacking her work with fierceness and vitality, while also being totally kind and graceful. She’s humble, fun, soulful – I’m proud to call her a friend.”

Froseth dives into the role – and its numerous, often humorous sex scenes – with stunning assurance, her porcelain doll appearance the perfect foil against Sarah Jo’s increasingly wild escapades. Have her parents seen the film? “Yeah… they didn’t say much about it,” she says, with a chuckle. “My dad waited so long and then he saw it and was like… ‘Yeah, it was… it was good’. And I was like, ‘I’m not going to ask you any more questions’.”

According to Froseth’s best friend, fellow Norwegian actor Thea Sofie Loch Naess, the key to Froseth’s ever expanding success is her authenticity. “She’s just herself, and she’s pure,” says Loch Naess. “Everyone who meets her falls in love with her because she’s the most sweet and beautiful person you’ve ever met.” As both women become increasingly busy and increasingly international, they always manage to find time for each other, catching up in New York, Paris or Oslo. In between, they’re in constant text communication. “I always know it’s Kristine that’s texting, because it’s like eight messages in a row,” says Loch Naess, noting that Froseth will walk around with an old, smashed iPhone “for years”. “I’m like, ‘Why don’t you get a new phone? It’s our work.’ But she doesn’t really care about those things.”

There isn’t some grand plan when it comes to what roles Froseth will play and when, rather, she operates on instinct. “When I get a script, if it resonates with me and I feel I could serve the story, then I’ll fight to get the role,” she says. One script that resonated was Oh, Canada. Written and directed by Paul Schrader (rumoured to be his last project), and set to compete at Cannes next month, the film centres on a Vietnam draft evader who begins to reveal all of his deepest, darkest secrets. Not only is it the first professional reunion between Schrader and Richard Gere since American Gigolo (“They had such a nice little banter,” says Froseth), it also costars Uma Thurman and Jacob Elordi.

“I just did a self-tape with Guy in my hotel room and I didn’t think much of it,” says Froseth when I ask how she wound up being cast in such an anticipated project. Months later, she had just touched down in London when she got a call requesting she turn around and fly back to New York to meet with Schrader and Gere. Then she met with Elordi. A couple of weeks later she was filming.

She won’t divulge the nature of her role (Schrader is famously mysterious about his films) but she will answer my most pressing question: how tall is Jacob Elordi really? “He just has such a presence,” she says. “I knew he was tall – I’ve seen him around and we’ve met a few times before, but Jacob is tall.” Froseth, who came in after shooting was already a couple of weeks underway, describes Elordi as a “calming presence” on an otherwise “chaotic set”. “I was really grateful that he checked in on me and had my back through that shooting,” she says. “So I wasn’t as fixated on his height. But he is very tall.” And yes, his dog was there.

Not every project Froseth picks has to be super prestigious or have some deep message (many speculate that Oh Canada is Schrader grappling with his own mortality). Or, as she puts it, “It doesn’t have to be so freaking serious!” Sometimes it can just be a fun, romantic romp in a corset, and that’s where The Buccaneers comes in, a period drama in which Froseth’s character, Nan, finds herself in a love triangle between a handsome duke, (played by Remmers) and his rakish best friend.

Between seasons, The Buccaneers group chat has stayed active (“I get very overwhelmed by group chats,” Froseth admits) and she has been looking forward to reuniting with the cast, including fellow Norwegian and Vogue Scandinavia cover star Alisha Boe. “We’re all really good friends,” says Froseth.

Waterhouse, who plays Nan’s sister, Jinny, in the series, says the chemistry with Froseth was effortless from their very first phone call. “We wanted to establish Nan and Jinny’s relationship as sisters, so we just asked each other questions back and forth,” she says, noting that she and Froseth had met “in passing” at a fitting some years prior. “The chat was easy and we laughed and I thought, ‘This will be fun’.” Their friendship really kicked off, however, when Waterhouse discovered their mutual love of early aughts PC phenomenon The Sims. “When we spoke about how we used to kill our Sims and I spoke Simlish to her and she loved it, I thought, ‘Yeah, we’ll get along just fine’,” she says.

Froseth, meanwhile, tells me her relationship with Remmers won’t change the cast dynamics on set (the romance was sparked during filming of season one). “We’re going to be professional on set and then we’re going to get to be together afterwards, which is really nice,” she says.

