Devon Ross is in Texas and she loves it—the heat, the barbecue, her friends. And, well, her Austin-based boyfriend––the reason for the frequent back and forth between Los Angeles and The Lone Star State. But what I am dying to know about Devon Ross is what was her first love. “Hmm,” she ponders. “I would say my first love was probably just performing for people. I always wanted to perform and make little movies, which I think most kids do.”

Daughter of Craig Ross, Lenny Kravitz’s guitarist, and 90s supermodel Anna Bauer, the model turned actor turned musician has borne witness to all the pleasures of surrendering to expression. “I grew up around people in show business and that was an obvious thing in my mind to do. That was what I grew up seeing, and I was like, ‘That’s what I’m going to do,’” she says matter-of-factly.

And that she did: she was named ambassador and friend of the House of Louis Vuitton, released her debut EP Oxford Gardens, and landed her first audition in cult favorite 2022 miniseries Irma Vep. She shares, “I think there’s something less scary about it, too, when you grow up around performing because there’s not as much unknown. Especially when you’re younger, you don’t even get the psychology behind it. You’re just like, ‘I want to show you guys what I just created.’”

Irma Vep follows Mira (Alicia Vikander), an American movie star who travels to France to take on the role of Irma Vep in a TV series adaptation of the classic French silent film serial Les Vampires. As Regina, Mira’s assistant, Ross had almost every scene opposite of Vikander, allowing her to again learn from her surroundings through osmosis and on the fly. “I just watched her and watched all the other amazing actors and how they talk to the director after. I was like, ‘You’re allowed to do that? You’re allowed to talk to the director?’” she laughs. “I didn’t know anything. I was so new. I learned everything, the lingo, you name it, I learned from that job.”

Ross has since worked on the I Know What You Did Last Summer-type thriller Depravity and the women-led My First Film, which follows a young filmmaker navigating the challenges of her debut feature while blending reality and imagination to craft a contemporary legend about the creative process. She reflects, “Having women in every role—directing, filming, dressing, doing makeup—was surreal. Everyone was around the same age and together were trying to make this thing they believe in.”

Ross will next star as Hannah in Vindicta, a 19-year-old seeking vengeance after her parents’ murder, only to be torn between revenge and an unexpected connection with a Nazi officer, inspired by real WWII heroines. She’ll also join William H. Macy, Stephen Dorff, Tiffany Haddish, and Julia Fox in Matt Sukkar’s action-thriller The Deputy, where a part-time deputy uncovers a web of corruption after a corpse goes missing.

Even with projects to come and mere seconds to herself, Ross adds more to her plate, feeding her unceasing ambition, almost as if she fears the depths of stagnation and complacency. Earlier this year, Ross released Oxford Gardens, a four-track EP on navigating the corridors of youth inspired by the New York punk scene but with the sentimentalities of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and Patti Smith. Released from The Daydream Library Series, the record label of Ecstatic Peace Library operated by Thurston and Eva Moore, every proto-punk track is dissonant and gritty lyrically, yet softened with her quippy strings and the melody’s tendency to appear more playful than chaotic.“That project is a big catharsis for me,” she confesses. “I had a lot of things on my mind that I didn’t know how to process, and I think that songwriting was a really good way for me to process my feelings. I wouldn’t even say it was subconscious, it was a pretty conscious record. I knew exactly what I was trying to say, so it was just really me channeling my feelings towards something positive.”

 While progress isn’t linear, the rhythm to which we breathe remains constant, and the urge to make something of each breath lives in perpetuity. “I’m young, and I want to make things. I grew up idolizing Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe and reading Just Kids. God!” She cries, “They were making art all the time. And that’s so special.”

Following those who came before her, Ross is laying it all out on the table. If everything must end, then why not enjoy it while it lasts? She confesses, “I mean I’m 25, and I’m feeling more like a woman than ever. And I don’t know why that is. I don’t know how old you are, but there is a time where you just feel it more.” Who’s going to tell her that it only gets windier from here, albeit sometimes breezy?

Photographed by Davis Bates

Styled by Malcolm Smith

Written by Bree Castillo 

Hair: John Blaine at Celestine Agency

Makeup: Riku Campo at Celestine Agency

Flaunt Film: Wyatt Stromer

Creative: Oliver Hartt

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