‘Fame is the worst thing for us as humans’: Naomi Scott on scream queens, Disney princesses and finding her own voice | culture

WWhen Naomi Scott was 27, she suffered what she now refers to as a “quarter-life crisis.” She had been working as an actress since she was a teenager, trading bit parts in advertisements for plum roles in high-profile Disney TV shows and big-budget Hollywood films including Aladdin (she played Princess Jasmine) and a remake of Charlie’s Angels produced by Elizabeth Banks. She had also married young, having met her husband, former professional footballer Jordan Spence, at her local church in east London. She worried that the path she was on was already set in stone, and felt frustrated, as if she hadn’t “grieved for the other versions of my life,” as the now 32-year-old put it. It turns out that part of that process was returning to her first love: music.

“I felt I had to go back to basics, to a childish writing process,” she explains, sipping black coffee in a spacious, sparsely decorated café in Hackney, east London, her pale red hair contrasting with the beige background. “I’m just a 14-year-old piano player, and I let whatever comes naturally. That’s what I did.” Music was always in her orbit, whether it was singing in a church choir or later working with the crazy pop production house Xenomania. However, somewhere along the way, acting took over.

The result of this refocusing is Scott’s debut album, FIG, the title of which, which stands for Falling Into Grace, is also linked to this sense of exploration; Grace, Scott’s middle name, becomes a kind of alter ego allowing her to express “this version of yourself that you wish you had more of.” Musically, the album is a sophisticated blend of R&B, new wave, and a soft focus on alternative pop influenced by 1990s Peter Gabriel and Janet Jackson, as well as Jesse Ware and Dave Hynes. The latter, who was supported by Scott at north London’s Alexandra Palace last year, adds production to album track Cut Me Loose, helping to wrap a song about paranoia and self-sabotage in a silk cocoon. “Dave is my north star,” Scott says enthusiastically. “He’s written many classic pop songs, but the way they’re presented is even more interesting.”

FIG started in 2022 and has worked intermittently between Los Angeles and Norway with producer Lido (Halsey, Mariah Carey). During its creation, Scott combined singing and acting with a starring role in the 2024 hit horror sequel Smile 2, playing the troubled fictional pop star Skye Riley, whom Scott proudly describes as a “motherfucker” who “doesn’t give a fuck.” On a journey back from the death of her boyfriend, Riley must deal with drug addiction and the more pressing truth that she has been cursed to see extremely bloody and traumatic visions. “It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it was so rewarding,” Scott says of the role, where her committed performance earned her critical acclaim and her status as the new “Goosebumps Queen.”

Musically and visually, Riley You remember both Lady Gaga and Britney Spears, and it would be easy to assume that any lateral move into music would be modeled after her personality. However, Scott was keen to do things on her terms. “I went through the whole process: Why do I want to play music? What does it look like in this climate? Where do I fit in? What are my priorities and what does success look like for me? Because of that, everything has become more DIY.” The surreal video for recent single “Losing You” is a case in point. It looks as if it was filmed using a phone in selfie mode, and shows a frantic Scott wiping away tears using a turtle’s back before charging herself to her long-distance love inside a wheelie bag.

“I think there are some people who want to turn me on to different things,” she continues. “But I’m a girl in progress right now. And I wanted the whole world around the album to feel that way too. It’s not too polished.” Although she looks forward to “building a bigger world, fun experiences involving modeling and choreography” in the future, she knows there is work to do. “It takes honing your voice, finding the right collaborators, and experience,” she adds, before taking a somewhat circular route back to the topic at hand (she will apologize for this compulsion throughout our interview). “I can’t walk in through the side door and be like this [fully fledged pop star]Because there is no substance underneath it.”

Having worked in Hollywood for more than a decade and seeing first-hand the pressure of the spotlight, Scott is also not too keen on being famous on Gaga’s level. “I think fame is one of the worst things for us as human beings.” she says over a shared slice of banana bread. “The way we so easily talk about famous people, we talk about people as if we knew them, as if we knew anything about them, and we create narratives around them and completely dehumanize them.” She puts down her fork, sits up straight, and gets serious. “Imagine you have a camera. So now you’re consciously thinking about yourself. Then you hear that everyone has been saying things about the way you act, so maybe now you do less. But then they say: ‘Oh, you’ve changed.’ You definitely can’t win, you know?

Scott credits her parents with helping her keep her feet on the ground as her career moves toward fame. Her mother and father still worked at the local church, but “there weren’t those weird expectations of me that I think a lot of other ministers’ kids went through.” Her early stars were Christian pop stars like Stassie Orrico (“A girl of faith, but still hot,” she smiles) and Rachel Lamba, though she recalls one particular moment with Britney and her self-titled third album in 2001. “I begged my mom, ‘Please buy me the CD, please buy me the CD,’” she laughs, “and then I quickly walked up to my mom to put it on, and suddenly I, the slave, exploded. “My mom was like, ‘Oh my God.’”

However, it was Alicia Keys’ song, “If I Don’t Get You,” that proved crucial to Scott’s career after she performed it during Sunday mass. Among the devotees was former Eternal star Kelly Bryan, who immediately saw something in the teenage Scott and signed her to her theater agency. From there, Scott was cast in ads for Coca-Cola and Nintendo Wii, while another audition put her opposite Brian Higgins and Miranda Cooper of Xenomania, who have created hits for Girls Aloud and Sugababes. Scott often commuted to their hometown of Kent to hone her songwriting skills, which came in handy in later years during various songwriting camps in Los Angeles. “I learned a lot, but I definitely came away with this inauthentic experience because the song could be hers, or hers, or hers…” she says of those camps that singer-songwriters rent.

Although music has always been around, Scott says she fell into acting almost by accident. After landing a role in the Disney show Life Bites at the age of 15, she was then cast in the channel’s musical television movie Lemonade Mouth, alongside Bridget Mendler. Her role as the Pink Ranger in the 2017 big-budget Power Rangers film put her on Hollywood’s radar, a move cemented after Guy Ritchie cast her in the role of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin. The announcement sparked controversy, with some seeing the casting – Scott is of mixed British and Indian descent – as evidence of Hollywood’s conflation of South Asian and Middle Eastern people. Scott says the backlash ended very quickly. “Once I started filming, once the film came out, it never came into my life [world]“I’m sure people are talking about it and feeling what they want to feel,” she says.

Despite Aladdin’s commercial success — it grossed more than $1 billion and was the ninth biggest film of 2019 — Scott says her life hasn’t really changed. Fortunately, fame remained elusive. “I’m so lucky that the people who come to me are black girls between the ages of 15 and 30. I have the best demographic of people. We just chat and it’s the most beautiful.” Most people want to talk about Lemonade Mouth or Smile 2, she says. “Not even because of the jasmine.”

Her penchant for acting in films that also involve singing means her Spotify artist page is a mess, with her most played songs ranging from Jasmine’s A Whole New World to Skye Riley’s New Brain and various Powerpop songs from Lemonade Mouth. “We need to talk to them about that,” Scott laughs. “Mix that up a little. Because that’s not me.” The identity of the “I” will be made clear in the FIG, and the music that will follow. After working to figure it all out for the past five years, Scott is closer to the answer.

“This is mine,” she says of the album. “When you act, you’re really like a color in a painting being used, whether it’s by the filmmaker or the editor. And with music, you’re the artist yourself. You’re the painter.”

The figure is running March 20 On changing the music.