But just because The Buccaneers is fun doesn’t mean it lacks resonant themes. Based on an Edith Wharton novel, it grapples with all of the classics: class struggle, gender roles, progress versus tradition. Ahead of filming, Froseth advocated to strengthen the feminist voice of her character. “I was very set on the fact that I didn’t think Nan should fall in love so quickly – I wanted the audience to get to know her first,” says Froseth. “I had a lot of Zooms trying to work it out, and there were some things that they changed.”

Froseth didn’t always dare to state her opinion (always thoughtfully, always respectfully) – it’s an instinct and a skill she’s developed over her career. If she’s having a “natural reaction” to something, she’ll take a beat and make sure it’s not simply fatigue, allow her emotions to settle and then calmly make her case in “a very efficient way”. “It’s very overwhelming being on set – the money is going and everyone is waiting and you have two takes and you’re feeling frustrated or scared and all of these feelings,” she says. “Sometimes it feels like an emotional outburst, but that never works well. So I’ll talk to the director one-on-one and say, ‘Can we try to work on this and find a compromise?’.”

Even on the set of our cover shoot, Froseth gently noted that she wasn’t entirely comfortable in one of the looks. “The set you guys created was very collaborative, so I felt I could say something when I wasn’t feeling my most confident,” Froseth tells me, noting that she always wants to respect the work of the stylist and photographer. “Because of the set vibes, I felt I could be like, ‘I actually would prefer not to show my stomach in this’,” she says. “But I still feel really nervous about speaking up.”

Another place Froseth uses her voice is on Instagram, where she advocates for mental health in a way that’s at once personal and universal. “I’ve struggled with depressive episodes since I was a teenager and I didn’t really understand or acknowledge it,” she says, noting that when she was in middle school only the kids with very extreme mental health struggles went to therapy. “I felt guilty for feeling the way I did, and it was really rough for a long time.”

As she got older, seeking help became less and less stigmatised and Froseth tried out “a lot of different therapies” before settling on an approach that works for her (these days she does dialectical behaviour therapy, or DBT, once a week). “I learned so much about myself, I learned so much about depression and it just felt like something I felt comfortable speaking about, because when it became less stigmatised to me, I got so much help,” says Froseth, who peppers her feed with words of encouragement, personal anecdotes and resources she’s found helpful. “What I love about Instagram is seeing something that makes me feel less alone,” she says. “So if I can do something and help someone, then I love just reposting those things.”

There are some challenges that are very specific to her job – the unusual schedule, the travelling. On days off, she “prioritises self-care” and during shoots she uses meditation and other self-soothing tools to maintain her equilibrium. “It’s tough because our jobs are so intense and we’re feeling so many emotions. They’re like, ‘Cry, feel angry, OK cut! Now be super happy’, and your body doesn’t know the difference,” she says. “You’re creating adrenaline, you’re creating all these hormones and then you’re just supposed to go home and be OK. And you have your own personal life happening. Sometimes you’re more hormonal, you’re getting less sleep, you’re travelling and jetlagged. My baseline is already really rocky, so I have to cope ahead.”

In the past, Froseth relied heavily on recalling previous personal experiences to generate emotions in a scene, but, as she puts it, “it didn’t really serve me”. “I would learn things and understand new things, but I would have the emotions linger,” she says. “And then your brain is in this cycle, it’s positive reinforcement, it kind of stays. And then you have to change the pathway.” These days, Froseth is finding the balance between technique and raw emotion. Remmers, a very technical actor, has helped in that regard. “He comes from theatre, so he’s more trained and he views it more in a structural sense,” says Froseth. “I wasn't trained, so I’m very, like, feelings.”

Armed with that can’t-miss instinct and the right tools (not to mention the right wardrobe), Froseth is poised to emerge from her It girl moment as the next bona fide A-list actor from Scandinavia. Still, her aspirations are closer to home – she dreams of working with Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier or Swede Ruben Östlund. In the meantime, she’s booked and busy and just hoping to keep her plants alive. “I need to figure someone out who can just come, because I feel so bad having my friends taking turns watching them,” she says. “I’m actually so stressed about my plants.”