Lukita Maxwell is a bit surprised to learn there’s something of an “analog” trend percolating among young people. Paper notebooks, physical books, limited screen time—all those things have always been part of her life.
“I drive a stick shift ’85 BMW, and I’m wearing an analog watch. I love film photography,” Maxwell says, sitting on the floor of her home in Los Angeles, her wooden writing desk—where she makes collages and writes personal essays—visible in the background of her Zoom setup.
Her brow furrows. “Now I’m worried that’s a trendy thing to say.” Then she shrugs.
The 24-year-old actress and multidisciplinary artist, who currently stars in the critically acclaimed Apple TV comedy Shrinking, has recently returned from a trip to Paris, where she attended a dinner at Kenzo Takada’s former home near the Bastille to celebrate the brand’s fall 2026 menswear collection. On Instagram, she posted photos of herself—dressed in an olive green blazer, a white Peter Pan collar peeking out—posed alongside mannequins imprinted with the Kenzo logo.
Her social media bridges the analog and the digital. For her 23rd birthday, Maxwell shared a mood board that included the 2005 Japanese comedy Linda Linda Linda, Nicole Kidman smoking a cigarette at Cannes in 2003, and the pas de deux from the ballet Le Parc (1994), choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj. “I was single when I posted that,” she notes, “so I think that I was manifesting this dreamy, beautiful relationship and movement.” It worked: “I am in a relationship now that feels like that, which is sweet.”
These references come from a lifetime of exposure to art. Ballet, which she began studying at three years old, was her first love; she also played the violin at school. Maxwell’s dad gave her her first camera—“a tiny Olympus digital point-and-shoot”—standing in the garage of her grandpa’s home in St. George, Utah, where the family moved from Bali, Indonesia. (Maxwell was born in Jakarta.) At 10 years old, she remembers being the only kid in her library class who was born outside of the US. “It made me feel very ‘main character energy,’ at that time,” she says with a grin. “I was not uncomfortable, feeling very individualistic and unique.” She credits her mom with that energy—a woman who “did not give a fuck about conventionality.”
In high school, as Maxwell was beginning to discover a love for theater, she started an Instagram account called “analog.diary,” where she’s shared film photos of friends, lovers, and favorite spaces for almost a decade. She took a break from the account when she began acting and auditioning for television roles; there was less space for photography in her life. “I think I was so fixated on how to be an actor, and how the industry wanted me to be an actor, and how it would be easier to be cast in something if I was one thing,” she says.
When she eventually embraced the idea that she could build a career however she wanted—leaping from HBO Max’s teenage drama Generation into work on indie features and shorts (her next project is The Backrooms, an A24 horror movie starring Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor)—the art came back. “In the last couple years, I’ve had such a return to my tangible art forms that I loved to practice when I was younger. Even if I’m not publishing it, even if it’s not out for the world yet, I am just in the daily practice of making my art,” Maxwell says. (She does plan to release a “little zine” of Polaroids with notes from her diaries at some point.)
That return has coexisted with her starring role on Shrinking, which sees Maxwell play Alice, a high schooler grieving the sudden death of her mom and the emotional absence of her dad (Jason Segel), a therapist trying to get his life back together.
In season three, which premieres on January 28, Alice has a fresh perspective on her life as she begins to make decisions about college—and newly bobbed hair to go with it. “There was a lightness to Alice in season three that I wasn’t anticipating,” Maxwell says.
The chop was Maxwell’s call, though she did have to get it approved. “I had been scheming at the end of shooting season two, whenever the producers would walk on a set, [I was] like, ‘It’d be crazy if Alice had a haircut in season three, right?’” she says. “Then literally, on the last day, we wrapped season two and I went into the hair and makeup trailer and our wonderful hair artist gave me a chop. [The producers] were like, ‘It makes sense for the character. She’s growing up a little bit. She’s a teenage girl; of course she’s going to want to change up her look.’”
But then Maxwell took things a step further, bleaching her brows and bangs when season three wrapped. As we speak, her hair is pinned back with little silver clips, suiting the schoolgirl-inspired petticoats, leather satchels, and structured blazers that have recently characterized her style. “I got bangs, loved them, and then decided it wasn’t right for Alice,” she explains, a little ruefully. “[When] we go back for another season, hopefully they’ve grown out in time.” It’s a process, of course—but she’s good at taking things as they come.