Rae hopes people give her a chance as an actor
TikTok star known for her dance clips makes film debut
For her 16th birthday, Addison Rae was gifted a trip to Los Angeles. Money was tight, with the family subsisting off of her father’s salary as a trailer home salesman in Louisiana. So when the teen’s mother agreed to the trip, she did it on the cheap, booking a room in Bakersfield — 111 miles from the city.
Each morning, mother and daughter would awake at 4 a.m. to get ready, then make the two-hour drive. They had no specific plans. Rae — born Addison Rae Easterling — had Googled “where can I see celebrities in LA?” She and her mom went to the Grove, Melrose Avenue, Sunset Boulevard, Rodeo Drive and a couple of movie studios. They thought they saw Snoop Dogg, but it wasn’t him; they did spot Justin Bieber.
Rae wasn’t discovered on that trip, but it nonetheless confirmed everything she’d always believed about Los Angeles: She needed to move there as soon as possible and become a star.
Four years later, Rae has made good on that vow in such a big way that she could lead workshops on “The Secret.” She has 82.8 million followers on TikTok, the platform where she became famous for dancing to music clips. Forbes estimated that she made $5 million in 2019. That same year she graduated high school, joined TikTok and dropped out of Louisiana State University after three months — to move to LA.
She now considers Kourtney Kardashian, 42, one of her best friends and frequently appeared in the final season of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” In March, she released her
first single, “Obsessed,” which amassed 19.4 million listens on Spotify. The streaming company is one of her brand partners — she co-hosts a Spotify podcast with her mom — along with American Eagle. There’s her beauty and skin care line, Item, which recently started selling in Sephora. And now she’s trying her hand at movie stardom with her first acting role in Netflix’s “He’s All That,” a gender-swapped re-imagining of the 1999 teen rom-com “She’s All That.”
If it seems like Rae is throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, it’s because, well, she is. Growing up, she worshipped triple-threat stars like Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce. She took modeling and acting and dance lessons. So when TikTok started opening doors for Rae, she jumped at every opportunity.
“A big thing I’ve learned
through experience is that saying ‘no’ is so much more powerful than saying ‘yes,’ ” says Rae, now 20. “That’s been a struggle for me because I’m a big ‘yes’ girl. Going forward, I want to learn how to prioritize things. Obviously I love to sing, I love to dance, but there’s a time for each of those in its respective place. Right now, I do want to focus on acting.”
One of her online friends became her roommate when she first came to
LA. But she felt unmoored without her family and begged her parents to come to California. In early 2020, Rae’s parents and her two younger brothers relocated to Tarzana. She lived with her family and filled her days with as many industry meetings as she could. At first, they didn’t go well. Though executives were impressed with her follower count, most balked at her lack of experience.
But one producer, Jennifer Gibgot, was charmed enough by Rae’s personality that she decided to take a chance. “I’ve had really good luck in my career identifying young talent,” says Gibgot, pointing to her casting of Channing Tatum in “Step Up,” Zac Efron in “Hairspray” and Liam Hemsworth in “The Last Song.” “I’ve done it enough times that when you know, you know. Of course, on Twitter there are haters who say, ‘Why hire a TikTok star when there are so many people acting and trying?’ And I feel for those people, I really do. But you can’t manufacture a star quality.”
Still, she understood the risk she was taking in giving a novice a leading role — even if the part wasn’t far off from Rae’s own reality. In “He’s All That,” she plays a high school social media influencer who is livestreaming to her fans
when she catches her boyfriend cheating on her. The mortifying video goes viral, and in a bid to restore her popularity, she sets out to prove that she can make any dude as hot as her ex. That’s when she befriends an artsy outcast (“Cobra Kai’s” Tanner Buchanan), persuading him to cut off his long hair and spend less time in his darkroom developing photographs.
To get the best performance out of Rae, Gibgot decided to go with a director who has a track record with young performers: Mark Waters, who “got the performance out of Lindsay Lohan in ‘Freaky Friday’ and gave Rachel McAdams her first big role in ‘Mean Girls.’ ”
After being offered the gig, Waters downloaded TikTok and began watching Rae’s videos. He thought she had charisma, but wanted to meet her in person. Over lunch, he was impressed: “We can make this work,” the director recalls thinking. “We’re gonna roll up our sleeves and train her. This is gonna be years of Meisner training in eight weeks.”
To her credit, Waters says, Rae was willing to do the work, immersing herself in classes with acting coach Nanci Banks and learning how to be vulnerable on camera.
Rae’s favorite moment during shooting came when she had to perform her longest monologue, a scene that takes place on stage in front of an auditorium full of classmates at prom. She was nervous about getting to an authentically emotional place.
“And there was a girl in the audience who was an extra who was crying after I did the first take,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe I just did that.’ That wasn’t even a scripted part, and the cameras weren’t even on her. That was the moment when I really started to get it — that I could touch people emotionally through what I was saying and feel like it was coming from me.”
Rae says she doesn’t feel as much pressure to post on TikTok constantly, especially now that she’s busier with acting obligations. And her mentors, like Kardashian, have encouraged her to guard her privacy, sharing less about her personal life on the app as she branches out.
“A year ago, I was literally in my bedroom doing absolutely nothing, so I could make a thousand TikToks and have all the time in the world for it,” says Rae. “Now, it’s just time for me to take that extra step, go the extra mile to make sure people can see my passion for acting going forward. I really hope that people give (the movie) a chance — give me a chance to show myself as an actress and not go into it with a negative mindset.”