BURBERRY top, ANA KHOURI ear cuff, and talent’s own earrings and necklace. — **BURBERRY** top, **ANA KHOURI** ear cuff, and talent’s own earrings and necklace.

Chase Sui Wonders hails from the suburbs of Detroit, and, since she was a child, has always seen her creativity as a safe space—writing, directing, and starring in her own films as a teen. Wonders plays Riley in Lena Dunham’s 2021 HBO comedy-drama Genera+ion. Acting alongside recent Flaunt alum, Justice Smith, Wonders personifies a popular student and budding photographer, endeavoring through a hidden relationship with anxiety.

Wonders studied film at Harvard University, working at the Harvard Lampoon and starring in theater plays, writing, and directing the feature-length film, Last Migration, as well as modeling for Calvin Klein’s 2017 underwear campaign. In 2020, Wonders guest-starred on the HBO series, Betty, and appeared in the film Daniel Isn’t Real, which influenced Sofia Coppola to cast her in her Bill Murray-led film, On The Rocks. Now, Wonders is on set for the upcoming A24 slasher film, Bodies Bodies Bodies, acting alongside Pete Davidson, Myha’la Herrold, Amandla Stenberg, Rachel Sennott, and Maria Bakalova. Wonders was sweet enough to take a break from her non-stop filming schedule to field a few of our queries.

GUCCI jacket, top, and pants and BVLGARI earrings. — **GUCCI** jacket, top, and pants and **BVLGARI** earrings.

Where do you hope to see change in the world?

I hope we spend more time trying to understand ourselves and our own mental movements so that when we connect with others, we connect with more possibility and more patience.

What is your most prized possession and why?

My notebooks. They are filled with what look like pages of incoherent chicken scratch and doodles but they contain the most personal machinations of my mind.

What was the last cheesy thing you witnessed that made you cry?

I saw a mother and her adorable gaggle of children giggling with each other for an entire city block in Nolita the other day. Instant tears.

Ideal shoot location?

I’d love to shoot a road movie in the American southwest. Death Valley or New Mexico. The landscape is so dramatic out there.

Where do you go, mentally, physically, or otherwise, that brings you solace?

I like running. It taps into this flow state for me where my mind can wander on a healthy plane—where endorphins are pumping and everything seems coated in a thick layer of optimism.

Which meal or food do you find the most nostalgic and why?

Sausage, egg, and cheese from Einstein’s in Detroit—that was a Saturday morning ritual for my mom and my three siblings and probably was the one of the only senses of order we had in my household.

If you weren’t acting, what would be your professional pursuit and why?

A sci-fi or caper novelist. Writing was the perfect escapism for me when I was little, and I write film and TV now, but I always romanticized the mole-person lifestyle of a career novelist. A while back, I found a stack of my dad’s old Elmore Leonard and Isaac Asimov books and got hooked.

What is your favorite on-camera scene you’ve been a part of? How come?

There is this chaotic party scene in the movie I just shot where the camera was totally unchained and liable to focus on anything. The scripted lines were entirely tertiary. All the actors matched each other’s madness—it was liberating.

What is a phrase you often find repeating to yourself?

“Are you gonna regret this?…Nah.”

Photographer: Christopher Schoonover
Stylist: Chloe Hartstein
Hair: Gita Bass at The Wall Group
Makeup: Bobby Eliot at The Wall Group
Written by: Constanza Falco Raez