The British actress, and descendant of punk rock history, is everywhere.
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Juno Temple has arrived, and it's becoming impossible not to notice.
The 24-year-old British actress has appeared in 19 movies in the last four years, and while she says no one really ever recognizes — or, at least approaches — her in public, it can only be a matter of time before that anonymity is but a fond memory. The volume of her work alone should soon lead to the "celebrity spotting" tipping point.
With films like Killer Joe, Lovelace, Afternoon Delight, and Toronto International Film Festival selection Horns, she's continuously played the alluring, slightly wild young woman who might make your conservative family trade nervous glances and gulp extra wine should you bring her home for dinner. If you're casting for the girl next door who introduces a teenage kid to pot and The Velvet Underground, look no further.
And as the oldest child of filmmaker and music video director Julien Temple, it's no surprise Temple has so often found herself in the role of the rebel, a theme that prevailed in her charmed, free-spirited, odd, and sort of dreamy childhood.
"The only time me and dad really had a fight was when I started getting into some bad '80s electro that I'd put on repeat for a while," Temple said, sheepishly admitting that she "went through a Gary Numan phase" in her younger, more vulnerable years.
"When you put that one song, 'Friends Electric,' on repeat..." she continued, sidetracking momentarily to mimic the cold, ringing pulses of the influential 1979 hit. "[Dad] was like, 'You've got to change it up a little. You've got to throw some Kinks on every once in a while, just one Stones song, and then you can play it again! I'd be cool with that!'"
As both a documentarian and participant in the punk rock uprising of the late '70s, the elder Temple made a name for himself directing movies about the Sex Pistols and music videos for stars like David Bowie and the aforementioned Kinks and Rolling Stones. By the time Juno — who was named after a butte in the Grand Canyon that her parents climbed while her mom was pregnant — was born in 1989, her dad was eager to share his insider's account of history, while bringing major players into the family's living room.
There were house visits from Joe Strummer — Juno's mom was best friends with his second wife, Lucinda, while the budding actress counted the legendary Clash frontman's daughters and stepdaughter as her best mates — and early introductions to the work of Jean Cocteau (when she was 4) and Oscar Wilde (at the advanced age of 8).
But when your parents endorse the songs and texts that are usually so ingrained in one's self-discovery process and rebellion, is it still punk?
"It's not that you can't like it, because my dad so encourages that you like it, and he so loves the idea of having a rebel streak inside of you and always having a bit of anarchy in everything you do. And I think that's a pretty great way to live, but what was strange about it is that I couldn't really rebel," Temple said, laughing. "What would I do that would really shock my parents — become a parking warden or start working in a bank? They'd be like, What?"
Getty Images / Larry Busacca
Clearly, Temple had no interest in the civil service or a nine-to-five of any sort; at this point, she travels so frequently that time zones are irrelevant. And she got the bug early: At 9, she had a small part in her dad's 1998 film, Vigo: A Passion for Life, which ended up on the cutting room floor. Temple's first "real" production came a year later, when she was cast as an Atlasaurus in a play about dinosaurs. "I wore a silk dress with red velvet gloves and I made my own mask; it was pretty impressive," she said with a laugh. The prehistoric turn was followed by another role on the scholastic stage, as Hermione in A Winter's Tale. By the time she was 14, she told her parents that acting was her future, not just an extracurricular endeavor.
"Their hearts kind of sank when I told them, because it is an industry where, if I have a daughter or a son and they turn around to me and they say, 'I want to act,' I'm gonna be like, 'Get ready to be hurt and lonely a lot,'" Temple said, singsonging that last bit. "Because you spend a lot of time in hotel rooms by yourself, and you also spent a lot of time getting told, 'No.' And it hurts. And not because you're like, Why didn't they cast me? It's more like, God, I wanted that one."
Temple launched her professional career with 2006's Notes on Scandal, and since then, she has emerged into ubiquity thanks to a willingness to take on flighty, mysterious, mischievous, and sexually charged roles.
"I've been playing these younger women, and I think when you're young and in your late teens and figuring yourself out, you are a mystery, you are mischievous, and you are sexually charged," Temple explains; in Horns, she takes on the flashback-heavy part of Daniel Radcliffe's murdered high school sweetheart, including a tasteful sex scene with Harry Potter himself. "You're doing things for the first time, almost, and I like that."
The actress' biggest parts thus far have included the underage temptress to crooked cop Matthew McConaughey in Killer Joe; a teenage lesbian werewolf in Jack and Diane; a misbehaved rebel girl looking for her delinquent dad in Dirty Girl; Queen Anne in The Three Musketeers; and McKenna, a stripper/occasional sex worker who guides Kathryn Hahn through a mid-thirties reawakening in director Jill Soloway's summer dramedy Afternoon Delight.
"She is mysterious and mischievous; kind of an elfin little pocket-size hooker," Soloway said. "For me, McKenna was like a Bratz doll with huge hair and huge eyes and huge heels and everything else just kind of grounded and shapely/skinny... She is this perfect package of child and woman, innocence and danger. She also seemed like she needed taking care of, much like McKenna. She doesn't drive and needed a ride, and that just sparked all kinds of mom anxiety in me: I need to drive her! I should help her figure out how to get a taxi! Why doesn't she have Uber?!"
