It’s sometimes said: the adventure of traversing uncharted territories often has no end goal, but the journey itself reveals deeper meaning. Surrounded by new sites, sounds, and smells, we liberate ourselves as explorers of sensations unknown. Be it in our own neighborhood or across the ocean, there is a sense of adventure and empowerment that comes with staying open. For 24-year-old actor Joey King, connections are everywhere, each day a new opportunity for a heightened experience.

When I connect with King who stars in the new Hulu Holocaust drama mini-series We Were the Lucky Ones, it feels like she speaks with the wisdom of someone who has lived several lives. Someone self-aware, who knows that good ideals are just that—ideals. All the things that are “good” for us, whether it’s limited social media use, exercise, or healthy eating, these values can’t always be put into practice flawlessly. We reflect back on her 2021 cover for FLAUNT, where she candidly speaks about the downsides of social media and lack of control of her image as an actor. I ask her if the same sentiments of self-care touted still hold true in her life at present. “I really hadn’t experienced as much online hate then as I have now,” she acknowledges, “and to be honest, I’m not great at self-care a lot of the time. It’s a wonderful idea but we all can’t be wonderful examples of being kind to ourselves all the time.”

At the caliber of King’s celebrity status—which skyrocketed with the success of The Kissing Booth trilogy—it’s no surprise that a plethora of opinions have come with her increasing stardom. “While there is some interest in my personal life, it’s not as heavy as a lot of people that I know and am friendly with,” she tells me. “Any time I focus on the negative and the things that hurt, I remember that it could always be worse and that helps.” The self-awareness she exhibits regarding fame admittedly catches me off guard—especially from someone so young—but at the same time shows how grounded she is. “What I am happy with is the way I’m not overthinking things,” she continues. “I don’t experience intense FOMO like I used to when I was a teenager, and I wanted to be doing everything my sisters were doing.”

King epitomizes everything it is to be young and growing up in a generation where social media and the fear of not being “in the know” encapsulates our every move. A society where some of us strive for the highest standard of success, sometimes at the expense of our sanity. “There’s big dips in my mental health and sometimes where I’m really great,” she reflects. “I have been getting sucked into doomscrolling lately. Even if you’re not looking at bad things, you finish scrolling and sitting there and say to yourself, ‘What was I doing?’ It’s not a great feeling.”

King’s acting career started off as a pursuit inspired by her two older sisters, Hunter and Kelli, who began taking improv and theater classes at an early age—a practical choice because her parents were unsure financially if they could put all three girls through college. “My love for it stemmed from the idea of hanging out with my older sisters and doing what they were doing,” she emphasizes lovingly. This falls right in tow with King telling me her family is her “grounding tool.”

King started off doing commercials and television guest appearances up until she landed her first breakout role at nine years old in Beverly Cleary’s Ramona and Beezus alongside Selena Gomez. “I don’t think I understood the weight of acting as a job until that role,” she remarks. What has been instilled in King from her early acting days is largely staying in touch with her inner child. “Maintaining that level of being able to embarrass yourself as you get older is the most important part to me,” she smiles. “To fully be comfortable on set, you can’t be embarrassed. The best thing you can do is fight those feelings of self-consciousness and insecurity as they trickle into being an adult.”

Post Ramona Quimby, King would spend the next four years as Elle Evans in the aforementioned The Kissing Booth trilogy, alongside actors Jacob Elordi and Taylor Zakhar Perez. Thereafter, it seemed King was almost everywhere you looked, from true-crime series The Act, for which she was Emmy-nominated for her portrayal of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, to action-packed films like Bullet Train, and self-produced The Princess. She even pulled off a heist in Taylor Swift’s I Can See You music video alongside Twilight star Taylor Lautner. Later this year, she’s set to lead in the Netflix film A Family Affair alongside Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron. The thread that ties this all together? Her unwavering attitude toward taking pride in all of her work.

“You don’t have to love everything that you do,” she says, “And that’s okay. You’re not in control of how every piece turns out. A lot of the time you audition, get a role, and do that role— and that was a huge portion of my career. So there’s a lot of things that you wind up doing where you’re like, ‘Well, I don’t know about that one.’ But every step of the way got me where I am, and I’m thankful.”

