Written by Leslye Headland and directed by Trip Cullman, Cult of Love (running at the Helen Hayes Theater through February 2) is a play made for anyone who tends to disagree that this is the most wonderful time of the year. Together, its ensemble of top-flight actors, including Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Mare Winningham, David Rasche, and Barbie Ferreira, forms a kooky family barreling toward a festive, collective meltdown.
The Dahls, like any good Christian family, have a tradition of being home for the holidays, and this year is no exception. We meet the clan and their plus-ones on Christmas Eve, in a picture-perfect home complete with a big tree, twinkling lights, and figgy pudding. However, the four Dahl children—now adults with jobs, lives, and, in some cases, families of their own—have vastly different relationships to their faith. Mark (Quinto), the eldest, attended Yale’s divinity school before pivoting to a career in law. Evie, who has recently married another woman, is contemptuous of a religion that doesn’t hold space for her identity. (A semi-autobiographical character for Headland, Evie played by Headland’s real-life wife, Rebecca Henderson.) Johnny (Christopher Sears) is a recovering addict—though his mother will vehemently deny it—while Diana (Woodley), the blithely outspoken youngest of the four, is happily married to a doting priest.
Grown up as they may be, with their overlapping dialogue and whispered offhand remarks, the Dahl kids wear their childhood wounds on their sleeves, even as the family spontaneously bursts into song. Serving as the audience’s stand-in is Loren (Ferreira), a young woman Johnny is sponsoring in Narcotics Anonymous. A complete outsider to the family, she is puzzled by the Dahls—and unafraid to ask blunt questions.
Ferreira, who starred as Kat Hernandez on the first two seasons of HBO’s Euphoria, hadn’t done live theater in years when she took on the part—yet she wasn’t scared off by the challenge. “It was so nerve-wracking and I love things that challenge me,” she says.
Vogue spoke to the New York native about returning to her home turf, joining Cult of Love’s strange and sprawling family, and how she likes to spend her time offstage. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Vogue: Tell me about how you came to Cult of Love. Were you familiar with Leslye Headland’s previous work?
Barbie Ferreira: I love Leslye. Russian Doll! I’d heard so many great things about her and when I got the script, I was in a place where I was doing a lot of indie movies and producing them. But then I got this opportunity, and it was something I hadn’t even planned to do, but it was so wonderful and the script was so good. Meeting Leslye and Trip, it just all clicked, and I was like, Oh my gosh, okay. I’m gonna try my hand at the stage.
What were your first impressions when you read the script?
For me, what really stood out was just how accurate it was to people that I love and the way their family dynamics are. I’ve been the outsider in a dynamic like that, where I’ve walked in, and I’m Brazilian, and there’s this American Christianity kind of passive-aggressiveness and politeness. So when I read it, it was so real. Especially my character, who is not part of the Dahl family and is an outsider experiencing it—I felt really connected to that, because I’ve been in situations where I feel like everything I said was wrong. Leslye writes from her heart, and [the script] is based a lot on her upbringing, and those tend to be the scripts I gravitate toward because they feel emotional and truthful. So reading it was absolutely wonderful. I laughed. I cried. I was blown away. She’s such a wonderful writer.
I read that growing up, you did some local theater. What has it felt like to be back on the stage as opposed to screen acting?
Yeah, I was a little theater kid. It was low-pressure. This is obviously completely different—this is Broadway [laughs]. I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never done a professional play. So for me, it was so nerve wracking. But I love things that challenge me. I feel like whenever I’m put in a position where I have to learn rapidly and fail and pick myself up and rise to the occasion, I always do my best work. I felt like I was out of my element, and that was really inspiring. It’s an ensemble, so no one can be the weak link, and I was really scared of being the weak link. But with the cast and Trip and Leslye, it was a master class on acting and they really helped me get there with lots of love and amazing direction.
When I first saw the casting announcement for this show, I was awed by what a stacked cast it is. Did you feel mentored by the other actors with more stage experience?
One hundred percent. It’s such a large age range, large experience range, and I’m the baby of the cast, so there is a little bit of leeway there. Everyone was very kind to me and very caring and really allowed me to have that learning curve that I needed. But it was incredible. I mean, I get to watch Mare Winningham and Zachary Quinto and Molly Bernard—it’s insane. Just being in that room and having to be part of the scene and adjust the way that I act so that I can meet everyone’s energy was so cool.
This play touches on everything from religion to mental illness, addiction, and aging. During rehearsals, did you end up having conversations about your own relationships to those topics?
Absolutely. I mean, during the rehearsal process, we were working together six days a week. So we got to really become a family—or a cult of love, I guess. You get to hear everyone’s experience, which I found so cool because in my experience, when you’re in film and TV, you don’t really get that. You don’t get a month of rehearsal. You don’t get to workshop the script. So we got to really explore each other’s minds and talk. It’s so great because on stage, it’s really about the acting. We spent hours and hours talking about our experiences and what our characters mean to us and how we want to bring them to life. And we actually spent a lot of time together after rehearsal—we’d all go out.
So I can confidently say that we all have empathy towards these characters that may or may not deserve it. That’s really important with Leslye. She kept saying, “We are not trying to judge any of these characters.” Bringing humanity to characters that are so flawed and so hateable sometimes and so lovable other times is important. Trip always says, “When in doubt, deepen.” And it’s really about deepening the experience with each other and with our characters.
Towards the end of the show, there’s a scene where Zachary Quinto’s character Mark asks Loren what her biggest problem is with God. She responds that God has always been pitched to her as a sort of solution to the human condition. What’s your own relationship with faith?
I grew up kind of Catholic, kind of not. “New York Catholic,” as my friend calls it—it’s where you go to church sometimes, but we don’t adhere to a lot of the rules. So what really spoke to me about that scene was that it makes a great case for religion. People who are a little bit more cynical about life can brush off the pros to religion, and the idea of a life outside of ourselves.
I think it is a great case for loving God, but also perhaps why loving God is not easy—or even impossible—for some people. For someone like Loren, if she did believe in a god, what would that mean for her addiction, for her mental health, and for her relationships? Her life could be so much easier, and yet there’s a part of her that can’t. And I’m not a particularly religious person, but that scene always chokes me up a bit, because it’s [about] the plight of humanity. We need something bigger than ourselves to function. It’s just two broken people talking to each other about what could be, and that is what is so special about the scene.
You’re originally from New York. What has it been like being back? Do you have any favorite things to do when you’re not working?
Oh my gosh, this is the first time I’ve been back in New York in a substantial way. I’ve been seeing my mom a lot, and my grandma’s here—she lives in Brazil, but she came to visit. So I’ve been at my mom’s house. I’ve been seeing people that I’ve been friends with for over 10 years. We hang out every time I have time off. It’s been crazy. I’ve been seeing people from high school. My first drama teacher came to see the play.
That’s so sweet!
It’s so fun. Now that I’m here for some time, I get to actually spend time with the people that I love in New York—and most people that I love are here, they’re not in LA. Usually I’m alone or I’m in some random city shooting a movie, so it’s cool that now on my days off, I can go see my mommy and she can make me food. Being taken care of in that way has been really amazing.