It’s safe to say Marisa Abela has been busy. Since her breakout role as Yasmin Kara-Hanani on BBC’s fast-paced drama Industry, which follows a group of ambitious recent graduates forging careers in the cut-throat and competitive world of banking, she’s also appeared in Rogue Agent, alongside Jemma Arterton and James Norton, and played Amy Winehouse in the biopic Back to Black, directed by Sam Taylor Johnson, which was released earlier this year.
Industry season three has just dropped.Next up is Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh’s new American spy thriller due to hit the big screen next March, where Abela joins Hollywood heavyweights Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender and Naomie Harris. (‘I’m very, very proud of it,’ Abela tells ELLE UK, ‘It’s a whole different challenge in itself, working with people like that.’)
But on Wednesday night, she took a beat out of her packed schedule to join ELLE at the 2024 Style Awards dinner to celebrate the creativity and resilience of the British fashion industry. Ahead of the event, she invited us to hang out at The Zetter Clerkenwell, the boutique Georgian townhouse hidden away in St John’s Square where she got ready for the evening with her Industry co-star Harry Lawtey, to talk fashion, fame, and where she gets her confidence from.
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On her outfit for the evening
Tonight I’m wearing Nensi Dojaka, with Fabergé diamonds and emeralds. I tend to veer towards tailoring and strong silhouettes, but I think that it really depends on the day. The most important thing is just to feel confident. And sometimes that means wearing my clothes a little bit more like armor, and sometimes it means that they’re like a second skin. And both is fine. It’s just about how I need to feel confident on that day.
On getting dressed for the red carpet
I’ve loved wearing Dolce [& Gabbana] recently, I’ve loved wearing Dior recently. I also love being able to do custom looks for work, because you just get to be really creative in those moments. I wore a custom gown for the first time for the Back to Black premiere, it was by Fendi, and that was just so fun. I got to say, ‘On this night that’s really special to me, I want to feel like this,’ and that turns into a dress, which is amazing. That’s what I really love about clothes in general. For example, in Dolce, I feel really strong, but also really sexy. That’s kind of where my style sort of like naturally leans: structure and power, but also something feminine and sexy underneath.
On her chosen career
I always, deep down, wanted to be an actor. From when I can remember loving acting, I always wanted to do it forever. But it did scare me. I think the world scared me. I grew up with a mother that’s an actress, and she’s an amazing actress, but she raised me and my brother as a single mum, and I saw that it was really tricky financially. So I didn’t always know that it was going to be my career. It was only when I started applying to universities, and I was walking around amazing schools like UCL and Warwick, but I was like, ‘I don’t feel in any way connected to these places.’ And then I walked into RADA, and I was like, ‘Yeah, go on then.’
On landing the role of Yasmin on Industry
An amazing thing that I will always be grateful for getting a job early in my career was that I wasn’t particularly crippled by self consciousness. I was coming out of drama school, I was in my final year, I had signed with an agent, I was feeling really confident — I went straight into Industry without really thinking about how the world was going to perceive it. What I took from that job was a playfulness that has kept me going throughout my career, which is really positive. I don’t think you can do a job like Back to Black if you’re paralyzed with self consciousness and fear. I don’t seem to have that voice in my head that says, ‘You shouldn’t do that thing.’ I get scared by something because it’s a challenge, and run towards it. I’m just learning to to master that feeling a bit more.
On Yasmin’s style versus her own personal style
I think I have much better style? [laughs] But Yasmin has a corporate job, I don’t. It would be very interesting to me, if I had a corporate job, how I would dress. My guess is that it would be slightly more androgynous. Yasmin dresses in a more overtly feminine way than I do, she kind of outlines her figure constantly. And I don’t think that’s something that I do in my life. I’ve always got something over the top. I think about that famous quote from Coco Chanel that’s like: ‘always look at yourself before you leave the house and take one thing off.’ I feel like I do the opposite, I come out in some sexy little dress, and then just before they leave the house I grab a big blazer, just in case. [Tonight I’m wearing] a Nensi [Dojaka] dress, and it doesn’t get much more figuring hugging than that, but I have a big coat over the top of it, whereas Yasmin probably wouldn’t. I dress maybe more conservatively than Yasmin. It’s definitely different.
On finding her confidence
There was a thing that we used to do at drama school, and it was more of an exercise than advice, it was about where energy comes from in your body; for different characters, where the center of their gravity might be. I remember walking around a classroom and playing with different centers of gravity, and then the teacher at the time said, ‘And now have that energy, that shining light, come from your heart.’ And I remember walking around the room really feeling that and thinking, ‘This is what it is to manifest positivity and exude confidence in a gentle, generous, happy, excited way.’ It’s just thinking about that light shining out from inside of you. I remember just feeling that and thinking, ‘This is really brilliant.’
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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