When it comes to creativity, nothing is out of bounds for King, who finds an ignited spark in exploring the unknown and shifting from genre to genre. Her role as Halina Kurc opposite Logan Lerman in We Were the Lucky Ones exemplifies just this. Based on the true story of the Kurcs, the mini-series tells the story of a Jewish family living in Poland under Nazi occupation. Despite the profound human devastation surrounding them, the show is imbued with messages of hope and optimism. Growing up in a Jewish family herself, the story felt all the more resonant for King. “That time period is something that I’ve known about my whole life by reading books at home and learning for myself,” she shares. “I feel like I knew a lot already because of how it was talked about in my family growing up.”

For King, it was imperative to channel Halina’s role in the family and deeply connect with her personality—not only to do the character justice—but also give audiences a holistic picture of who she was beyond the film’s synopsis. “I wanted to find out not just who she was during the war, but also who she was outside of that, and what she became after the war, what kind of sense of humor she had.” On set, she entrusted author Georgia Hunter, who wrote the novel on which the mini-series is based, with finding the “spice” Halina had outside of often being the orchestrator of her family’s safety. King seamlessly integrated pieces of herself into Halina, in what she describes as a variation of her “big personality.”

When I ask King if it’s difficult to rid herself of the emotional weight of the story after a day of filming concludes, she contemplates both sides with consideration. “I don’t think I have the mental strength to be a method actor,” she admits. “I need to be able to go home and shed the day. But sometimes on this project, because of the personal feeling about it all, it was tough and I would go home and have a good cry about it depending on what we were shooting that day. That was interesting because I’m usually not like that.”

We begin discussing her previous comments on wanting Gen Z in particular to feel compelled by the gravity of the history in the show. “When you think about the Holocaust, the amount of lives that were taken is such a large number that it’s hard to grasp,” she says. “It feels like you’re so removed from that because it’s been so long and is overwhelming. I’m hoping this story will humanize the feeling people have when they think about the Holocaust and World War II. We’re in a time where we’re living with some of the last victims of the Holocaust. It will be our responsibility as a generation to make sure future generations don’t forget about what happened.”

It’s equally the responsibility of our generation to make art that inspires future waves and leaves no stone unturned—a facet King is knee-deep in already. She has already inked a deal with Netflix via her own production company as one of the youngest to partner with a streaming giant. Her first endeavor is a film adaptation of the dystopian novel Uglies, where teenager Tally revolts against cosmetic surgery rules required by society to turn pretty.

The Uglies production was the result of an eight-year process where King approached Netflix at age 17, filmed when she was 22, and will release the film when she predicts she’ll be 25. “When you build something from the ground up, it’s so rewarding to see it finally get to the place where it’s ready to be released,” she says excitedly. “It also makes you think about where you want to see yourself going. You think about what kind of person you will be by the time it’s made and that really factors into the kinds of projects I want to produce.”

King’s passion for the sci-fi story after her sister gave her a copy of the novel, which she shares made her “fall back into love” with reading. “It was in the middle of a time where I was trying to figure out if I was confident or not in my own appearance, and that book helped that young girl in me reconcile her own feelings about her appearance,” she reflects. “I was having a hard time defining what beauty meant to me and I think Uglies really helped me feel like it doesn’t have to be one thing.”

In terms of what destinations, work or otherwise, King wants to head next, she says revisiting Japan and traveling to Thailand may be on the list, in tandem with honing in on her production taste. “I want to make things where the characters in it are so well-written that you feel like you can identify a piece of yourself in them,” she explains. “When characters have really niche traits, that makes them feel real to me.” 

Photographed by Sam Dameshek

Styled by Jared Eng

Written by Joshen Mantai

Hair: Rena Calhoun at A-Frame Agency

Makeup: Allan Avendaño at A-Frame Agency using Anastasia Beverly Hills

Nails: Thuy Nguyen at A-Frame Agency

Flaunt Film: Isaac Dektor

Styling Assistant: Jordan Blakeman

Makeup Assistant: Ruby Vo

Video Assistant: Camryn Spratt

Location: APPARATUS