A digital pioneer at 11, Tavi Gevinson spearheaded the shift from ‘blogging’ to ‘big business’ with her thought-provoking teen magazine and style platform, Rookie. Now a bona fide feminist figurehead, actor and writer, she talks to PORTER about her career milestones and how her starring role in the Gossip Girl reboot is a diversifying move into the mainstream.

Gevinson’s role in the upcoming reboot of Gossip Girl will be her biggest TV role to date. She explains that the show’s mainstream reach was a large part of its appeal: She was lured by “the idea of doing something that I knew people would watch. It’s really exciting to be part of something that will be a splashy pop-culture moment.”

Gevinson will play teacher Kate Keller, who resurrects the show’s eponymous social-media identity as ‘GossipGirl2.0’, in a bid to regain control over her increasingly conceited and power-drunk pupils: “When I first heard about the show, I was like, ‘I can’t play teenagers anymore! I need to at least pretend that I’m an adult. My agent was like: ‘Don’t worry, nobody’s asking you [to do] that.’”

Being part of a show that charts the trials and tribulations of teendom left Gevinson contemplating her own past with newfound perspective: “With Rookie being over, it’s not that I’m necessarily interested in writing or thinking about being a teenager anymore at all. But I am really enjoying being old enough to have the vocabulary to talk about things I experienced when I was younger and that I didn’t totally understand at the time – like I did in the Britney thing.”

“The Britney thing” is Britney Spears Was Never in Control – a viral essay that Gevinson wrote for The Cut in February this year, partly in response to the harrowing New York Times documentary about Spears’s conservatorship: “It’s not something I would have been capable of writing or publishing sooner than I did. But when I saw the documentary; when I saw the way people were talking about it, it activated my desire to respond. It felt larger than my own experience and more about patterns in the way that people treat young women who they want to see as precocious.”

Gevinson has spent more than a decade sharing her thoughts with the world and has learned that: “You can never feel 100% prepared to publish something or know that you’ll feel great once it’s out. But I think you can know that you’ve worked on it as much as you can before it has to go out there. You know, [you] run it through your own filters enough, just going [through it] line by line and making sure everything you say is truthful.”

Gevinson credits a series of mentors for her continued success, including critic Hilton Als, playwright Kenneth Lonergan, and singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks, who has sent her various tokens of friendship over the years, including a blanket, gold Chanel shoes, and “a gold moon necklace that [Nicks] gives to lots of women she takes into her orbit”.  

If Style Rookie had launched 10 years later, it would likely have been an Instagram account instead of a blog. However, Gevinson reflects on her relationship with social media: “[Instagram] makes me feel so bad that I’ve kind of lost interest. I would like to take advantage of the modicum of control I have over my own little page that people might be looking at more, but it’s also a losing battle to try to control people’s responses to anything you do.”

Gevinson has achieved more by the age of 25 than most do at twice her age, she explains her plans for the future: “It’s very daunting to think ahead. All the things I want to make are movies and TV, but that industry totally hinges on changes in technology, which are so unpredictable.” 

In the meantime, Gevinson plans to enjoy her free time as much as possible with the broad people in her New York social circle: “Someone once told me you should always have friends who are 10 years older than you and 10 years younger than you, just to maintain perspective.”

For PORTER’s shoot, Tavi Gevinson was photographed by Jacq Harriet and styled by Natasha Royt, wearing Gucci, Isabel Marant, Gabriela Hearst, Khaite and more. All items can be purchased straight from the shoot via the NET-A-PORTER app, available on Android as well as iPhone and iPad, and through net-a-porter.com.

Interview highlights:

Tavi Gevinson on the appeal of Gossip Girl: She was lured “by the idea of doing something that I knew people would watch. It’s really exciting to be part of something that will be a splashy pop-culture moment.”

Tavi Gevinson on her role as teacher Kate Keller in Gossip Girl: “When I first heard about the show, I was like, ‘I can’t play teenagers anymore! I need to at least pretend that I’m an adult. My agent was like: ‘Don’t worry, nobody’s asking you [to do] that.’”

Tavi Gevinson on contemplating her own past with newfound perspective: “With Rookie being over, it’s not that I’m necessarily interested in writing or thinking about being a teenager anymore at all. But I am really enjoying being old enough to have the vocabulary to talk about things I experienced when I was younger and that I didn’t totally understand at the time – like I did in the Britney thing.”

Tavi Gevinson on her essay, Britney Spears Was Never in Control: “It’s not something I would have been capable of writing or publishing sooner than I did. But when I saw the documentary, when I saw the way people were talking about it, it activated my desire to respond. It felt larger than my own experience and more about patterns in the way that people treat young women who they want to see as precocious.”

Tavi Gevinson on sharing her thoughts and experiences: “You can never feel 100% prepared to publish something or know that you’ll feel great once it’s out. But I think you can know that you’ve worked on it as much as you can before it has to go out there. You know, you run it through your own filters enough, just going through it line by line and making sure everything you say is truthful.”

Tavi Gevinson on just one of the tokens of friendship gifted to her by Stevie Nicks: “A gold moon necklace that [Nicks] gives to lots of women she takes into her orbit”.  

Tavi Gevinson on the community created by Rookie: “When I was going through my stuff I had in storage the other day, finding all of this stuff that Rookie readers gave me and putting together packages of clothes to give to other people, I was like, ‘Man, I’m so glad to feel like I exist in a community of creative people supporting each other. It’s easy to feel self-conscious or stressed out around publishing something or the show coming out, but that community is why I’m able to do what I love.”

Tavi Gevinson on her relationship with social media: “Instagram makes me feel so bad that I’ve kind of lost interest. I would like to take advantage of the modicum of control I have over my own little page that people might be looking at more, but it’s also a losing battle to try to control people’s responses to anything you do.”

Tavi Gevinson on her current approach to style: “I think I’m just trying to not go for the most obvious combinations of things in my closet. I’m trying to have my antenna tuned to whatever actually creates some kind of movement inside of me, rather than my numb robot brain being like: ‘Yes, that looks like something I would wear.’”

Tavi Gevinson on planning for the future: “It’s very daunting to think ahead. All the things I want to make are movies and TV, but that industry totally hinges on changes in technology, which are so unpredictable.” 
Tavi Gevinson on her New York social circle: “Someone once told me you should always have friends who are 10 years older than you and 10 years younger than you, just to maintain perspective.”

To see the full interview, read PORTER at net-a-porter.com and/or download the NET-A-PORTER app for iPhone, iPad and Android.

See also: Phoebe Bridgers on discovering new forms of self-care, songwriting and singing