Introducing In Focus, a month-to-month characteristic the place we flip the digital camera on the next-gen expertise making waves throughout leisure and trend.
For the final 4 years, Madison Bailey has cemented her standing amongst younger Hollywood elite whereas enjoying the loveable, headstrong Kiara “Kie” Carrera, a central member to a scrappy solid of ruffians often called the Pogues within the Netflix megahit Outer Banks. However the 25-year-old is aware of she will be able to’t treasure-hunt on the North Carolina coast ceaselessly. With a fifth season hanging within the steadiness, the actress has her sights on her subsequent act: music.
“I’ve excessive hopes this is not the final for this sequence,” Bailey admits throughout our interview whereas selling Outer Banks‘ fourth season. She’s most likely proper. The present did amass a formidable 15.5 million views inside a couple of days of half one dropping (half two premieres on November 7), so indicators are pointing to extra rugged adventures forward. In comparison with the length of different fashionable teen dramas—assume Gossip Lady, Riverdale, and Vampire Diaries—OBX has solely reached its half life at this stage, however as its solid of promising 20-somethings will get older and extra desirous to develop their careers, the present may very well be at a crossroad. “I simply hope we now have the time to know it will be our final season and actually soak in these moments. Everyone knows we’ll be in one another’s lives in the long term,” Bailey says.
The solid—which additionally contains Chase Stokes, Madelyn Cline, Rudy Pankow, J.D., and Carlacia Grant—shares a novel bond. All relative newcomers in the beginning of the sequence, they skilled a fast ascent to stardom. Out of the blue, a legion of followers have been considering them. It is a unusual expertise for anybody, however they’d one another. There are group chats, shared TikTok algorithms, and a deep understanding that none of their lives are regular. “There’s loads that runs by your thoughts, being within the highlight and being within the trade. Once you get with people who find themselves in it, you’ll be able to have these open conversations, and it is very a lot wanted,” Bailey says.
For her subsequent mission, Bailey is not straying removed from dwelling, i.e., Netflix. Simply in time for Halloween, she is starring within the streamer’s time-traveling horror movie Time Minimize alongside Ginny & Georgia‘s Antonia Gentry. The film follows Bailey’s Lucy Discipline as she tracks down her sister’s masked killer days earlier than her homicide greater than 20 years earlier. There are few younger ladies, not to mention Black ladies, who’ve been welcomed into the open arms of the Netflix cinematic universe like Bailey and Gentry. Their time collectively on set may very well be emotionally taxing relying on the day. Bailey jokes, “The one individuals that really perceive are the individuals which might be going by it.”
Between simultaneous press excursions for OBX and Time Minimize and wrapping a soon-to-be-announced mission, Bailey is virtually penciling in her life by the minute. To say she’s busy is an understatement. Throughout our name, she provides me a peek at her planner to point out me her week forward, and it is sufficient to provide any sort B individual a coronary heart assault. “Have a look at how insane this appears to be like,” she says, holding the color-coded agenda with scribbled handwriting as much as the display screen. There’s a lot to do and such little time, however in some way, she’s including extra. In the meanwhile, her focus is on her most private and grounding mission to this point—her burgeoning music profession.
Bailey has hung out secretly within the recording studio with a bunch of trusted songwriters and producers honing her sound. Her first single, “The Gray,” got here out on the finish of September, marking an thrilling and long-overdue enterprise for the actress. Over early 2000s–impressed chords, she sings concerning the empowering feeling that comes with residing in two worlds and standing in her energy.
For Bailey, a lot of the attraction of coming into this course of was that there was no framework. There is not an expectation for her to rapidly launch a extremely anticipated album for her followers. There are not any sale or label pressures (but!) from her newly signed Roc Nation group. She’s releasing music on her phrases. “It is a lot much less scary than I assumed it was going to be,” she explains. Bailey has been sitting on “The Gray” for a bit of beneath a 12 months, ready for the appropriate time to launch it. “It is such a aid that it is on the market. … It is such a full-circle second for me,” she provides.
Earlier than performing was even a glimmer in Bailey’s eye, she dreamed of being a singer. Music was her old flame. Her dad and mom performed rock and jazz rising up, paving the best way for a nostalgia-inspired, basic musical upbringing. After an amazing bout of stage fright in her adolescent years, Bailey rapidly pivoted to performing and modeling on the age of 14. Regardless of the anxiousness surrounding stay performances, she nonetheless sang to herself in her bed room, tucked away from the prying eyes of practically everybody she knew. Whereas there are a few grainy movies of Bailey singing covers circulating the web, she says singing to strangers is the following step in cementing herself as an artist. After I ask if there is a risk for a present, she’s bluntly self-aware: “I do actually hope to carry out it and share it with individuals … when there’s a couple of tune to carry out,” she jokes. “It will be like ‘Annnnddd let’s take it from the highest!’ again and again.” For the file, there will be a full setlist sooner or later. Bailey’s nonetheless cooking up within the studio and plans to launch extra singles in due time.
Bailey’s determination to make music comes from a deep need to lastly pursue what she’s wished all alongside, even when nobody would have listened within the first place. However hear they did. As of publishing, “The Gray” has over half one million streams.”I used to be simply terrified of everybody telling me it sucked so unhealthy, which, like, I can take it,” she says, laughing. The validation from different individuals is not why Bailey is doing it—it is to fill the cup of her youthful self. “If different individuals like it, that is wonderful, and if it does not imply as a lot to different individuals, that is okay,” she says.
Bailey is standing in her fact, even when her voice shakes. She’s been down the street of public notion with Outer Banks however by no means with one thing as sacred to her as her music, and her followers have been nothing however supportive in the case of “The Gray.” Whereas scrolling by the feedback on her newest TikTok movies selling the tune, nonetheless, I am struck by one thing a bit odd: They’re all full of feedback concerning the character, Kiara, and never the individual really doing the craft, Madison. “[OBX] has been the vast majority of my profession. That is what [my fans] know me for. They love the present, and so do I,” she says, nodding to the feedback. It is onerous to not learn them when your For You web page is full of Poguelandia from high to backside. “As I develop as an artist and there is extra music on the market, individuals will have the ability to join with that, and I can share extra of myself as nicely,” she explains.
At occasions, it is onerous to consider {that a} career-defining character is not going to outlive and outshine an actor ceaselessly—particularly when interacting with devoted followers on the web. (For instance, Daniel Radcliffe, a Tony Award–successful singer and actor, continues to be known as Harry Potter by the vast majority of the general public.) How do you step into your future with out letting go of your previous? It will take time for individuals to look previous Kiara and see her, Bailey admits, however she’s right here for the journey. “I am an actor, and I’ve at all times been promoted as an actor. Now, I am actually placing myself on the market differently,” she says. “I am a singer, and I am now determining the artist of all of it.”
Expertise: Madison Bailey
Photographer: Joelle Grace Taylor
Stylist: Ashley Furnival, Ahead Artists
Editorial Director: Lauren Eggertsen
Hairstylist: Miles Jeffries, The Wall Group
Make-up Artist: Kendal Fedail, Ahead Artists
Manicurist: Kimmie Kyees, The Wall Group
Director of Video: Samuel Schultz
DP: Kyle Hartman
Gaffer: Andy Trimbach
Sound: Bobby Vonghom
Artistic Director: Amy Armani
Government Director of Leisure: Jessica Baker
Producer: Erin Corbett
Designer: Ally Quirk
