'You' Star Victoria Pedretti Wants to Work with Taika Waititi

From Harper's BAZAAR

Welcome to On the Rise, a BAZAAR.com series featuring the breakout talents everyone will be talking about. Get to know these fresh faces on the verge of stardom.


Long before she was Nell Crain in The Haunting of Hill House or Love Quinn on You, Victoria Pedretti was that girl watching the Brandy-starring Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (or, as she calls it, "Whitney Houston's Cinderella") on repeat.

"I have this vivid memory of pulling the tape out of the [VCR]," the actress recalls in the latest installment of BAZAAR.com's On the Rise series. Year later, she would pursue and receive an acting degree at Carnegie Mellon, and start considering herself a "professional actor." But unlike most of her peers, Pedretti has experienced a unique zero-to-sixty boost in her career over the past two years that includes two hit Netflix releases. Up next, she'll headline The Haunting of Bly Manor, which is currently in production in Vancouver. And aside from her TV projects, she also landed a small role in Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-nominated Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie. Pedretti shared a scene with Austin Butler as a Charles Manson acolyte on Spahn Ranch.

"Two years ago, you couldn't have told me I would be in the position I'm in now," she tells us. "I wouldn't believe you."

How she was selected for You:

Pedretti was contacted by showrunners Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble after they watched her performance on Hill House. "They had told me about the character [of Love Quinn] and I was really excited about the notion of doing it," she recalls. "I remember doing a chemistry read with Penn [Badgley], and it was like going through a tornado, and coming out and just being like, 'Whoop, well, I did my best!'"

Her dream collaborators:

Pedretti identifies as an actor, but she still wants to dip her toes in different types of art. She's eager to work with "anyone who's down, really" or "young people who are hungry to make something." She adds, "I'd like to try to work with Taika Waititi. I think we could do really well together." She's also interested in working in music, and maybe trying to direct music videos.

What she's watching right now:

As for what she herself is bingeing on Netflix, Pedretti prefers something less murderous and a lot more wholesome: The Great British Bake Off. "When people just go off on a multi-layered cake, it's insane," she muses. She adds after a contemplative pause, "It's serious, man."

Her first celebrity crush:

"Antonio Banderas—and probably Catherine Zeta-Jones—in Zorro. I mean, the sword scene ... Yeah, I understood something about sexuality when I watched that for the first time." Kudos to that.

On whether she's "made it":

"Every opportunity I have to do the work I do feels like a miracle," she admits, before sharing a story of how she thought her Hill House job, her first professional gig, could have been her last. "I want to work more, I want to grow more, I want to do more," she adds.

Watch Victoria's full interview in the video above.


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