Lily-Rose Depp

Lily-Rose Depp (born May 27, 1999, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) is a French-American model and actress known for her emotionally expressive performances in the HBO series The Idol (2023) and Robert Eggers’s horror film Nosferatu (2024). She is the daughter of American actor Johnny Depp and French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis.

Upbringing and early career

Lily-Rose Depp and her younger brother, Jack, attended school in the United States growing up but also spent significant time in France. In addition, they often accompanied their parents to filming locations and other places around the world as their parents pursued their creative careers. In a 2021 conversation with actress Keira Knightley for Interview magazine, Depp said, “I was one of those kids that had five million things that I wanted to do. I was like, ‘I’m going to be a spy and a princess and a painter and a ballerina and an actor.’ But what’s amazing is that I’m an actor, so I can do all of them for pretend.”

In 2014 Depp entered the entertainment industry herself with a small role in the horror-comedy film Tusk, which also featured her father. The movie was helmed by Kevin Smith, best known for directing Clerks (1994). Depp was invited to participate by Smith’s daughter, her longtime friend, who also appeared in the film. In 2015, at age 16, Depp was chosen by Karl Lagerfeld to be an ambassador for Chanel—a brand her mother had worked closely with since 1990. She then earned costarring parts in Yoga Hosers, another zany Smith comedy, and The Dancer (both 2016), a film about cabaret performer Loie Fuller in which Depp portrays the modern dancer Isadora Duncan. Planetarium, which features Depp and Natalie Portman as a pair of spiritualist sisters, was released in 2016; that same year Depp dropped out of high school to pursue acting full time.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

The King and The Idol

Over the next several years Depp worked on films in the United States and abroad. She appeared in the French-language features L’Homme fidèle (2018; A Faithful Man) and Les Fauves (2019; Savage) as well as the short film Quel joli temps pour jouer ses vingt ans (2019; My Last Lullaby), which earned Depp best actress honors at the Los Angeles Film Awards. Also in 2019 Depp acted alongside Timothée Chalamet in The King, playing the French princess Catherine of Valois opposite Chalamet’s Henry V. During this period she continued modeling, including in commercials for Chanel and in the Self Evident Truths project, an LGBTQ+ campaign to photograph Americans who identify “as anything other than 100% straight.”

A major breakthrough for Depp’s acting career came with her starring role in HBO’s The Idol (2023), a drama cocreated by Canadian singer Abel Tesfaye (better known by his musical moniker The Weeknd) and filmmaker Sam Levinson, the creative lead behind the lauded HBO series Euphoria (2019–26). In The Idol Depp plays Jocelyn, a struggling pop star who becomes entangled with manipulative, sleazy nightclub owner Tedros (Tesfaye). Though The Idol was widely panned as exploitative and shallow, with The Guardian dubbing it “one of the worst programmes ever made,” Depp defended the project and said it helped her expand her skill set as an actress. She learned to sing for the show, and one of its songs, “One of the Girls,” performed by The Weeknd, K-Pop star Jennie, and Depp, reached the Billboard Hot 100.

Nosferatu

In 2024 Depp appeared in Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu as Ellen Hutter, a young woman tormented and nearly possessed by the film’s titular vampire. Depp received positive reviews for her physically demanding performance, a challenge that compelled her, according to The New York Times, “to dance, spasm and convulse” through the film’s action. She had auditioned for the role over a video conference call with Eggers, which, according to the director, brought the director and his creative team to tears. “She was, as she is in the film, incredibly brave, and raw, and powerful,” Eggers told Deadline. “Her ability to tune into this dark and haunted place so quickly is pretty phenomenal.”

Eggers and Depp are set to collaborate again, on Werwulf, another gothic horror film about a fearsome monster, which is expected to be released on Christmas Day, 2026.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

Personal life

Despite—or perhaps because of—growing up in the spotlight, Depp is relatively private regarding her personal life. “I’ve grown up being taught that your private life and your inner life is so precious, and that it really needs to be protected,” Depp said in a 2024 conversation with Natalie Portman for Interview magazine. Despite being the subject of tabloid speculation into her love life since she was a teenager, Depp has only publicly recognized one relationship: her long-term partnership, begun in 2023, with Danielle Balbuena, a rapper who goes by the name 070 Shake.