BY SEEKING OUT PARTS AKIN TO Shakespeare’s heroines AND Ibsen’s feminists, KIRBY HAS COME TO EMBODY A RANGE OF substantive CHARACTERS.
t’s early November when I meet Vanessa Kirby at a private club on New York’s Lower East Side. The actors’ strike is still in full effect, although sluggishly inching toward a resolution. When she arrives, Kirby is anything but sluggish. She bounds through the atrium like a prima ballerina about to take the stage in a fashionably oversized tan Raey coat. After she sweetly proffers a hug, we settle into a banquette. Ridley Scott’s historical epic is due in theaters soon, with Kirby taking on the role of Empress Joséphine. As the strike is still on at the time of our initial meeting, Kirby is not able to discuss the tiny despot in the room. “So, you come here often?” is the joke as we order tea and awkwardly dance around her leading lady status as if it is
