Barbie Ferreira never lets herself get too comfortable. At 28, she’s modeled, advocated for body positivity, starred in Sam Levinson’s hit series Euphoria alongside Zendaya and Jacob Elordi, and stepped into the world of film production.
Now she’s in the midst of her first Broadway run, acting in Leslye Headland’s Cult of Love. Ferreira stars as a recovering drug addict who accompanies her sponsor home for what becomes a chaotic holiday gathering. Sharing the stage with seasoned actors such as David Rasche and Shailene Woodley, Ferreira has embraced the unknown.
“What is really important to me at this moment in my life is being a sponge for learning more,” she says.
Born Barbara Ferreira in East Harlem to Brazilian-immigrant parents, the actress didn’t have an easy start. Her mother was 20 when she had Ferreira, in 1996, and her father, then 35, left the family soon after. Raised by her mother and grandmother, Ferreira spent her childhood in Queens before relocating to New Jersey at the end of middle school.
Ferreira was seven years old when she first discovered acting—in an after-school class at a Boys & Girls Club in Queens. A shy child, she was often teased for being overly sensitive. “I’ve always had a really big personality,” she says. “It was just really hard to get it out of me because I felt ashamed of it.”
The stage gave Ferreira a vehicle to channel these emotions. “You just learn how to harness something that people think is a weakness in you,” she says. Her first acting teacher, Liana Riccardi, quickly recognized Ferreira’s potential and encouraged her to take more lessons, planting the seed that this passion could one day be her profession.
When Ferreira was 16, she came across an American Apparel casting call for plus-size models. She sent in some blurry selfies, taken in her childhood bedroom. The next day, she got the call that she had booked the job. Ferreira still credits the campaign for launching her career.
“What is really important to me at this moment in my life is being a sponge for learning more.”
As a young plus-size model, Ferreira had to forge her own path in the unforgiving business. Even then, she refused to conform to industry standards, insisting her photos remain untouched.
Two years later, in 2015, she signed with the prestigious Wilhelmina Models, appearing in campaigns for brands such as Adidas and H&M. Along the way, she used her growing social-media platform to discuss topics such as sexuality, stretch marks, and vanity sizing.
Ferreira never lost sight of her acting goals, landing the hosting role on Vice’s How to Behave in 2017. The mini-series documented and poked fun at the absurdity of modern-day etiquette for young women. Shamelessly immersing herself in life at a nudist camp, a financial-news publication, and everything in between, she began shedding the shyness that had defined her early life.
Ferreira’s breakthrough came in 2018, when she booked the role of Kat Hernandez on Euphoria, a series about troubled high-school students, which launched the careers of actors from Sydney Sweeney to Hunter Schafer. Ferreira was immediately drawn to the project upon learning that, quite unusually, it featured a plus-size character in a central role. More than 10 auditions later, the role of Hernandez—a self-conscious, fan-fiction-writing teenager who becomes a dominatrix after a sexual video of her is leaked—was hers.
Collaborating with Levinson, Ferreira shaped Kat using personal experiences and inspiration from favorite films like Ghost World and Welcome to the Dollhouse. “I love teenage girls who are wise beyond their years but at the same time not,” she says.
Euphoria’s success exposed a young Ferreira to the highs and lows of sudden fame. The resulting pressures, compounded by grueling month-long shoots and fans’ backlash over her smaller role in Season Two, ultimately drove her to decide against rejoining the cast in Season Three, which starts filming next month.
Instead, Ferreira is turning more toward indie films. In 2020, she starred alongside Haley Lu Richardson in Unpregnant, a road-trip movie about a pregnant teenager seeking an abortion.
This year marks a busy new chapter for Ferreira, which will include the release of three major projects: the rom-com Mile End Kicks, the horror film Faces of Death, featuring pop star Charli XCX, and the comedy Bob Trevino Likes It, which she co-produced.
Releasing films still makes Ferreira nervous. “It’s going to be a lot for me—letting the world see these beautiful movies and being vulnerable in that way,” she says. “But it’s a whole new level of excitement.”
For now, she says, “I’m having the time of my life.” Performing on the stage for the first time since school, her experience with Cult of Love feels full circle. At one of her early performances, acting teacher Riccardi sat in the audience. “When I was a kid, this was my wildest dream,” she says. “This is everything I’ve ever worked for and could ever dream of.”
Cult of Love is running at the Hayes Theater through February 2
Jeanne Malle is an Associate Editor at AIR MAIL
