Margaret Qualley Worried ‘Women Would Hate Me and Men Would Hurt Me’ When She Began Acting

NEED TO KNOW

• Margaret Qualley opened up about a fear she held earlier in her acting career that “women would hate me and men would hurt me”

• Qualley made her big screen debut in 2013 in Gia Coppola’s movie Palo Alto

• She next appears in the Feb. 20 movie How to Make a Killing and will costar with Jacob Elordi in The Dog Stars, in theaters Aug. 28

Margaret Qualley is opening up about stressors she experienced when she first began acting as a teenager.

“I started working so young, and when I first started acting, I was just overwhelmed,” Qualley, 31, told Vanity Fair in a new cover story published Thursday, Feb. 12. “I felt like if I was fully myself, women would hate me and men would hurt me. And so that took away some of the tools that come with being a woman because I was scared.”

Qualley is the daughter of Groundhog Day actress Andie MacDowell and her ex-husband Paul Qualley. She made her film debut before she turned 20 in the 2013 movie Palto Alto and has racked up 39 film, television and music video credits in the years since, including notable roles in 2019’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and 2024’s The Substance, among other movies. 

“Gradually, now that I feel like I have more control of my life, I can kind of lean more into the sensual and the feminine,” she told the outlet. Qualley also credited her husband Jack Antonoff, whom she married in 2023, with helping her gain confidence as an actor.

Margaret Qualley on Vanity Fair’s March 2026 cover

Dan Jackson/Vanity Fair

“Jack has helped me for sure, because he has made me feel more confident to explore all the parts of myself,” she said. “But I’m also thinking about Mother Earth and the divine feminine and surrender. Those are the things I’m trying to lean into, that moment in my life.”

Qualley has worked a lot in recent years: she appeared in three feature films in 2024 and three more in 2025, on top of voice roles in video games and appearances in music videos. She has two movies set to release in 2026, and next stars with Glen Powell in this month’s How to Make a Killing. She then acts opposite Jacob Elordi i in Ridley Scott’s new movie The Dog Stars, which hits theaters Aug. 28.

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Margaret Qualley in How to Make a Killing

A24

“I’m supercompetitive with myself, and I’m very driven,” she told Vanity Fair. “I have learned the lesson of my eyes being too big for my stomach professionally. That means taking all the opportunities I can get and then crashing and feeling like I have a schedule I can’t keep up with.” 

Qualley also told the outlet that she has worked on movies and series that she believes were “mistakes,” but also quickly qualified her perspective on those projects. “When I say mistakes, I don’t mean it was the wrong thing, I mean I wouldn’t do it again,” she said.

Read the original article on People