Meet The Electrifying Eliza Scanlen

Photography by Annabel Scanlen

Dress by Dion Lee

Eliza Scanlen keeps getting sick. The actress, now 21, made an unforgettable debut as the psychopathic (and sickly) little sister of Amy Adams in HBO's miniseries Sharp Objects, and later joined the cast of Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women as Beth, a sweet ingénue who falls ill with scarlet fever.

When asked why she keeps getting cast as characters with illnesses, Scanlen responds with a laugh. “I don’t know! It’s very strange that I do play sick people. It’s not something that I see in a script and am dying — slip of the tongue — to do.”

Scanlen’s latest role runs true to form. In Babyteeth, she stars as the terminally ill teen Milla, who falls in love with a drug dealer in an attempt to pack as much life as she can into the little time she has left. While we may know how this story ends, director Shannon Murphy gets us there in an entirely new way, and Scanlen's nuanced performance as Milla further cements her as Hollywood's next big thing.

“I like to describe [Milla] as a supernova that is about to explode. Just because she's about to pass away doesn’t mean she isn’t going to go out with a bang,” Scanlen says. “That’s something I love about the film. This character doesn’t waste away. Instead, she soars.”

We caught up with Scanlen at home in Australia (over the phone) to talk Babyteeth, the sisterly bond, and mukbangs.

It's clear from the start of the film that your character in Babyteeth, Milla, is facing death. Despite that, she doesn't come across as weak. How did you get into her headspace?

I think I have a bit of that in myself. I can be quite an emotional person. I think about things deeply, but my outer appearance is very much not that. A big part of dropping into a character like Milla was the physical transformation. Shaving my head was extremely helpful in taking me to that place, and I didn’t quite expect how moving and transformational it was going to be.

At that point I had prepared for the shock of it, but what I didn’t prepare for was the attention I got when I stepped outside my house. People just stare at you — and then there are some people who don’t want to look at you at all. I was moved by how isolating it can be.

You recently wrote and directed a short film about mukbangs What is it about mukbangs that made you want to explore it more deeply? 

Mukbangs are, for me, a perfect metaphor for social media today. Specifically, how young people interact with social media, and how they present themselves on their platforms — I see it as a kind of sickness, in a way. I realised there is this strange parallel between pornography and mukbangs — they both shared this detached intimacy that I think pose the same threat, this feeling like you’re connecting with a person through a screen that, in reality, distorts connection. 

I wanted to make a statement on how we can accept the reality of internet culture and what it’s doing to the way we connect with others, but also how we can rise above it and try to find the authenticity in real-life connections.

What was it like to step behind the camera instead of being in front of it?

I really enjoyed it! I look back on the experience now with many fond memories, but at the time it was incredibly stressful too. I was wearing many hats in pre-production, but once it came to filming I felt like I was in my element. I was surrounded by people I adored — everyone on that set was a friend.

What I realised when directing was that I’m very reliant on the opinions of others. I don’t usually like being the loudest person in the room, but that was something people were asking from me, obviously, as the director. Initially, I felt quite uncomfortable. As an actor you’re confined to working on the set, and a lot of the time you just have to sit still and not touch or break anything. So it was weird to have people ask me for my opinion. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s how some directors get God complexes, of course!'