Chappell Roan Reveals She’s Considering Becoming an Actress After Legendary Director John Waters Encouraged Her

• Chappell Roan recently met legendary director John Waters
• In her W Magazine cover story interview, she said the Pink Flamingos filmmaker encouraged her to get in touch with her inner thespian
• “If John Waters says I’m an actress, maybe I am!” she said of her idol

Chappell Roan could go from the Pink Pony Club to the silver screen. 

The singer-songwriter, 27, revealed in her W Magazine cover story published April 30 that upon meeting John Waters, the cult icon encouraged her to try acting. 

Calling their meeting “insane,” Roan said, “One of my idols! And I was talking about how there are only so many ‘firsts’ you can have with your career. And he said, ‘No, no, no — there are all the firsts to go through when you become an actress!’”

After denying that she was a screen actress, she recalled that Waters, 79, said, “‘Every singer is an actress!’ And I was like, okay, maybe I am! Damn! If John Waters says I’m an actress, maybe I am!”

Roan (who recently notched her third top-5 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with “The Giver”) has appeared onscreen in her music videos for many of her hit songs, including “Pink Pony Club,” “HOT TO GO!” and “Good Luck, Babe!” 

Since the 1970s, Waters has directed several cult favorite films, including 1977’s Desperate Living, 1988’s Hairspray and 1990’s Cry-Baby. His award-winning work has often featured drag queens — a major influence on Roan’s pop music aesthetic — including his muse, the late Glenn Milstead, known as Divine. 

In a conversation at the Grammy Museum last November with Brandi Carlile, Roan credited the 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody with inspiring her to pursue making pop music: “That scene, whenever they’re performing Live Aid and they’re performing ‘Radio Ga Ga’ and they’re doing that part, [thumping]? That changed my career. It pivoted and I was like, ‘I will do whatever it takes.’ ”

Elsewhere in her W Magazine interview, Roan recalled that the first song she remembers singing was from another influence: Britney Spears’ “Oops!…I Did It Again.” 

“My mother took me out of gymnastics because I did the Britney dances instead of listening to the gymnastics teacher,” the Best New Artist Grammy winner said. 

Roan also told all about a subpar audition for The Voice and why her biggest pet peeve is “when people name-drop… I’m not the girl to care about that stuff. It is an immediate turnoff in a romantic or a friendship way.”