Rebecca Dayan
Born (1984-04-17) April 17, 1984
French Riviera
Occupation(s)Actress and model

Rebecca Dayan ([da.jɔn];[1] born April 17, 1984) is a French actress, model, artist, and activist. After training in fine arts, Dayan began her career in fashion and theatre in Paris. She then moved to New York City where she took up screen acting. Following several small roles, she returned to painting, and had her first large role in 2017 film Novitiate. She is best known for portraying Elsa Peretti in the 2021 Netflix miniseries Halston.

Early life

Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 2012

Rebecca Dayan was born on the French Riviera[1] in 1984.[2] The oldest of three siblings,[3] she was raised in her parents' hotel in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where she developed a love for acting, before the family moved to Nice.[4] There, she studied art and theatre at the fine arts school Villa Thiole, before moving to Paris aged seventeen.[1][5][6] At home in the south of France, Dayan would put on small shows for friends, and was introduced to many films and artists by her culturally-focused mother.[7] Though her father is Jewish, her family was not religious.[8]

Career

In Paris, Dayan began modeling and working in fashion design[1] as an assistant at Sonia Rykiel,[9][5] and she has modeled for Karl Lagerfeld and Ellen von Unwerth.[2] However, she felt like she belonged in New York City,[1] and moved to the United States in 2009.[5] She told WWD that pursuing acting as a second career felt risky, but she had her family's support.[7] Her first acting roles were small parts in From Paris with Love, Limitless, and Celeste and Jesse Forever, released between 2010 and 2012.[5][2] She had a larger role in the second half of the 2014 indie horror H., in which she plays an artist like herself.[10][11] H. premiered in the College Biennale of the 71st Venice International Film Festival.[12]

As a painter, Dayan displayed a collection called "Assumption" at the Catherine Ahnell Gallery in New York[9][5][13] in 2015, using mostly watercolors to depict images of women as Madonna figures in reclamation of the word "virgin". While she worked on her art, she also lived in a studio at the gallery, and had various famous women sit for her in modern renditions of Madonna poses.[5]

She then had her first major acting role, starring as supporting character Sister Emanuel in the 2017 film Novitiate, about young nuns, with Margaret Qualley and Dianna Agron. Originally, Dayan was set to play the character that ultimately went to Morgan Saylor when Dayan and writer-director Maggie Betts realised that Sister Emanuel would fit Dayan better.[13] As the film was long in development, Dayan used some of her discussions with Betts as inspiration for her "Assumption" collection.[13][8] Novitiate saw positive reviews and is "certified fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes.[14] The San Francisco Chronicle praised that as part of the film's ensemble, actresses Dayan, Agron, and Julianne Nicholson "would be the highlight of any other film, the person audiences would go home talking about".[15]

Dayan portrayed French actress Sarah Bernhardt in the 2020 Nikola Tesla biopic Tesla.[16] In part, the film looks at Tesla's obsession with Bernhardt. Vulture said that writer-director Michael Almereyda shoots Dayan "as if she were her own paradoxically liberating-intoxicating, techno-natural Earth-machine force: At one point, we see her enter a room to a throbbing disco beat, a very contemporary-looking entourage trailing behind her, like she's bringing modernity itself with her".[17] Variety called her "erotically frightful" in the role.[18]

In 2019, she was cast to portray Italian designer Elsa Peretti in the Ryan Murphy miniseries Halston. Originally she was going to audition for a part in the show which was ultimately removed in rewrites, but her manager thought she would be better as Elsa. The miniseries was filmed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, when it was released on Netflix, Dayan was working on a feature she had written and hoped to create.[1] The same year, she starred in the tenth season of Murphy's American Horror Story, subtitled Double Feature. In 2022, she returned for the eleventh season, NYC. She also starred in an episode of the spin-off series American Horror Stories.

Activism

Dayan uses various media to raise awareness of maternal mortality in the United States, and women's health generally. After watching the documentary The Business of Being Born she became concerned with the rising maternal mortality rates in the United States, the only case of this in the developed world. She has since produced the documentary Born Free on the subject and started the non-profit Mother Lover.[1][9]

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
2010 From Paris with Love Foreign Minister's Aide [2]
2011 Limitless [6]
2012 Celeste and Jesse Forever Veronica [2]
2014 H. Helen [9]
2017 Novitiate Sister Emanuel [9]
2020 Tesla Sarah Bernhardt [6]

Television

Year Title Role Notes
2021 Halston Elsa Peretti Miniseries; main role[6]
2021 American Horror Story: Double Feature Maria Wycoff 2 episodes
2022 American Horror Stories Dr. Enid Perle Episode: "Facelift"
2022 American Horror Story: NYC Alana 2 episodes

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Radloff, Jessica (17 May 2021). "Getting to Know Rebecca Dayan, the Muse of Ryan Murphy's 'Halston'". Glamour. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Maselli, Giovanna (29 July 2011). "Rebecca Dayan". Vogue Italia (in Italian). Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  3. ↑ Raiford, Tiffany (18 May 2021). "10 Things You Didn't Know about Rebecca Dayan". TVOvermind. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  4. ↑ Lawrence, Vanessa (9 August 2017). "Actress Rebecca Dayan Loves David Bowie And Velvet Slippers, But Is Not Here for Pre-Ripped Jeans". W Magazine. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Betker, Ally (19 August 2015). "Rebecca Dayan Returns to Painting". WWD. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Halston's Rebecca Dayan Secretly Recorded Conversations With Designer Prisca Vera". The Blast. 17 May 2021. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  7. 1 2 Nordstrom, Leigh (14 May 2021). "'Halston' Finds Its Elsa Peretti in Rebecca Dayan". WWD. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  8. 1 2 Ongley, Hannah (9 November 2017). "actress rebecca dayan on playing a repressed nun in "novitiate"". i-D. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Seth, Radhika (14 May 2021). "Rebecca Dayan On Playing Elsa Peretti In Netflix's 'Halston'". British Vogue. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  10. ↑ "Rebecca Dayan, Artist IRL, On Playing an Artist in Her New Film". W Magazine. April 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  11. ↑ "The best movies of 2016 that we didn't review". The A.V. Club. December 2016. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  12. ↑ "Biennale College - Cinema". labiennale.org. Archived from the original on 29 September 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  13. 1 2 3 "Novitiate's Rebecca Dayan on the "French Girl" Fascination, Striving for Perfection, & Always Working on Her Art". Coveteur. 24 October 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  14. ↑ "Novitiate (2017)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  15. ↑ LaSalle, Mick (3 November 2017). "'Novitiate' a great acting vehicle". SFChronicle. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  16. ↑ Chervinski, Ashley. "How Closely Do The Characters In 'Tesla' Resemble The Real People?". Refinery29. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  17. ↑ Ebiri, Bilge (20 August 2020). "Tesla Is a Bizarre, Bewitching Anti-Biopic". Vulture. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  18. ↑ Nicholson, Amy (28 January 2020). "'Tesla': Film Review". Variety. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
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