Nesta Cooper’s aptitude for sci-fi was born from overturning a confidence complex as a teen. Now, in a turbo-charged glow up, she’s about to star alongside Jason Momoa in one of the first series on forthcoming platform Apple TV+.
Talking to Nesta Cooper is like catching up with an old friend. And this one currently has me in stitches telling me about her niche childhood obsessions. “So this is embarrassing, but the majority of my childhood was spent on my laptop, putting together anime music videos,” she giggles. “I’d cut all of my favourite scenes to music, and then upload them under a pseudonym.”
When Hollywood notoriously rewards a glossy veneer of perfection and curated cool, embarrassing admissions of truth tend to be few and far between, but there is not a shred of pretence about the Canadian actor. In case you were wondering, the fan-fic videos are still lurking somewhere in the ether, but Cooper’s portfolio has undergone a serious glow-up since then, so we can hit pause on hunting for the dubbed Spirited Away compilation collages (OK, I speculate).
All clothing and accessories MIU MIU FALL 2019.
And talk about a glow-up: the Toronto-born actress will soon be starring in Apple TV+’s forthcoming sci-fi series, See. Penned by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) and helmed by Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence, it’s set in a post-apocalyptic future where everyone on earth is blind. Cooper stars alongside Jason Momoa as “a hard-willed, sassy, badass, warrior daughter” in a gruelling project that saw the cast filming outdoors in vast British Columbia in animal skins. Nevertheless, Cooper recalls it as “a joy… because she was such a well-written, well-rounded character”. The graft is strong in this one.
Also coming up is another sci-fi: Amazon’s psychological thriller Bliss, starring Salma Hayek as a woman trying to convince recent divorcé Owen Wilson that he is living in a simulation. Trippy stuff. Cooper plays Wilson’s daughter, “desperately trying to get her dad to come back to her,” admitting that the character was “a sad one to play.”
And that’s the thing about Cooper: one look at her portfolio and it’s clear that the actress is genuinely invested in the authentic portrayal of people and what makes them tick, however emotionally tasking it may be.
The actress set her heart on acting when she was 13, and like many kids, was obsessed with Disney, and stoked her passion on Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Camp Rock. But unlike many kids her age, she was interested in investigating her own emotive responses, so much so that she started taking acting classes at 14, drawn to “how it can connect people and storytelling“.
All clothing and accessories MIU MIU FALL 2019.
But alas, the Disney channel was not meant to be. It was straight onto the serious stuff. One look at her forthcoming projects and it’s clear to see that there’s a common theme running throughout her chosen work, so it’s no surprise that her early career mirrors this too, with credits in Cult, The 100, Supernatural, The Returned. More surprising, however, is when Cooper divulges that her inclination to the darker genres was as a result of a confidence crisis in her late teens. Her naturally sensitive disposition saw her struggle through the auditioning process, and from then on, she dedicated herself to faking it until she made it.
“I think just making the decision to commit to loving and working on yourself made the biggest difference, really,” recalls Cooper. “I went into my audition rooms from then on with this ‘fuck it’ attitude. Then, I think my look, paired with that attitude is what got me this pile of sci-fi roles.”
And just like that, the bigger breaks started to pour in. First in 2016’s highly entertaining coming-of-age Edge of Seventeen, alongside Hailee Steinfeld and Woody Harrelson. And then came her first lead role in Netflix’s high school comedy #REALITYHIGH in the same year (think Mean Girls in the Instagram age), with Cooper playing a shy, overachieving student who even volunteers at an animal shelter in her spare time, and ends up in the crosshairs of social media cruelty – a “character [that] was exactly me in high school.”
Rubbing shoulders with visionary directors. Promising projects on the horizon footed by the industry’s mega production companies. There’s a bright future for Cooper, and we’re here for it. Pack that YouTube channel in, love.
