Demi Singleton on Ghosts, The Power of Reading, and Her Monster High Fashion Influences

Demi Singleton may be a few months shy of her 18th birthday, but already, the actor has the résumé of a seasoned professional. Before the age of 5, she was training in classical ballet and mastering the cello. At 7, she was singing in the children’s choir and studying the Suzuki method at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. By the age of 10, she was performing on Broadway, first in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock and then as young Nala in The Lion King. Then there was her breakout role four years later when she starred as Serena Williams in the biopic King Richard, for which she earned her first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Her first major fashion campaign with Miu Miu came shortly thereafter, followed by a global ambassadorship with Room to Read and her very own book club with Fable called Black Girl Covers. We’d ask if there’s anything Singleton can’t do, but the answer is obvious.

“I always knew I was going to be a performer my entire life,” she tells us over Zoom from her bedroom in Los Angeles. It’s true. From the moment she could walk, Singleton has been entertaining people in various forms, catching the attention of friends and family members, notable directors, and designers alike.

Earlier this spring, we spoke with the New Orleans–born, New York–raised star following the Miu Miu F/W 24 show in Paris, but with her role in the new Lee Daniels movie out this month, we promptly scheduled a second catch-up with the actor.

Ahead, we talk to Singleton about stepping into a new genre for the horror thriller The Deliverance, helping children around the globe develop literacy skills, the importance of amplifying Black authors, and the cartoon characters that inspired her love of fashion at an early age.

Tell me about the opportunity to work with Academy Award–nominated director Lee Daniels. What does it mean to you, and what do you love about his approach to filmmaking?

Aside from the fact that he’s literally a Hollywood legend, what I love most is that he leaves room for his actors to play around. Of course, if we ever steered too far away, he’s there to throttle us back and make sure everything is where it should be. But that’s what I love the most—he loves to play around and loves to try different things. As an actress, those types of directors are my favorite, the kind that let you run with your character and do your research and bring what you know to the table. Aside from him being an amazing director, he’s just genuinely an amazing person, and I learned a lot from him as a creative. If anyone has the opportunity to work with him, I think you should take it. He’s one of the kindest and most playful people I’ve ever met.

What about The Deliverance really interested you in terms of the performance?

What drew me into this project the most was [that] it’s a horror film. Up until then, I had never been in a horror film, so it was all about stepping into a new genre and testing my abilities as an actress. That’s something I’m constantly looking for is projects that stretch my abilities and test my limits because I think that’s the best way to grow as a performer. Also, the fact that it’s based on a true story—or an alleged story—was something that really intrigued me as well. That’s a common theme across all of the projects I’ve been in. They’ve mostly all been based on real stories, which is really interesting, and that’s done on purpose. I have a big love for history and telling history in the right way.

What of your own experiences could you bring to the role of Shante?

Shante is the only girl child in the Jackson family, and she is the middle child. I’m the oldest sibling, so the way I approached that was talking to my younger sister. She’s 13 now. I would ask her things like, How would you go about dealing with a situation like this? How do you feel being the middle child? I know and have heard not only from my sister but so many other middle children that there is this very common dynamic that exists when there are more than two children. It was really interesting getting to dive into that.

When you think deeper into the story, the family is moving to a new house, and the reason they are moving there is to start over. Ebony is recently separated from Shante’s dad, so for Shante, there’s definitely some work that she’s doing to fill this hole. She’s getting adjusted to a new life while also dealing with her very toxic and almost estranged relationship with her mother and her dad not being there anymore. She’s a teenager, so there’s also going to be that teenage angst. There are all those layers playing into the character, so the best way to approach it was to really put myself in her shoes. How would I feel in this situation? That was all really helpful in portraying Shante as authentically as I could.

Do you believe in supernatural/paranormal events?

I do. I try to tell myself in certain moments that it’s not real, but I do believe in it. I believe in ghosts. I believe everything that has to do with the supernatural. I have never seen anything in real life, but who’s to say it’s not there?

The cast of this film is phenomenal. You have Glenn Close, Andra Day, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and Mo’Nique. How did that help elevate your performance?

Our film is led by incredible women, incredible actresses who I have looked up to for a really long time. As an actress or a performer in general, when you are in a room with people who are so great at what they do, it pushes you to want to show up and bring your all every single time. Every time I saw them, I was like, “Wow, I need to step my game up.” It definitely made me want to be better.

