INTERVIEW
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Alice Gee | 30/09/2025
“Good morning!” I greet Pierson Fodé, “I didn’t wake you up too early?” I ask as we jump on a call the day before his HATC Magazine cover shoot. He’s on the West Coast, navigating late nights and early wake-up calls, having travelled through copious time zones in the midst of his busy schedule and press engagements for his latest roles in The Wrong Paris and Swiped. As someone who feels like they’ve been hit by a truck any time jet lag is involved, I’m impressed by how bright he seems. For Pierson, traveling west to east is what gets him, making it a little smoother to come back from his Paris engagements than to go. Over the past month, Pierson tells me he’s taken six to eight red-eye flights back and forth, all while juggling shooting another project. Hitting that wall is inevitable, though Pierson tells me in some ways he’s used to the lack of sleep, having suffered with chronic insomnia. For Pierson, getting back to a normal form of sleep is all about getting back into a routine. As a professed homebody, it’s all about hanging out with friends and watching movies, admitting he’s never been much of a partygoer. It’s the season for embracing those Autumnal winter evenings. It’s been a whirlwind of a time recently with charting show after charting show finding its place on streaming giants worldwide, but I’m keen to talk about his childhood growing up on a family-run farm in Moses Lake, Washington, and its role in building his identity. Coming from a long lineage of farmers, he tells me that farming is hard work and never easy. “Hard work is not an option; it’s built into my DNA.” Starting the day in the early mornings before the sun comes up, and continuing on long into the night, Peirson found himself learning all kinds of skills. “Every single day, you're fixing whatever needs it from the night before. You're mending fences, and you're helping the animals after they escape into the neighbour's yard.”. Im curious to what it's taught him over his formative years. “I think for me it taught me true resilience and grit. I saw what my parents went through every day. You have no control over the weather or whether the seed decides to grow, so you do your best to provide it with the perfect environment for this little bit of life that goes out to feed the world. But at the end of the day, you can't control how often the sun shows up in front of the clouds.”
It's elements like resilience that Pierson carried forward into his life as an Actor in Hollywood. “All those elements - resilience and that grit really shaped who I am. You can't pull that out of me.” It seems you can take the farmer off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the farmer. “Anytime things get crazy in Hollywood, anytime you're at the party or event and things get a little bit exciting, that resilience and that grit always stay there, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how easy it is. It keeps me the same person, no matter what's going on in life. It's the hard reset button to my soul. I'm just always connected to that.”
When it comes to our identities and how they inevitably change, there’s no surprise of the overlap and comparisons from that boy on the farm and his childhood love of film, specifically the classics of Star Wars, Charlie Chaplin, and The Three Stooges. Those stories and their exploration of characters —flawed, heroic, messy, and comedic — have had a lasting impact on the identity he’s come to know as an actor. “Film and TV are my second language in so many ways,” he explains. “Growing up, it was my way of exploring life and the world beyond the farm. Those films created the moment that I realized there was so much life beyond the farm. The same way Luke was going off to save the galaxy, I was like, Oh, maybe I can go learn about the force or make movies. One of the two has got to be real.” For Pierson, it was a way of connecting with the world beyond his own immediate world. “It’s this incredible way to touch people's lives. For 90 minutes, we all jump into a theater, or sit on the couch, and it doesn't matter what race, religion, or political identity you have, it really brings us all to the same point where we laugh at the same jokes or we have tears welling up at the same moments.”
It’s all about connection for Pierson —those magical moments that intrinsically connect to his soul. Let's be honest, there’s nothing more powerful than connectivity and understanding, whether it be a story or a person. “I speak film better than I speak English. I know it inside and out. The only time I'm not happy is when I'm not on set. The worst day on set is still better than the best day anywhere else to me.”
Shirt & Jeans, Lanvin.
Having watched Swiped the week prior, it teases and explores a new generation's perspective on connectivity. As the first generation introduced to dating apps, I can’t help but find it interesting to watch a story that explores the nuances of modern-day connection. “You know, before we created Swiped, I didn’t know the origins of either Tinder or Bumble. I had no idea. I mean, you just assume apps just show up. I didn't know all of the behind-the-scenes story, the drama, the excitement, the messiness of all of it.” Having only some knowledge of Bumble because it is female-owned and championed, I admittedly wasn’t aware of the origins of Tinder and Whitney Wolfe’s story. But it’s a story that’s stuck with Pierson. “She’s just so cool to me. She's such a badass. I played her husband in the film, and it's amazing to see what she's created for herself. She's so tenacious in all of it. It’s also fascinating because, like you said, we're living in this era where love starts with a swipe. What a weird time to be alive, where you don't meet the person, you meet a picture of a person, and you swipe. It's crazy.”
“I do love how it wasn't just about the technology, but how it was about the people trying to adapt the technology and the hunt for authenticity and to find something real.” It seems the human need for connection ignited a fire of excitement for Pierson when filming. “We're living in a very digital world right now. I think that was a very inspiring aspect of the movie. Her journey was still looking for love and connection, and she eventually found Michael, whom she fell in love with, married, and had kids with. To get closer to the whole story was that in making a billion connections for people, she eventually found love herself after her own trial and error.”
