IN CONVERSATION WITH ZOË BLEU
interview by JANA LETONJA
Zoë Bleu steps into a defining moment with ‘Dracula: A Love Tale’, Luc Besson’s lush, romantic reimagining of Bram Stoker’s classic, arriving in theaters on 6th February. Premiering to strong early acclaim at the Rome Film Festival and already sparking viral fan response online, the film marks Zoë’s emergence as a singular new presence on screen. With a creative life that spans acting, fashion, and art, Zoë represents a new kind of modern muse, one rooted in emotional depth, visual poetry, and fearless self-expression.
blouse RCMPK
hot shorts SIMKHAI
socks and shoes DOLCE & GABBANA
jewelry STYLIST OWN
‘Dracula: A Love Tale’ feels poised to be a true breakout moment for you. When did it first sink in that this role might change everything?
The moment I got the call from Luc Besson telling me I had the role, just a few days after my audition, I felt an electricity rush through my body that literally made me fall to my knees and weep in shock. I could hear it, this energy, something I can only describe as electricity, encapsulating me after I hung up the phone. I knew a door had opened before me, and I’ve been living in gratitude and wonder ever since.
You play both Elisabeta and Mina, two women connected across time and reincarnation. How did you differentiate them emotionally?
Elisabeta is a woman who embodies her power and sensuality fully. Mina, like so many women, has forgotten her power. She has been shamed away from expressing her sensuality and her dreams, the energy of her freedom. Mina is haunted by ghosts of longing, love, music, sex, regality. Elisabeta wears these energies like pearls upon her crown. One of the most interesting parts of playing Mina was allowing her to discover those pearls, as if for the very first time, to then have her reclaim them as her own again.
dress DIOTIMA
shoes AQUAZZURA
jewelry STYLIST OWN
Luc Besson reimagines Dracula as a love story first. How did that shift affect the way you approached Mina?
Because the essence of this film is love, it felt especially important to approach Mina with infinite tenderness, the same tenderness Dracula feels for her. She is literally written into light and to me love is the manifestation of light.
Grief, longing, and desire are central to the film. What emotional territory did this role ask you to access?
Love, like the moon, has a dark side. Grief. Longing. I’ve known both well. To tread in the shadows of love made me feel raw and vulnerable, but I was grateful to access those twilight feelings. It is a nice way to release them.
I was told that when I went to that territory in the film, people felt most connected to the story, and I felt that myself, watching Caleb’s performance. Sometimes I think showing this depth of sadness and grief sheds more light on how great love must be. If the echoes of love are still loud across time, then love must have worn very big boots in the chambers of the heart. In our film, love literally is wearing dragon headed silver armored boots. Those sure do make quite a clammer.
cardigan and knit skirt MALINE BERGER
earring CAROLINA HERRERA
blazer dress JANE WADE
shoes CAROLINA HERRERA
Your performance has already been described as haunting and magnetic. How do you personally define screen presence?
Oh wow, thank you. I can’t really define my own screen presence, as I don’t quite enjoy watching myself, but I know what draws me to other actors on screen. The quality of light in the eyes. It speaks louder than dialogue or movement. That’s what truly moves me when I watch a film, the eyes.
You move fluidly between acting, modeling, and designing. How do those creative worlds inform one another?
What I love most is storytelling, sometimes literally through narrative, and often in a more wordless way through the garments I create. There aren’t always words that can fully do justice to color, sound, feeling, spirituality or movement. I think the dance between acting and fashion holds space for something both spectral and physical, and I’m constantly curious about how I can explore more of that in my own work.
top and hot shorts JILL SANDER
stocking FALKE
shoes AQUAZZURA
earrings JANE WADE
You’ve described fashion as a form of storytelling. What story did you want to tell visually during this chapter of your career?
I designed a capsule collection of gowns for myself that I sketched in the makeup chair while filming ‘Dracula’. The designs became a bridge between me as Zoë Bleu and Mina, Elisabeta, and the world of Dracula. I have titled this collection of garments ‘The perfume of Love is in the air. My body is the bottle. I am the headlights. I am the deer.’