One of the most valuable moments that I had on set or one of my favorite scenes to film was probably the scene when Glenn Close is doing Andra Day’s hair and Andra is doing my hair. It’s the three of us sitting and watching, I think, Valley of the Dolls, and it’s us reciting the script as we’re watching it. It was so fun to film. Watching it back on the day, I thought it was so beautiful. This is such a common experience, especially within the Black community. I remember growing up and sitting between my mom’s legs while she braided my hair. It was such a fun scene to film, but I also know that other young girls or other people of color in general are going to watch and be able to see themselves in that moment. That was a very beautiful scene.

Even off camera, we just had the best time. There is another moment. It was summer 2022 when we filmed this, and Beyoncé’s album Renaissance had just come out. It was right when “Break My Soul” came out, and someone was blasting it. I stepped out of my trailer, and it was Aunjanue in her car. She gets out, and we start dancing. We really were a family and had the best time. What we were working with was such a heavy subject matter, but you wouldn’t be able to tell had you seen us on set because we had the best time.

You are a Room to Read global ambassador. Can you talk a little about the organization and why it’s so important to you personally?

As an actor, I can’t imagine what it would be like to not have access to education and not have the ability to read. Of course, I need to know how to read to learn my lines, but I also feel like, without that ability, it would be so hard for me to analyze my character and think deeply about the decisions I’m making when acting. The reason I wanted to partner with Room to Read is because they have been doing amazing work globally with bringing books and creating programs for young children all around the world so they can have the same opportunities as people who are fortunate enough to receive a great education where they are taught to read. It was really important for me to join that because I’m very passionate about helping others, and I think that’s the best way I could.

I love to read, and I can’t imagine what life would be like if I wasn’t able to pick up a book and read. One of my favorite things to do in my downtime is read. It allows me to escape my own personal world and what I have going on and step into someone else’s. It allows me to stop thinking about whatever is stressing me out and put my mind on something else. Without that form of relaxation, I don’t know what I would do.

You also started your own book club with Fable called Black Girl Covers.

When I created the book club, I was initially doing it—and still am—to find a community of like-minded individuals who have the same passion for literature that I do. My biggest goal was to create a community for people like me, people who are a minority, to find a space where they can feel seen or heard. Growing up in school, a lot of the books we had to read were by white authors and had white protagonists, so it was really hard for me to imagine myself in those characters’ shoes. It was hard for me to relate. It made reading those books less enjoyable because it was like, “I would never be in this position. I would never be able to relate to this, so why would I want to read this?” The reason I started [Black Girl Covers] was so that people who have the same experience that I did could have the opportunity to relate to the characters they are reading and to bring more attention to these authors and to these books. … These books do exist, and these stories exist, and they are important, and they do matter. I’m so grateful because I found a community but also a source of inspiration. To this day, it continues to shape the way I see the world and my identity as a person, and this community has taught me the power of representation and the importance of authentic storytelling and the necessity of creating a space where Black voices are not only heard but are celebrated.

Do you have any aspirations to adapt books in the future?

I do. That is definitely something I have thought about recently. I think it would be a really fun project to do, to join together two of my most favorite things.

You strike me as someone who has a lot of fun with fashion. Who were some of your early influences when it came to style?

This is going to sound insane, but when I was in elementary school, some of my favorite “fashion icons” were cartoon characters. I used to love watching Monster High, and there was another show called Ever After High, which was basically Monster High but if they were the daughters of princesses. I was obsessed with that whole modern twist on princess, royal-esque fashion. Those were some of my earliest influences, specifically Clawdeen Wolf from Monster High. Love her.

When I was in second grade, my mom bought me a pair of light-up Skechers that went up to my knee. They were almost like Converse. I had a uniform at my school, but whenever we had dress-down days or free-dress days, I immediately ran to those shoes. I think what drew me to them was that they were just so fun. They were like nothing I had seen before. Those shoes were my favorite shoes up until I couldn’t wear them anymore.

[The] people I looked up to and still look up to are ’90s supermodels, like Naomi [Campbell] and Kate Moss and Cindy Crawford. I’m so obsessed with that “’90s supermodel off duty” fashion look right now. I’ve been obsessed with it since I was 14. But also, I just dress however I feel. I can also dress like a girl from Paris and a girl in very baggy streetwear. I don’t need to put myself in a box with how I dress.

You’ve been working with Miu Miu for a few years now. How has that relationship impacted how you think about fashion and your own personal style?

What I love most about Miu Miu as a brand is all of their clothes are very chic and very youthful and very joyful but still at the same time very high fashion. Every piece I’ve worn by Miu Miu, I can see it styled 100 different ways. It’s very versatile. I think that’s everything Miu Miu stands for—being yourself, being playful, and having fun while still, of course, looking amazing.

The Deliverance is now streaming on Netflix.