Dior Goodjohn in conversation with Dafne Keen
By Olive Walton
There are interviews, and then there are conversations that feel like you’ve been dropped into the backseat with two best friends who happen to be among Hollywood’s most exciting young actors. When Dior Goodjohn sat down with Dafne Keen, the result was a candid look into the lives of two artists who know each other as well as they know their craft. The joyfully chaotic exchange between friends covered the physicality of performance all the way to the complexities of growing up on screen. The pair move seamlessly between laughter and vulnerability, showing testament to a friendship built on deep admiration and shared experience. This is Dior Goodjohn in her own words – layered, luminous, and ready for the world to meet her as more than a character on screen.
Dafne Keen: Let’s talk about the acting process. I was re-watching Season one, prepping for Percy [Jackson and the Olympians], and I didn’t realise the first time around how physical your part was. I’m a very physical actor, and I think a lot of me prepping for characters is a lot of finding them through my body. I just wanted to know how you find meshing your dance background and the physicality of building a character and how you build around that?
Dior Goodjohn: So it’s definitely a very, very big part in finding the character, especially when it comes to characters like Clarisse. Fight choreo is legitimately that. It is choreo. The photographic memory from dancing helps with that so much. I’ve been a dancer since I was two. The type of confidence that you get from dance and the way in which you know and understand your own body, it’s just so beyond because of that. Understanding my own body so well allows me to change up little bits and pieces within my muscle fibers. It’s easy to sew in different pieces of DNA to allow yourself to feel a switch when you turn into your character. Then there’s also just the aspect of memorising her within my somatic system that in turn translates into my physical body.
DK: What are your favourite parts of the creative process when you’re not acting? What’s your favorite part of being behind the camera, or about being in tune with your creativity and other aspects?
DG: The world building of it all is my favourite, l that stems across every single artistic avenue and channel that I’m in. When it comes to acting, figuring out and developing the memories and how things felt and smelled as my character is the most fun thing. You infer what happened in your character’s life based on what the script says and then you meet up with your acting coach or your mentor and you guys get to talking about it, going back and forth and playing tennis with it. And it just makes you think in a way that just cradles my brain so well.
DK: Getting to know you is so magical because the way you view the world is through a creative lens. What is something that you wish more people understood about being a young actor in Hollywood and about what that experience was like for you growing up in front of the camera?
DG: I think and I feel if you are wise as a person, you can infer this, but really that being a child actor is not something that’s for the faint of heart. There are people that are put in positions where they reach a certain level of success because they are just innately gifted, even though it’s not what they want to be doing. But nine times out of ten, child actors become successful because they have an understanding of what they want from a very young age and begin to work hard, similar to that of an adult at an age where they should just be running around and playing and eating ice cream that has freaking bubble gum in it. Yes, child actors are mature but I wish people would have more grace for us if that makes any sense. Just understanding and allowing that. It is true: we are artsy, complex people that do need to be handled with care – we don’t know everything.
DK: As a Hispanic woman, I feel a big responsibility in the characters I choose. I was wondering if you feel that same level of responsibility as a young woman of colour choosing what kind of people you portray?
DG: I love that you asked me that question because I recently had a tape for a character who was very mature, out of my spec. It was the chance to play a stereotypical Black woman, and the interesting thing about her, to me, was that she was a Berkeley graduate and a producer of a radio show who would find herself in a tough position, having to dance to make ends meet. It was a very difficult thing to decide whether to take the role. Although she had so many layers to her and so much depth and there was more to her than that met the eye, there was a conversation that had to be had between me and my team. Is this the type of archetype that I want to perpetuate in the world? I think as I get older and as more things come across my desk that I have to think about, it is very important to me that I do myself as well as all the little girls that look up to me, justice. As I get older, you are no longer asking to be portraying just the fun, bubbly friend, or the mean girl. It is starting to get a bit more complex as I grow up.
Talent DIOR GOODJOHN
Talent Team BRETT RUTTENBERG
Photographer HARRY EELMAN
Camera 1st Assistant NATHAN SEABROOK
Stylist ANNA SU
Makeup Artist MEGAN LOMBARDI
Hair Stylist SEAN FEARS
Transcript MEG WORDLEY