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Barbie Ferreira wants to make good art. These days, it’s not about the clicks, viewers, or viral moments; it’s about the work itself—and she is pursuing projects that truly excite her. “I feel like I’m in a different chapter in my life where I really do have to be centered and grounded in my craft and what I want, not what other people want from me, not from what is the glitziest and glam-est version of it, but what makes me happy,” the actress says.
For Ferreira, this includes making her Broadway debut in Cult of Love, the new, critically acclaimed play by Leslye Headland starring Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Mare Winningham, and more. In the family drama, she plays Lauren Montgomery, a recovering drug addict who accompanies her sponsor, Johnny Dahl (Christopher Sears), on a trip home for the holidays. Johnny’s family has varied beliefs, but all of the children were raised by their devout Christian parents. The play catapults its audience through laughs, folk songs, and tears, examining how one family can come together or break apart amid a plethora of differences.
Barbie Ferreira prepares for opening night of Cult of Love.
The now 28-year-old is a born and bred New Yorker. Born Barbara Ferreira, she was raised in East Harlem before moving to Queens. She didn’t attend too many Broadway shows due to their steep prices, but her parents used to treat her to musicals on her birthday. Theater is in her roots: Ferreira took drama classes at the Boys & Girls Club of Queens where she and other kids wrote their own skits. The club took its students to charity events, including a telethon performance of Annie, Ferreira recalls.
Her drama teacher, Liana Riccardi, was one of the first people to see Ferreira’s potential as a performer. In a full-circle moment, Riccardi recently watched her former disciple perform on Broadway, marking a tear-filled night for them both. “I always think of what angels in people’s lives can do, because she really saw me for who I was as a young person, as an actress,” Ferreira says. “It wasn’t exactly the quote-unquote American dream, but she made it seem possible, that I could be something that I wanted to be.”
Ferreira sits in the Hayes Theater prior to the opening night of Cult of Love.
Cult of Love is a departure from Ferreira’s previous work. Perhaps best known for her two-season run as Katherine “Kat” Hernandez on HBO’s Euphoria, Ferreira shocked the world in the summer of 2022 when she announced she was leaving the series. Rumors swirled that her departure was due to a rocky relationship with the show’s creator, Sam Levinson. Then, in 2023, during an episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shephard, the star clarified she left because she didn’t see a road forward for her character, a mutual decision between Levinson and herself, although her reduced season 2 storyline received criticism. “If things are just not working out anymore, there’s nothing wrong with that,” she says. “It’s just more like, ‘Where do I go to be the artist that I want to be?’ And that really has been my compass through all of this.”
Now focused on more indie projects, Ferreira is waiting to see what’s to come from the third season of the series, this time as an audience member. “You spend so much time with these characters, and most of my young adult life has been in Euphoria. I have such a love for it, and I’m curious to see where it goes, just like everyone else,” she says. “I’m excited to see what the girls do.”
While Ferreira is taking a brief jaunt onstage (Cult of Love closes in February), she also has three upcoming film projects. She produced and acted in Bob Trevino Likes It, which premiered at South by Southwest in 2024 and received the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Award. The film is set for a wide release in early 2025. She also nabbed an acting and producing credit for the film Mile End Kicks, which just wrapped production. And next, she will appear in the highly anticipated Faces of Death reboot, which also stars Charli XCX, a close friend. “Charli really is my favorite pop star in the world,” Ferreira says. “She’s so talented. I’m like, ‘Damn, girl,’ busiest woman in America. That’s what I always tell her.”
Ferreira and Roberta Colindrez in their dressing room.
The projects all follow a trend of exploration in Ferreira’s life: She’s open to flexing her recently learned Broadway hacks, working with new talent, or challenging herself with an eight-show week rather than a series of night shoots. Her Broadway bender came about with a simple call from her manager, who then gave her the script for Cult of Love, and set up a meeting with director Trip Cullman and Headland. She wasn’t planning to journey over to the stage, but with those two, it was quickly kismet. “They really believed in me and really gave me the love and support to be able to grow as a stage actress through the rehearsal process,” Ferreira says. “I wanted to do a good job and make sure that this ensemble wasn’t brought down by my lack of experience, because everyone in it is so talented. I had to rise to the occasion, and hopefully, I pulled it off.”
Now, the star is nebulizing, doing vocal trills, and stretching, ensuring that her “really low voice” is ready to go at every matinee and evening performance. She didn’t go out on her birthday because she had a weekend of shows, a restraint most twenty-somethings probably don’t have. Ferreira has also bonded with her co-stars, forming pre- and post-show rituals. Chris Lowell, who plays James, is the cheer captain, who chants, “Is this the cult of indifference? No. Is it the cult of hate? No. It’s the cult of love!” prior to every performance.
Ferreira poses in her dressing room.
Ferreira also has been able to tap into a different part of herself—a “loud, bubbly theater kid”—onstage. She had to pull back a lot her performance on camera, she says, but on Broadway, “it was really about letting myself have permission to be expressive.”
“In film, if you think of something, you can see it, especially if it’s a close-up. With theater, the technicality of it is different, but the emotionality is the same,” she adds. “It was a lot of that, tweaking just parts of how I perform for the stage and for an audience of 600 people.”
And as for singing, Ferreira, a self-identified non-vocalist, is mostly spared from the show’s musical numbers, as the Dahl family sings folk and religious songs to the audience at a rapid pace. “Singing on Broadway sounds so insane to me,” she says. “If I had to add that layer, I would be so anxious every night, because I’m not musically talented.”
But seconds later, she realizes, “I do sing. I sing one line, okay? I sang a line on Broadway, darling.”
Ferreira heads to the stage for opening night.
Cult of Love might be Ferreira’s Broadway debut, but in a way, it’s also a homecoming. This marks her first time onstage since childhood—younger Barbie probably couldn’t even fathom where she is now. Taking it all in, she says, “It’s been such a cool, mind-blowing experience.”