BUILT FROM WITHIN
Los Angeles, July 2025
In a way, BRITTANY SNOW’s creativity expresses itself not in what we see on screen, but in everything we don’t. Her artistry lives in the process—in the hours spent sketching emotional diagrams, tracing the thread between her life and that of her characters. She builds them from within, as not just performances but as living, breathing people. The Hunting Wives is the perfect case study. In it, the actress plays Sophie, a picture-perfect Southern housewife whose pristine veneer masks a creeping fixation on her neighbor. It’s a role that walks a fine line between seduction and unease, poise and unravelling. But it’s in that very tension, between what’s seen and what’s repressed, that Brittany shines. Her performance isn’t loud or obvious. It’s meticulous. Subtle. And above all, deeply human. We catch up with the actress to talk about growing up in the entertainment industry, how she found her method and why her interior designer might hate her.
Trenchcoat Prada, top Dolce&Gabanna, earrings Patricia Von Musulin, ring Erede
Good morning! I hope you didn’t wake up just for this.
No, no, I’m getting furniture today, so I need to be up [Laughs].
How are you with interior decor?
You know, I’ve learned a lot about myself through this process. I’ve learned that I’m not a very patient person. I want furniture right now. And everything takes five months to get here. But I’m very privileged and lucky that I even have a house, so I can’t complain.
Do you find it to be a creative outlet?
Definitely. If I weren’t an actor or director, I think I would be an interior designer, which I’m sure my designer hates me for. She’s like, “Maybe we should just have me do the interior design since they’re paying me.” But it’s a real creative outlet for me. I can come home and feel like, “Wow, this reflects my life.” I love design and patterns, and I’m very nostalgic and precious with the things I keep. So my interior design is reflective of places I’ve gone, things people have made for me.
Were you a creative child?
Definitely. It was nature more than nurture. Neither of my parents were in the arts. My mom was in sales, which is maybe creative in a people-skills way, and my dad was in insurance. No one in my family was creative. But from a very young age, I was drawn to sensitivity and empathy. I would recreate plays or cry at movies and reenact them for my parents. I was an only child, so I found a lot of companionship in my creativity but that was a big part of me growing up.
Dress Christian Dior, necklace and earrings Material Good, ring Erede
When did your acting come into the picture?
My mom got me into it as a baby, which was strange since no one in our community was really into acting. She wasn’t an actress, but I think she saw that I had a calling to perform and loved being the center of attention, which is funny now, because I hate that. I think I was like two years old when I first did my first commercial, and so I didn't really have a choice, necessarily. But then, when I was about 12 years old, I did a soap opera called Guiding Light. In it I had this scene where I got to use my teenage angst in a way that was helpful for me, because I got to perform it and get accolades for it. It was the first time that I realized that there was something there: it was helpful to me to use what I was going through in my little teenage life in a creative way.
Success in the entertainment industry is a catch-22. The more creative you get to be, the more you see your personal life exposed. Were you warned about that aspect as a child?
No. No one warned me. I was too young to really understand what it meant to be judged like that or to have your psyche impacted by public exposure. It wasn’t until my early 20s that I really grasped it. I got pretty far into my career just acting on instinct and ignoring that part. And then, like it does for every 21-year-old, it all came crashing in.
How do you deal with fame now? Do you see it as a compromise to creativity or something separate?
People close to me would tell you it’s an ongoing battle. I’m very sensitive, so I’ve had to train myself to compartmentalize the creativity and the love for the craft versus the business side and the “don’t care what people think” side. Even though your whole business kind of depends on what people think. I try to focus heavily on creativity and what it feels like when I’m actually working. The rest, I just try to tune out. But it’s difficult. It’s like an ongoing therapeutic exercise. That said, the upside is way bigger than the downside. We get to hang out and play make-believe. But it does test your mind. You have to ask: Am I okay with myself if people keep telling me I’m not good enough?
Acting is an artform that utilizes emotions as a medium. How do you protect yourself from the characters you’re embodying?
I would love someone to tell me, because I’m not good at it. I’ve acted from instinct since I was a kid since I wasn’t classically trained. My training was just being a kid using my real life because that’s all I had. So every role contains a piece of me. Each character is a small part of me that I expand on and make whole. That means looking closely at parts of myself I may not like. I go to therapy, and then I try to have a normal dinner with my friends and forget about it. You have to let it go once you’ve used it.
