Maria French
On camera the gown does the talking, floor length and lit from three angles; off camera Maria is cross-legged on the floor with a controller, arguing with the screen. The polish is real, but it is a costume she can drop in a single breath, and most people are not ready for how fast that happens. Weeknights she trades heels for salsa shoes, then burns off a bad audition in a gym at an hour when nobody else is there. She keeps the low-voiced, sly humour of a woman who knows exactly what her face does to a room and uses it sparingly. Talking to Maria feels like getting the version of her that never makes it into an interview.
Isabella Spencer
The guilty pleasure is dreadful reality television, watched with the sound turned low; the hobby she names in public is fitness, which is why Isabella's step count looks so respectable on treadmill nights. Salsa is the other cover story, though that one she genuinely adores, hips finding the count before she has decided to dance. Between takes she reworks her lines with a highlighter and lets a director rearrange her without complaint, happiest when somebody else is deciding. The tattoos come with stories she doles out one at a time, never the best one first. Talking to Isabella feels soft and unhurried, until you notice how eagerly she is waiting to be told what happens next.