Can the podcast provocateur turnedSuccessionactor go mainstream with a horror film about Jeffrey Epstein?
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Dasha Nekrasovais hungry, and shes not interested in patiently waiting her turn.
So she suggests Fanelli Cafe, the Soho see-and-be-seen stalwart, on the other side of NYU territory.
Hilton Als over there.
Mark Ronson and Chloe Sevigny over there.
Its time, as her PR-strategistSuccessioncharacter might put it, to take Dasha to scale.
Assuming enough of us get the joke.
And assuming there is a joke to get.
I watch you on television!
a man screams when we arrive at Fanelli, as if to prove the up-faming point.
Nekrasova issues a friendly hello, then turns around to tell me its all a joke.
Hes an artist she knows, and shes just playing fake nice.
We both order cheeseburgers and martinis.
The Scary of Sixty-First, which she spent quarantine editing, is a very on-brand project.
Nekrasova plays The Girl, an amphetamine-addicted self-appointed detective searching for the truth behind Epsteins death.
I was probably in the throes of something like mania, to be honest, Nekrasova says.
The movie channeled that mania, that energy, into something productive.
Laughing, she adds, I was having some problems with my medication.
Nekrasova is achild of showbiz.
She was born in 1991 in Minsk, just as the old Soviet Union collapsed.
Her father was an acrobat with the Moscow Circus and her mother a gymnast.
When she was 3, her father got a job with Cirque du Soleil.
I spent a lot of time in greenrooms as a child.
We moved a lot.
I guess you could say thats probably why Im drawn to theotherentertainment industry.
She attended a performing-arts high school in Las Vegas and graduated a year early.
Next was Mills, the private all-girls liberal-arts college, where she majored in philosophy.
She was soon dubbed Sailor Socialism, and John Oliver and others ate it up.
I know people remark on my nonchalance in the clip, she says.
But I think I was really just sublimating a ton of tension and fear.
That same year, NekrasovalaunchedRed Scarewith fellow Russian emigre and Camille Paglia fan Anna Khachiyan.
Nekrasova has very strong beliefs and a solid sense of justice, but shes disdainful of piety.
Lo-fi and abject and Gen-X-y are three descriptors Nekrasova throws out.
We have some bibliophiles in our midst, Nekrasova says archly.
While were sipping our martinis, I ask about her influence on people.
Does she take her responsibility seriously as a sort of informal thought leader for a generation?
She laughs loudly, like Im making a stupid joke.
When I was that age …
Which is part of the thesis ofRed Scare, she says.
Sometimes Im like,Wow, I really spawned a monster.But at least theres an alternative.
Does she have any regrets?
No, no, no.
Its all kind of going according to …
Gods plan, she says.
Shes a practicing Catholic, but with some nihilism thrown in.
Our culture and society is in decline, she says wearily.
Its all interesting even if its depressing and decaying.
Then she quotes Mao: Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.
before impersonating his growl.
I laugh, unsure if shes being sincere or just trying to troll me.
She and Khachiyan dont exactly hold Jones to task on the episode.
Its exactly the kind of cant-help-herself behavior that would surely send herSuccessioncharacter Comfrey into a crisis-management tailspin.
Waiting on a check, Nekrasova stands up, a little abruptly: Do you mind if I go?
As she walks away, two curly-haired, nose-ringed fans stop to say they love her Dasha?!
I actually dont have an HBO subscription, one of them confesses after shes gone.
ButSuccessionis the reason Im looking to steal one from my friends.
The girls behind me cant believe their luck Soho is simply enchanted with stars this afternoon: DashaandKanye?!
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