Model Diaries with Dove Cameron

Model Diaries: Dove Cameron
Dove Cameron is taking her true passion to new heights and writing her own script.

Dove Cameron, is best known for playing a dual role as identical twin sisters in the Disney Channel teen sitcom Liv and Maddie and starring in Descendants with the highly anticipated sequel Descendants 2 coming out in July 2017. With a singing career on the rise, and vocals so compelling, transformative and thrilling, Dove has garnered a wave of recent attention and has been lavishly praised for not only her acting and singing careers but for being authentic, empowering, a role model for girls and unapologetically true to herself. She is 21 years old and about to embark upon perhaps the most exciting stretch of her career—- a document of self-discovery immersed in creativity, honesty and the pursuit of her dreams.

Modeliste: Describe your favorite fan experience.

Dove: Well, okay. I have a lot. I don’t know if I could ever choose one favorite fan experience, and that’s not just me saying that. I have a really cool kind of singular relationship with my fans because it took me forever to even acknowledge the fact that I had fans. That’s so confusing to me. As a human being, you see yourself through all of your stages. I remember what I looked like with braces. I remember who I was in my onsies when I was like four. To think of that human having people who see something different or aspire or whatever, relate to on a massive scale is just strange. It’s definitely not something that I think every human is born feeling. It’s not a natural thing that happens to everybody.

It took me a really long time to sort of get my brain around that and then once I did, it was like I don’t want to have a separation between me and my fans. I want it to be like a friendship. If you see something in me that you relate to and connect with, I probably do too. If I were to get to know you, but there’s so many of you that I can’t really get to know every single one of you.

I have this really friendly give and take with them and the other day I was in New York and I just hit up like four of them, randomly. I was like, “Hey. I know that you guys live in New York. What are you doing tomorrow?” They were like, “Oh, nothing.” We went and we got fries and then we got our nails done. It was just totally spur of the moment. We spent like the whole day together and they picked out my nail polish color. We ordered a lot of fries. It was amazing. Then later, one of those fans actually had me draw a heart and she got it tattooed on her wrist. I thought that that was kind of amazing. Not that I’m condoning that, but it was just so sweet. It was one of the most permanent things that I’ve ever seen and I love that.

Modeliste: What has been your funniest or most memorable red carpet ever?

Dove: See, I’m terrible at a red carpet. I just will never learn. I see all these photos of these girls in red carpets and like, okay I can do that. Then I get on there and I see myself in photo shoots and that person knows how to pose. On a red carpet, I do not know how to pose. I don’t know what happens to me, I think I just get anxious. There’s too much going on. I see the same faces and so sometimes I’ll have conversations with the paparazzi on the red carpet. You get a lot of me being real, like with spit coming out of my mouth, being like “hey!” I haven’t fallen yet. Now that I’ve said that I’m going to fall. Every one is memorable because I just lose my mind on red carpets. I have to embrace the fact that I’m a ridiculous human and they’re all memorable when you’re me.

Modeliste: Who is someone you would love to costar with in the future?

Dove: Wow. My two male actors that I’m obsessed with are Stanley Tucci and David Tennant. I love them so much. I feel like I know them. I’m like a fangirl. I’m obsessed with them. I also love Lee Pace. I fell in love with him during his Pushing Daisies days. That kind of comes fast. Then for women, I love Jessica Lang. Who else do I love? Obviously Meryl Streep. Kristin Chenoweth was my main hero that I really wanted to meet and spend time with. We’ve obviously built a really incredible working relationship. I want to work with her for the rest of my life. It’s a lot.

Modeliste: We heard you’re working on a new singing career. Can you tell us about that and what can we expect for your first single?

Dove: I’m really excited about my music. I have been waiting a long time to be able to do what I think I’m about to do. It’s been my dream and I hate that, “my dream”, but it has. It’s been my dream and part of my goals and part of who I am and my spirit and my bones since I was alive in the world. Having people be like, “Hey do you want to do this? We’ll give you the resources to do this.” and having people be like, “We want to hear it!” is really surreal and awesome. I’m excited. That’s definitely coming. 2017 is going to be a really big year. I can’t speak too much on it, but in terms of my first single, it’s definitely going to be exciting. I think a lot of my fans can anticipate what it’s going to sound like. I think a lot of you can’t. I’m really excited about that, excited to show what the inside of my body is like. That sounded strange. I’m excited to show you what I am on the inside. That’s what it’s going to sound like.

Modeliste: Where do you draw your inspiration from when creating music?

Dove: When I’m creating music, I draw my inspiration from honestly not even experiences. I know that every song writer in the world is like, my personal experiences. I’ve tried to do that, but they all just end up sounding like really ridiculous. They get too wordy. My mother is a poet and my dad was a pianist and so I just get really wordy and I’m like, it’s not exactly how I feel. I just give up on it. I get really angry and I walk away. There’s like pages and pages of me being like, “oh.” I write like, it’s going to sound so lame, but vibes. I write based on whenever I’ve been in the room and I’m like writing with a group, or with somebody else, I’m very sensory. I love really nostalgic feeling songs, songs that can make anyone universally hit that thing in them. We all know what that is. We all know that thing. We all know those feelings and that stuff. That stuff that is like the life energy that we all feel and it can hit us sometimes. We’re like, oh. It’s that breath. I feel like I like to write about that.