Many of the garments, some not yet seen, move through teal, blue, and grey tones, colors that represent grief, and time. During the making of the film, I reflected deeply on my own relationship with both. Water became especially important to me—the holiness of water, and even our tears. Toward the end of the film, I felt a strong pull toward these cooler, more fluid colors. In the beginning, I was sketching a lot of red, pink, and burnt orange—passionate hues that carry emotional weight, love, fire, and history. The silhouettes themselves became more fertile and symbolic. I found myself sketching many egg-like forms into the garments.
What I realized was that I began designing this chapter of garments with fire energy and slowly transitioned into water, which feels like a sort of Phoenix esq rebirth to me. I like this idea because I am constantly rebirthing myself. The clothes, in a way, represent different “skins” of my seasons, like snake hIdes. They will change as I change, and will be affected by the characters I play, the places I go, the people I love, etc., reflecting whatever truth I’m living inside at the time. This silly little process of mine makes me really happy, is all I can say. Feels good.
leather dress SIMKHAI
earrings CAROLINA HERRERA
You’re also an advocate for women’s empowerment. How do activism and artistry coexist in your life?
For me, activism and artistry are inseparable. My hope is to help women reconnect with nature, the cosmos, and the elements, and through that reconnection, return to themselves, their bodies, and their innate power. We are intrinsically intertwined with these energies, yet in the current state of the world, and with the rapid rise of technology, we are growing increasingly disconnected from the nourishing, divine sources found in nature, human relationship, art, and storytelling.
The further we move away from one another, from the Earth, and from creative expression, the more spiritually weakened we become as a species. Art, for me, is a way of remembering, of restoring connection, empathy, and reverence.
I never intend to tell anyone what to believe, especially when it comes to spiritual or more “woo-woo” ideas. Who am I to prescribe a path for anyone else? I can only speak from my own experience. Exploring these energies has helped me feel more aligned with my values and with the life I want to live. When I have felt weak, they have restored me, and given me the strength to create, and the courage to transmute my life experiences into art. Whether that expression comes through poetry, painting, a character, garments I design, a song, a ballet, or a play, the impulse is the same.
Through creative projects like ‘Growing My Own Gods’, a lineage of mythological beings I’ve imagined and embodied, I explore empowerment, protection, and the reclamation of self through the friendship between the human spirit and the celestial, natural and elemental worlds. It’s a poetic language, but the intention is very real, to offer women (not exclusive to women but yes a tad more specifically) a sense of sovereignty, imagination, and inner strength in a world that so often tries to take those things away. I want to help people remember their own power, because I believe true power cannot exist if we are severed from our connection to Earth and the universal forces that sustain us.
top and hot shorts JILL SANDER
stocking FALKE
shoes AQUAZZURA
earrings JANE WADE
Looking ahead, what kinds of roles or creative collaborations are you most drawn to next?
My goal is simply to keep telling stories, to make films, art, fashion, and music with visionary creatives who believe in the power and alchemy of art. I’m drawn to collaborators who want to tell stories that touch the heart and open the mind, and who understand that creativity can be a force for positive change.
A woman stopped me on the street in New York recently and told me, through tears, that my performance in ‘Dracula’ made her believe in love again after she had given up on it. That moment stayed with me deeply. If I can help even one person believe in love again, then I feel I’m doing what I’m here to do.
We need more love on this Earth, and I want my work to be part of that reminder.
shirt dress EENK
heels AQUAZZURA
earrings CAROLINA HERRERA
TEAM CREDITS:
talent ZOË BLEU
photographer ANKA GARBOWSKA
fashion creative director TATIANA CINQUINO
stylist KYNDALL MARSHALL
makeup MATIN AT TRACEY MATTINGLY
hair PAUL VENOIT
set designer CHANCEY BRIDGES
editor TIMI LETONJA
editorial director and interview JANA LETONJA