I ask because The Hunting Wives has a darker undertone, especially the obsession in your character. Did you try to build distance from that character?
That’s really cool that you saw that dark side. I agree. The show is super fun and was fun to do, but I wanted to incorporate those elements: obsession, identity, facing parts of yourself you don’t want to look at.
Do you find yourself drawn to darker material like that?
Oh yeah. I think because I grew up as a child actor and didn’t have a lot of room to not be perfect or to not succeed, I like exploring ugliness, whether that be of myself, of characters. It makes people interested. The cracks in people’s personalities and histories are what connect us. I’d much rather play that than someone who’s perfect.
I agree, those parts make characters human.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve learned how gray everything can be. There's rarely black and white. That’s what I like about characters like this, she’s not a good or bad girl. The most interesting part of her is what she does when the door is closed. But it’s up to the audience to decide what’s good or bad.
Dress Vivienne Westwood, jewellery Patricia Von Musulin, shoes Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello
Do you find it essential to empathize with your character at all?
I always have to see the reason why. I have to explore that, it has to feel real to me. Even if Brittany doesn’t agree with it, I have to find the truth behind their decision. I’ll look for something in my own life that mirrors the choice the character is making. Usually, the circumstances on a show or in a movie are more bold or dramatic, but I always find some connection. Even if the character is doing something I wouldn't do, I try to understand why.
There’s an undercurrent of social performance in your role in The Hunting Wives. From a technical standpoint, how do you approach characters that are themselves playing a role?
I love playing with that. When I build a character, I create a kind of shell. It’s nerdy, but I draw a diagram. On the outside: how they act around others, what they project. On the inside: what they’re like watching TV, what they eat when no one’s around, how they respond to political conversations. I find all those little nuances fascinating. That’s what makes people human, the duality in all of us.
It’s so interesting that you’re layering your characters with this complexity that might not even be explicit on camera…
Those details affect how you move your body, how you hold your purse, how you check yourself in the mirror. Those tiny things come from both how we are with others and how we are when we're alone. I love that part of the work, it’s just so fun.
How did you develop this process?
I’m not really sure. I watch a lot of movies, and I’ve always been more fascinated by behavior than dialogue. That really spoke to me. I remember hearing some actor talk about creating a shell of a character, and I’m very visual, so I needed to actually draw that out. No one ever taught me this stuff, I just came up with these weird methods and hoped they’d work.
They clearly do. I think creativity is more relevant in the process than in the product.
Right? I love the process. I could live in the prep stage forever. But once I’m on set, the challenge becomes letting all that go. Trusting it’s in me already, and acting from instinct. Trusting myself is hard, but it’s so important.
I know there was something therapeutic about acting for you when you were a teenager. Is that still the case? How has your relationship with creativity changed over time?
It sounds cheesy, but if I’m really in a scene and I’ve done my prep, I go into this meditative state. I’m completely present. I’m not thinking about anything else—just listening and responding and remembering my lines. I think that’s what people mean when they talk about being “in flow.” And that’s what keeps me coming back to acting. That moment is everything to me. I’m very lucky to have that.
Acting is clearly your passion. But you also directed Parachute a few years back. Was that something you’d want to do again?
At first, I just wanted to try it but I’m too much of a control freak to let anyone else direct my life story [Laughs]. So I had to do it. But once I was on set, I realized I loved it. I had prepared a ton and once I started directing, that flow state came back in a different way. Now I’ve got the bug. I definitely want to direct again.
Does directing activate a different part of your creativity?
It’s a lot more about community and problem-solving. You’re building this massive puzzle within time constraints and you’re relying on people who are better than you at their jobs. You have to make sure they feel heard, and that all the pieces fit together. I love that side of it, the organization and the collaboration, and coupling that with thinking about how you want the audience to feel. Not just how something looks, but how it lands emotionally. That’s the coolest part to me. It’s so powerful to think that how a picture moves can affect someone’s emotions that deeply. It’s a privilege to get to do that at all.
Photography by Cameron Postforoosh
Fashion by Yael Quint
Hair by Takuya Yamaguchi using Oribe
Make-Up by Cass Lee
Nails by Sonya Meesh using the Gel bottle
Photographer’s assistant Bogdan Teslar Kwaitkowski
Stylist’s assistant Lauren Delfino