You know, it’s like being a human is like being a beam of light. Then, whoever you are that day is just like a different gel over that. Have you ever looked up at a stage and see these lights. They have like a blue gel, or a red gel, or a purple gel and that’s what’s creating the light on stage. That’s what being a human is, right? It’s like we’re all just lights and then it’s like different gels over us. That’s what songwriting is like. It’s like you get a light, get a feeling, and then you just put a different gel over it. You vibe?

Modeliste: How would you describe your everyday style.

Dove: I wear the same pair of jeans and t-shirts and little Adidas sneakers every day with my hair up and some red lipstick. That’s kind of it actually. That’s kind of my style. Or I wear some crazy “costumey” look, like I found it in the back of a thrift store and pair it with huge combat boots. I don’t know. I also like to sort of dress like a big, baggy sweatshirts as dresses.

Modeliste: What is your current handbag?

Dove: I just got a little baby Celine bucket bag that I’m really obsessed with. I never used to be into bags, but now I have. It looks like a little lunch box. You can throw it over your shoulder and also just sit in the side of my car because I stop and go really fast. I’m a crazy driver. It doesn’t fall over. It’s got a very stable bottom to it. I’m practical, you know?

Modeliste: What kinds of accessories do you gravitate towards when putting together an outfit?

Dove: I love chokers. I’m not going to lie. I get mad at myself for how much I like a choker. I gravitate towards, I have like 80 chokers, like so many. I have my “Little” necklace that I wear all the time that Kristin Chenoweth gave me and that’s kind of became my nickname, “Little”. People call me that. Then I obviously I have my bracelet from my boyfriend that I wear all the time with everything.

Modeliste: What are you looking forward to most with summer fashion?

Dove: White, everybody is always all about the white in summer and white is my number one favorite color to wear. I’m looking forward to, I really want huge platform stuff this summer. I’m sort of paying attention to what I want instead of trends. Yeah, I’m feeling like a white bohemian Twiggy vibe for this summer. Lots of platforms and satin ribbons.

Modeliste: What are your three must have beauty products?

Dove: Ooh. I love a thick brow. I love a little boy brow action. I have crazy eyelashes naturally so I used to be obsessed with mascara and I’m not really any more. I prefer sort of a fresher face. I like a little highlight, just like dewiness and maybe. I found this lip liner that is the exact same color as my lips and so if I do a little bit of lip liner, a little bit of highlight, and a little bit of brow. I’ve just woken up from a fairy princess dream. That’s kind of my life goal all the time.

Modeliste: Having been on set with so many different make up artists, what are some tips you’ve taken away to use in your own beauty routine?

Dove: Okay. Listen up. Highlight on the inner corner of the eye. Highlight on the tip of the nose. Highlight on the bow of your lips. That will change your life. Brushing your brows up instead of this way. What else? Oh, my make up artist and I, I’m looking at her right now. She’s like my second mother. What we like to do is take instead of a full eyelash strip because I feel like that closes my eyes and my eyes are fairly big naturally, because of the nature of my face they can just get closed. We’ll cut a lash strip in half and then just do straight from here out and then do a couple individuals here. Then we take the part that we’ve cut off and double layer it to make like a crazy wing. I just changed your life.

Modeliste: What kind of look do you go for when doing your own makeup?

Dove: I’m obsessed with makeup recently. I never used to be a makeup girl at all. I used to be terrible at it. You can travel back in time with me and you can verify. I tend to do everything. On my typical day, I don’t wear any makeup because I’m lazy. Usually my hair is up and back and I’m fresh faced. I like everything. I’ve had a great year so far in 2017 in terms of shoots, crazy variety of hair and makeup. It’s just so fascinating. It’s like art. It’s like wearable art. I do the full range.

Modeliste: What would you like to say to your fans?

Dove: Obviously, thank you for the immense support. Fan and idol relationship is so interesting and singular by nature because it’s taking a stand and saying, “I associate with this person. I align myself with this person. I support them. I follow them.” You have never met me. You might never meet me. That’s something so gorgeous about being a human and the way our society works. I think that that’s one of the most interesting relationships to come out of the way that we work today. It’s like you’re family but you chose me. My way of choosing you back is by being good to you, by giving you what you want, by keeping in communication, by taking your opinions into consideration in terms of what I do, and keeping that lack of wall between us. I can’t describe what it feels like to be on the other side of you guys but it’s one of the biggest blessings in my life. Thank you so much for what you do every day. I love you.

Wardrobe by Giuseppe di Morabito
bedding by Lili Allesandra

Interview by Jill Winkler