In 2017, Camila Morrone was modeling in New York City. The Argentinean beauty was signed with IMG, posing for Victoria’s Secret, featured in Love’s annual advent calendar, on the cover of Turkish Vogue, and making her runway debut for Moschino. Tied in the press to Leonardo DiCaprio and frequently spotted with friends Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Hailey Bieber, Morrone was becoming a household name.

“I just never felt modeling was for me,” Morrone reflects. “I didn’t think I was good at it. I didn’t have a passion for it.” Barefaced and wearing a casual V-neck, she’s a few hours away from another photo shoot. This one’s different; it’s to promote the Amazon show Daisy Jones & the Six, based on Taylor Jenkins Reid’s hit novel about a 1970s band inspired by Fleetwood Mac. The 10-episode series, which premiered yesterday, was produced by Reese Witherspoon’s company, Hello Sunshine.

Morrone stars as Camila Dunne, the young wife of aspiring rock star Billy Dunne. In a documentary-style format, viewers watch the rise and complete implosion of the fictional band Daisy Jones & the Six. Eventually, the band breaks up because of its two clashing leaders, Daisy Jones, played by Riley Keough (Elvis Presley’s granddaughter), and Billy Dunne, played by Sam Claflin. The show’s addictive 24-song soundtrack is made up of original music by Grammy-nominated producer Blake Mills.

“I just knew where my heart was,” Morrone, now 25, says of her modeling days. “I wasn’t being true to myself and authentic when I was pushing aside this really big desire to be an actor and study acting.” During that period of modeling in New York, Morrone did a one-off audition. It was for the Bruce Willis thriller Death Wish. “I got the call from my agents that I had booked my first movie role. I just remember being in tears.” She has pursued acting full-time since.

“I wasn’t being true to myself and authentic when I was pushing aside this really big desire to be an actor and study acting.”

Growing up in Los Angeles, “you throw a stone, you hit an actor,” says Morrone. Her parents, Lucila Solá and Maximo Morrone, are both actors and were always auditioning for films and commercials, and often practicing lines with one another in their living room. “I couldn’t wrap my brain around it when I was little,” she says. “I would ask them why they would keep arguing and saying the same thing over and over.”

“I definitely saw the non-glamorous side of acting and the tediousness and all the hard work that goes in before you actually get the prize—the job and the opportunity to work,” she says. Morrone landed her first commercial when she was five. It was for the Gap, and it was her father who had been meant to audition.

“I had this big bubbly personality and took over the room and got all the attention from the camera,” she explains. But when she booked the job, “I froze and went dead silent and wouldn’t do anything they asked me.”

“I definitely saw the non-glamorous side of acting.”

Morrone’s parents divorced in 2006, and Solá went on to date Al Pacino. Morrone recalls spending time on his sets growing up. She attended Beverly Hills High School until halfway through sophomore year, when she decided to finish her education through the school’s independent-studies program, from which she graduated in 2015. The choice allowed her to work full-time.

When the pandemic hit, Morrone was out of work for three years. “Being an actor is such a wild ride, and such high highs and such low lows and so much inconsistency with work,” she says. “I’m learning that you have to develop really thick skin and also a belief in yourself, regardless of the jobs you’re booking and not booking…. There has to be a core belief that you will be O.K.”

When the world opened back up, Morrone shot three films in one year, taking a single week off between each project. She filmed Daisy Jones & the Six in Los Angeles and New Orleans, traveled to Minnesota to play the wild, irreverent, pink-haired lead in Marmalade, then landed in Deer Valley, Utah, to shoot Gonzo Girl, Patricia Arquette’s directorial debut, with Willem Dafoe and Ray Nicholson.

To switch between such strikingly different characters so quickly, Morrone starts each role by asking herself, “Where in my life have I been this person?” With Camila Dunne, Morrone says, “I know what it feels like to have to be the adult in the situation and make the choices for other people.”

Back in Los Angeles, Morrone has broken up with Leonardo DiCaprio and is focusing on her acting. Her dream role? To play “an incredible woman” in a biopic. “Either an old actor or an old singer, or an entrepreneur.” She says those are some of the hardest roles because the audience already has an opinion on the person. “Therefore, I want to do it,” she says with a laugh. Morrone also plans to head back to New York City, this time to try her hand at theater.

“I just hope that the work speaks for itself,” Morrone says. “My goal for myself in this journey that I’m on is just to do good work, do challenging work, break any box that I may have been placed into in the past.”

Daisy Jones & the Six is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Clara Molot is an Associate Editor for AIR MAIL