Under her spell: How Zoë Kravitz has built her own success

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Zoë Kravitz has that thing – a touch of magic, a certain je ne sais quoi – that distinguishes a star. There’s her astounding beauty: almond eyes, a dusting of freckles, cheekbones you could dine off. There’s her effortless style, which sees her rocking a peroxide blonde buzz cut and septum piercing one moment, and a sleek dark crop and feathered Dior gown the next. There are her roles in blockbusters including X-Men: First Class and Mad Max: Fury Road, indie dramas such as Yelling to the Sky and the hit series Big Little Lies, in which her character, the peacenik Bonnie, was last seen shoving Alexander Skarsgård’s Perry down stairs to his death, and in which she will soon be seen again.

But the New York-based actress, musician and muse, 29, has something else, something just out of reach; a sense of mystery that gives her an extra shimmer of charisma. Today, in an upmarket hotel in Holborn, central London, where we meet to discuss her role as Leta Lestrange in the Harry Potter spin-off sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Zoë radiates an otherworldly serenity as PRs and minders – and outside the door, a passing Eddie Redmayne (who plays the quietly heroic Newt Scamander) – bustle around her.

“It’s important to play characters that aren’t written specifically for African Americans, where this isn’t part of the plot.”Credit:Lorenzo Agius 

“The whole experience was amazing – the sets, the costumes, just being part of this epic world,” she says once we’re alone, sitting on a couch in a black top, brown palazzo trousers and leopard-print stilettos, one of which she’s shaken off to tuck a bare foot underneath her.

Her multiple ear piercings, like the monochrome ink tattoos – a feather, an anchor, an eye – along her arms, enhance this feeling of hidden depth. Which makes sense: as the genetically blessed daughter of film actor Lisa Bonet, dreadlocked goddess and former star in The Cosby Show (Bonet has recently commented on Cosby’s “sinister energy”), and Grammy Award-winning musician and Hunger Games actor Lenny Kravitz – not to mention having Jason Mamoa, the hulking, hunky Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones, for a stepdad – she was never going to be conventional.