By now, Teagan Croft knows how to shape-shift. She’s done it since she was a kid – slipping between characters, moving between continents, and coming of age in front of a camera lens. Now, at 20, she’s already played a half-demon superhero, a teenage sailor circumnavigating the globe, and most recently, she’s found herself in the unpredictable rhythm of independent film.
“I've just finished filming two Indie projects,” she tells me, as we find a quiet spot to speak on set after a day of shooting her RUSSH digital cover with Calvin Klein. “I'm really excited about people who are excited to make movies. That energy is transferable. It's palpable! It's shareable.”
Croft is bright, fast-talking and disarmingly spirited. She’s got the soul of someone twice her age, and the humour of someone who doesn’t take herself too seriously. ("Well, I’m 20 years old – we are the children of adults," she laughs.) And aside from a burgeoning acting career, she's also a student, slowly chipping away at an English Lit degree – “with a minor in music theory,” she adds.
“I just really loved reading when I was little. I've always really liked it,” Croft tells me. When I ask about her favourites, she’s quick to cite Wilde: “I really like The Picture of Dorian Gray. I loved Lord Henry. He's so funny. I feel like no one gets him like I do,” she laughs. “I also recently read Wicked. [Gregory] McGuire sets up such a fun background to talk about ethics. I love that.”
“And music is as close as I’ll get to religion,” she adds. “There’s this universal feeling that music has, like a universal emotive code that we all can inherently crack.” Lately, Croft tells me she's been deep-diving into jazz and blues – Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, the gritty magnetism of Chicago blues.
That same curiosity for complex characters and layered worlds extends beyond the page or music note and into Croft’s love of filmmaking. “I think that my ability to empathise with the character in a script is what really draws me to them,” she explains. It’s a process that feels almost instinctual – an emotional tether between herself and the people she portrays. Having stepped into the shoes of both real and fictional figures – whether a comic book favourite like Raven or a famed Aussie figure like Jessica Watson – Croft is no stranger to the task of balancing legacy with reinvention. She understands the responsibility that comes with representing existing characters, but also revels in the freedom of being able to bring something new.
“I really enjoy it when there's a lot of lore to play with for a character,” she says. “What's fun about existing IP is that there’s a weight off your shoulders. I find it more fun to dig into, rather than to build from the ground up.”
One of the elements of world-building for Croft is costume – an ethos she extends to her personal style. For her, fashion is a way to build a persona, channel a mood.
“When I get dressed, it’s like I have two wolves,” Croft says, half-joking. One belongs to the daylight, – “my day wolf" – she explains, “who asks: what would Bill Hitchcock think of my outfit? And also, what would Giancarlo Esposito think of my outfit? And if they'd both approve, then I wear it.” But come nightfall, it’s a different energy entirely. “My femme wolf... she thinks, okay, would Stevie Nicks and Rihanna both wear this? Then I wear it. Period.”
But even as we speak – stripped back to basics in Calvin Klein’s latest shapewear collection and, of course, some of its signature denim pieces for good measure – Croft is the master of balancing between cinematic cool and spellbinding edge. “My canonically favourite jeans brand,” she smiles when I ask her about her relationship to the brand. “It’s super classic. Calvin Klein was the first brand of bra that I ever got. My mum was a loyalist!”
And as for the shapewear? “You know, everything's where it wants to be – and it doesn't move, which is important. I feel snatched. Skin-ty… with a ‘T!” she corrects herself with a laugh. I ask whether comfort plays a big role in getting dressed each day, to which she replies: “Of course! But for me, comfort isn't always physical either. Sometimes I feel most comfortable snatched to the Gods!”
It tracks, really. Whether she’s stepping into character or pulling together an outfit, Croft follows feeling. She’s drawn to whatever moves her — whatever stirs something instinctive. That same intuitive pulse guides her beyond the frame, too. She’s thoughtful about what she puts into the world, but never over-calculated. There's a lightness to her ambition, a kind of gentle defiance against the pressure to plan it all out.
And what of the future? Croft's not rushing. "With acting, my goal is to make people feel against their will. That's my main goal." And when I probe about the message she hopes to impart in her personal life? She grins. "My message would be: everybody chill out."
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