When it comes to excitement, I don’t know who’s more thrilled about his upcoming role in A Merry Little Ex-Mas, as we both confess to being Christmas-obsessed. I mean, is there really anything better when it comes to getting cozy on the sofa, the Christmas tree up, and a festive classic playing on the TV? I have no shame in telling Pierson that I won’t skip a Christmas song when it pops up on shuffle in the middle of May, as he responds ‘Ditto’ unhorrified by my admission. With the film set to become a new Christmas classic, to be played on repeat each year, joining the likes of The Grinch, The Holiday, do I need to go on? – Pierson’s been excited to sink his teeth into it from the moment Netflix reached out. “I was so stoked. First of all, I'd seen all of the director's work, from Daddy Daycare to everything else. I love Christmas movies. The fact that we put them on every single year is like a warm blanket of happiness, and they are there to make people feel good. I really think the best ones sneak in a little bit of truth about love and authenticity.”
Authenticity is something that rings true through our conversation, from his childhood to finding his footing in Hollywood. As The Wrong Paris continues to storm the Netflix charts, it’s only natural that the conversation swings to the Netflix original that Pierson leads alongside co-star Miranda Cosgrove. I love a good rom-com, I tell Pierson, but something I love even more is the traditional spin on romantic comedies and its focus on authenticity, not just those cliches we’ve come to love. I explained to Pierson that I love that she didn’t give up on everything she wanted, and that love, along with her dreams and desires, could be mutually exclusive. “That was kind of my favorite part, too! I love that she didn't give up her dream and her career to chase love. She realized she could do both. She took the money at the end instead of the honey. I'm someone who, in my own life, has often had to give up dating or relationship opportunities to chase my dream. Often, the idea of chasing a dream involves sacrificing certain things. And generally, a lot of people don't understand that. I love that they stuck true to that in this story. That was probably my favorite moment in the script. It's such a feel-good rom-com. It was cheeky, fun, and cute. It had those '90s rom-com elements that I really miss.”
Jacket, Alexander McQueen. Shirt, Armani. Belt, Armani. Jeans, Alexander McQueen.
Coat & Suit, Armani.
In talking about finding our authentic selves, it’s a journey that hasn’t always escaped bumps in the road. Having had to rebuild his life when recovering from a severe allergic reaction and the wake of disaster it left in its tracks, I admire his honesty and the likelihood that it will help someone else who may be going through something similar, physically or emotionally. “I think it's cool that we share these little bits of our story that hopefully somebody else sees and has a moment of inspiration.” I wonder how that experience became something he was able to bolster and cope with. “I worked with my therapist about it. I was going to speech therapy, physical therapy, and doing all the different kinds of cognitive behavioral therapy. So each one was touching a different point for me as I was working through these stages of recovery.” Physically and emotionally working through it simultaneously, Pierson describes it as medicine for him, helping him cope with the frustration of not being able to remember words, names, or people's faces. “It was confronting it every day head-on, not sidestepping it or thinking I'm just going to ignore it today. I think that would have been the worst idea ever for me. I am not that personality type. I love taking things head-on, and so that was my methodology, and that helped me a ton.”
Having found being open about my own mental health has been a key part of healing, I’m curious what healing means to Pierson. “I think for me, dealing with depression and anxiety, especially early on, when I moved to Hollywood, and certain other things happened in my life, I realized I was working through a lot of those pieces, and I didn’t have the right tools to do it. So it may have left deeper scars than it needed to, but I think the healing process is really about embracing all of it, embracing the scars, embracing the ugliness.”
No longer do the demons under his bed scare Pierson; instead, he’s become friends with them, taking control of who tells whom what to do, no longer letting them take charge. “I guess I've learned to tell myself not to identify with the depression, anxiety, or trauma. Whether it's the brain trauma or anything emotional of any kind, I am the victor of that situation, not the victim. I fought and I won. I'm still alive today. I’m able to say right now I'm going to choose to chase my dream, and I think that's pretty special. So it's really a matter for me to try my best not to ever identify with those things and make them part of me, but to identify the opposite. If that makes any sense.”
In chasing his dream, I’m curious about how he manages to put his health first when the long days often take priority. “That part can be really difficult. You know I’ve dealt with chronic insomnia my whole life, and I've been working with my neurologist and cognitive behavioral therapist for years to really improve that, so pieces of my life don’t fall apart. That aspect of it, where you need sleep, you need to recover, you need these things, and you don't realize that sleep is one of those things where your brain and that depression and a lot of that anxiety can be helped.” It seems Pierson views the learning process as a tool —an opportunity to practice and maintain both his physical and mental health. However, he credits his loved ones for keeping him honest, vulnerable, and focused.
As we dip our toes into the pool of joy and what brings those all-important moments to his life, it’s a wide breadth of factors that keep him smiling on a daily basis, from his favourite daily tasks like a morning cold plunge (which he calls the act of doing something difficult) to those moments where everything just clicks on set. But when he’s not Pierson Fodé, the actor, producer, model, I wonder what connects him to who he is at his core. “There are so many things that keep me grounded. I think it is the farm, even though I'm not back there very often. Spending time with my family, throwing bales, feeding the cows, and hanging out with my family. My parents keep me really grounded. I try to talk to them a couple of times a week. My family and friends. I think when we get old or when we die, most of this stuff we don't get to take with us. But if there is a heaven, or anything after this, at the very least, the one thing I do take with me is all the memories of the people that I care about. And I think that is the thing that I always hold on to. So when I start to get a little intense about things, a little unfocused, and lose sight of what's really important, I keep that in my back pocket to go back to.
Words Alice Gee @alicesgee
Photography Kevin Sikorski @escaperealife
Styling Ashley Pruitt @ashleypruittstylist
Grooming Danni Katz @dannidoesit
Creative Alice Gee @alicesgee & Kevin Sikorski @escaperealife
