Erin Kellyman Doesn’t Like Attention. She Commands It Anyway.

Erin Kellyman is not a birthday person. The British actor hates being the center of attention, and she usually braces for sadness when the day comes. “I feel like 27 has just creeped up,” Kellyman says with palpable dread in her voice. We’re speaking in early October, as she’s counting down her final days of 26. “I still feel 22. People that are older than me say that I’m still young, but this is the oldest I’ve ever been, so it just feels old to me.”

When it comes to her career, however — now including her acclaimed turn in Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great — Kellyman has been wise beyond her years. At 12, she concluded that her gymnast dreams weren’t meant to be (“I was very mediocre”) and decided to throw herself into modeling. “I’ve always felt a little bit more — this is going to sound so conceited — grown in my head than in my body,” she says. “And so at 12 I thought, ‘I need to find a different career and fast because I’m running out of time.’ Which is obviously insane because I was barely in high school! But it felt so real, and I felt like a grown-up.”

Modeling, it turned out, wasn’t for her either. Despite her striking auburn curls and made-for-a-closeup freckles, she was too anxious to handle the attention that comes with being photographed for a living. “I hated being on show,” she says. Disappearing into a character, though, was a very different proposition. When a 13-year-old Kellyman attended a casting session where she and her fellow models were asked to improv a classroom scene, something finally clicked. “I came out of the room absolutely ecstatic,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘That wasn’t the same as the modeling auditions. I want to do that.’” By 15, she had booked her first role as a series regular on Raised by Wolves, the British sitcom from Caitlin and Caroline Moran.

“I thought my brain was melting and I was losing brain cells because I was like, ‘I’m f*cking being an actor. I’m going to get dumb.’”

Landing the gig instilled a sense of “delusional” confidence in Kellyman, one that has carried her to Hollywood and back as she’s filled out a bingo card of breakout stardom: big-IP material (Solo: A Star Wars Story, Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), prestige properties (a BBC adaptation of Les Misérables), and a beloved franchise (a recurring role in the 28 Days Later universe), all while breaking barriers as an openly gay actor. In 2022, Kellyman starred in the Disney+ fantasy series Willow as Jade, a lesbian knight-in-training whose relationship with Princess Kit marked a rare, front-and-center exploration of queer love for the streaming service. By the time Kellyman arrived on the set of this year’s Eleanor the Great, she was already a seasoned pro.

The drama stars June Squibb as the titular Eleanor, a 94-year-old widow who moves to New York City after the death of her best friend — and, in the throes of grief, joins a JCC group and assumes her late friend’s Holocaust survival story. Kellyman plays Nina, an NYU sophomore who befriends Eleanor for a school assignment while dealing with her own recent loss of her mom. Needless to say, there were some heavy days on the job.

“I walked onto set, and it was just silence,” Kellyman recalls of shooting one pivotal scene, when Nina starts to crack under the weight of all she’s carrying. “I was like, ‘Ooh, something happened.’ But it was silent so that I could prepare myself. They were being very respectful of the scene that was about to happen. That doesn’t happen on a set, which is a testament to Scarlett.”

“I’m desperate for it to come out so I can actually tell people how insane it is. It’s horrific, exhilarating, jaw-dropping.”

Still, despite the film’s heavy themes — and the genuinely gut-wrenching stories shared in Eleanor’s survivors group — the atmosphere on set overall was “friendly and upbeat,” Kellyman says, thanks in large part to Squibb’s life-of-the-party energy. When they weren’t filming, Squibb hosted Kellyman for Saturday night dinners at iconic Broadway hot spot Joe Allen or invited her to one of her many dinner parties.

“That woman is a f*cking dream,” she says of Squibb. “She’s so brilliant. She’s such immaculate vibes. She’s so fun and funny and caring. We would have real deep chats, but then be laughing like five minutes after. She’s an incredible scene partner, too. She’s giving 110% every single take.”

Living it up in New York is not how Kellyman thought she’d be spending her downtime. “I definitely decompress by staying inside,” she says, usually with a good documentary queued up. It’s a habit she got into after she left school: “I thought my brain was melting and I was losing brain cells because I was like, ‘I’m not in education anymore. Everybody’s learning, and I’m f*cking being an actor. I’m going to get dumb.’ I watched so many weird and interesting documentaries about just anything that I had no idea about.”

But between make-believe life as a college student, meeting new friends through her co-workers, and soaking up the sights — including filming some of Eleanor on Coney Island — Kellyman quickly fell in love with the place. “They don’t lie, that city does not sleep,” she says. “I want to live there at some point.”

Once filming on Eleanor wrapped, Kellyman got straight to work on the post-apocalyptic 28 Years Later. She had a small part in the 2025 film and will reprise her role as cult member Jimmy Ink in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple in January 2026. She can’t say much about that movie, directed by Nia DaCosta, though the mere mention of the project has her practically bursting at the seams.

“I’m desperate for it to come out so I can actually tell people how insane it is,” Kellyman says with an exasperated sigh. “I haven’t seen the full thing yet, but from what I have seen, it’s just… It’s horrific, exhilarating, jaw-dropping.” And Kellyman committed all the way. It was her idea to work with a personal trainer as she went through stunt training to prepare for the role, resulting in a flip at the end of 28 Years Later that she wears as a badge of honor. “I was very happy that they kept that in there,” she says.

“I just want to make people feel something. As long as I get to do that, it makes attention easier to deal with.”

She’s even getting back to her modeling roots, starring in the inaugural Loewe campaign under new creative directors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, an honor she describes as an “insane f*cking dream.” Kellyman was excited to attend their Spring/Summer show at Paris Fashion Week this month, even as she noticed some of her old anxieties around the spotlight popping up. “I was stressing before: How are the models feeling? How are the designers feeling? If I was a model doing that — I mean, not that that would ever f*cking happen — I’d be so nervous,” she recalls. “But they all seemed so confident, and I was like, ‘Wow, everybody is just doing their thing.’”

With acting, Kellyman’s found her thing — though she has little interest in the public nature of fame. “I’m just so in love with acting that I think the attention that comes with it is worth it,” she says. “I just want to make people feel something. As long as I get to do that, it makes it easier to deal with.” It makes blowing out birthday candles feel a little lighter, too.

“This is making me realize I’m pretty content,” she says, sounding almost relieved as she looks back on the last 350-some-odd days. “I’m really happy with the way that everything’s going. My family’s good. My friends are good. I really couldn’t ask for any more. But if more comes, I’ll take it with both hands and be thankful.”

Top image credit: Polo Ralph Lauren top, pants, and tie, Le Monde Beryl shoes