Phoebe Dynevor thinks 30 is the best age. “So much becomes clearer. It was really bizarre. I turned 30, I shot a movie, and I kind of thought, ‘Wow, I’m in such a good place,’” the actor says, her smile widening.

Lately, Manchester-born Dynevor has been thinking a lot about her fourth decade of life. With several projects in post-production and a new film on the horizon, Dynevor—with that curious disposition of hers—finds herself asking a lot of questions. When is the right time to have a child? What’s next for my career?

And, more simply, do I have time to go to a museum later? Such is the beautiful nuance of 30, and Dynevor welcomes the age with open arms. Take, for example, her decision to spend this summer in a place she’s never been. The Bridgerton actor is in Providence, Rhode Island for her latest role in a romantic thriller opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. Although she’s been in Northeast America for just short of a week, her cozy spot is already growing on her.

“I knew I could have [adventure] in this career if I succeeded in it, and so I look back and I’m really grateful that’s my life now. It’s so thrilling. It’s never boring,” she says over Zoom, reflexively tugging at strands of her auburn hair, which is pulled casually into a ponytail. It’s early in the afternoon, and her living room is quiet. She’s wearing a pale blue Oxford button down and behind her, light weaves between wooden panels and tall windows. While her picture is that of a quaint North Atlantic day, her upcoming project, Remain, is anything but.

Teasing the supernatural, the story is a collaboration between two clashing forces: love and fear. The Notebook’s Nicholas Sparks and The Sixth Sense’s M. Night Shyamalan co-developed an idea. The result: a forthcoming eponymous novel from Sparks and a film written and directed by Shyamalan in which Dynevor is set to star.

“It’s very much all the feelings…Nicholas Sparks [brought] that kind of romantic element. But, M. Night adds this very dark twist [to the story],” she playfully baits.

Dynevor has mastered romance. Turn on a scene from Season One Netflix’s Bridgerton, and you’ll see her as the anxious and love-struck eldest daughter, Daphne. But, to tap into darkness? That’s another task. It requires patience, like waiting for the summer to descend into autumn, like watching time pass as the sun eases her into a darker solitude.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of grief, as something you’re not living anymore as opposed to the grief of losing someone. It’s like the grief of losing your childhood and looking back on it,” she reflects.

Her role in another upcoming film, Pendulum, helped prepare her to examine such grief. Directed by Black Swan’s Mark Heyman and co-starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the film was her first venture into the horror genre, one that taught her the dynamism of keeping company with a nightmare. “I was really nervous about [Pendulum], because it’s very much exploring grief, and that was something that I’d never quite done before. I was scared about the idea of sitting with [it] and what that would do or feel like. It kind of turned out to be a really magical, joyful experience, even though the material was so dark,” she says.

It’s just one of the many lessons Dynevor has acquired in her career. She has, after all, been acting for half of her life, making her debut in a BBC TV drama Waterloo Road when she was 14. The performer knew she was destined to create—given her mother is soap opera actor Sally Dynevor and her father is screenwriter Tim Dynevor—but she didn’t know what her career looked like after graduating high school. At 18, she finished her A-levels (the English equivalent to American AP exams) and contemplated going to drama school, but after she booked another job, she decided against it.

Feeling as though she were treading water, Dynevor almost gave up the dream. Yet, just like her exploration of grief, she only had to wait out the seasons to secure her reality. She was cast as Bridgerton’s lead at 24 years old, catapulting her into stardom. The two-time Emmy-winning show has secured 16 awards since its debut in 2020, but Dynevor knew the sun didn’t stop there. She went on to chase more horizons, receiving a BAFTA-nomination for her performance as Emily in Netflix’s thriller Fair Play. Unlike Bridgerton, Fair Play isn’t about lust and love. It’s about power—beginning and ending in blood.

Earlier this year, she played Maya in Inheritance, an espionage thriller that was shot entirely on an iPhone across New York City, Cairo, Delhi, and Seoul. She was chased on foot and rode on the back of a motorcycle in public for the role, all while being followed by a cell phone and surrounded by real people, not extras. The film was experimental, a state of being she seeks out: “I don’t feel safe in comfortability, weirdly,” she laughs.

Dynevor anticipates more releases soon, including Anniversary, a thriller in which she plays the antagonist. While she can’t give too much away about that and other projects, here’s a few clues: Zac Efron and sharks. Non sequiturs and very separate.

True to her resume, it’s no doubt that Dynevor is a seasoned performer. Even so, at the onset of her 30s, she finds herself returning to seasons past more often than not. “I often have flashbacks to that summer [when I was 18] and how magical it felt…What really started that summer was that feeling of ‘anything is possible,’ which I think a lot of us feel at that age,” she says. “But yeah, it’s funny talking about this. I’ve never spoken about this moment.”

That’s what happens to summer memories. They fade just like the dog days do, staying in the shade until the sun returns, and we approach them again. I ask Dynevor to reapproach her memories now, and the actor smiles. “Lavender brings up a lot of emotion in me, because it makes me think of those young childhood years and being with my brother and sister and being with my parents,” she recalls, describing picturesque scenes smelling lavender outside her early home, selling lemonade on hot days in the English countryside and playing cricket on the lawn with her brother and sister.

With her family prevalent in every moment she recalls, it’s clear that whatever season of life she finds herself in, Dynevor is an actor who’s wired to connect. Take, for example, reveling in the electricity with scene partner Alden Ehrenreich in Fair Play, versus shouldering the challenge of anchoring Inheritance mostly alone.

“It must be a thread within my work, [and] I think relationships in our lives as individuals are everything. What a bad parent, or a bad relationship, or a bad friendship can do to you as a person…can change everything about you,” she says. “[When] I think about summer, that’s what I think about, too. It’s like, who are you with? Who are you out in the sunshine drinking Aperol Spritz with?”

Even so, the unpretentious star hesitates to call her job impressive. She boils her craft down to the art of being a good person: “There’s like a collective consciousness, I think, that we all feel if we can really tap into it. I see that collective consciousness happening right now in America…we’re all capable of it.” What’s the collective consciousness that anchors the Sparks-Shyamalan brainchild? Is it the summer in Rhode Island? Is it grief? Is it Jake Gyllenhaal?

No. It’s the idea of the in-betweens that grounds Dynevor, who anticipates the opportunity to once again relish in the gamut of life. She shifts from 18 to 30, London to New England, romance to thriller to romance-thriller. Dynevor stands at the equinox of a new age in her career, and she’s more than excited to brave the life that comes with it.

“[The film] is that idea of enjoying somewhere and knowing that it’s going to end, enjoying every moment and knowing that it might be our last, experiencing the light and the dark as they are always going to be playing against each other,” she decides, thoughtfully. “I welcome the darkness, and the chaos and the light,” Dynevor resolves. “That’s why I’m doing it, to feel all those things.”

In August, Dynevor’s summer in Rhode Island will come to an end. She doesn’t know what she’s doing after this, but she’s well-aware that the seasons change. Summer is fleeting, but anyway, lavender tries its best to grow year-round.

Photographed by Lindsey Childs

Styled by Oliver Vaughn

Written by Julia Zara

Hair: Christopher Farmer at The Wall Group

Makeup: Brittany Leslie at The Wall Group

Flaunt Film: Jonathan Ho

Flaunt Film Editor: Roberto De Jesus

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