Rebecca Dayan

Rebecca Dayan (; born 1984) is a French actress, model, artist, and activist. After training in fine arts, Dayan began her career in fashion and theatre in Paris. She then moved to New York City where she took up screen acting. Following several small roles, she returned to painting, and had her first large role in 2017 film ''Novitiate''. She is best known for portraying Elsa Peretti in the 2021 Netflix miniseries ''Halston''.

Early life

Rebecca Dayan was born on the French Riviera in 1984. The oldest of three siblings, she was raised in her parents' hotel in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where she developed a love for acting, before the family moved to Nice. There, she studied art and theatre at the fine arts school Villa Thiole, before moving to Paris aged seventeen. At home in the south of France, Dayan would put on small shows for friends, and was introduced to many films and artists by her culturally-focused mother. Though her father is Jewish, her family was not religious.

Career

In Paris, Dayan began modeling and working in fashion design as an assistant at Sonia Rykiel, and she has modeled for Karl Lagerfeld and Ellen von Unwerth. However, she felt like she belonged in New York City, and moved to the United States in 2009. She told '' WWD'' that pursuing acting as a second career felt risky, but she had her family's support. Her first acting roles were small parts in '' From Paris with Love'', '' Limitless'', and ''Celeste and Jesse Forever'', released between 2010 and 2012. She had a larger role in the second half of the 2014 indie horror '' H.'', in which she plays an artist like herself. ''H.'' premiered in the College Biennale of the 71st Venice International Film Festival.

As a painter, Dayan displayed a collection called "Assumption" at the Catherine Ahnell Gallery in New York in 2015, using mostly watercolors to depict images of women as Madonna figures in reclamation of the word "virgin". While she worked on her art, she also lived in a studio at the gallery, and had various famous women sit for her in modern renditions of Madonna poses.

She then had her first major acting role, starring as supporting character Sister Emanuel in the 2017 film ''Novitiate'', about young nuns, with Margaret Qualley and Dianna Agron. Originally, Dayan was set to play the character that ultimately went to Morgan Saylor when Dayan and writer-director Maggie Betts realised that Sister Emanuel would fit Dayan better. As the film was long in development, Dayan used some of her discussions with Betts as inspiration for her "Assumption" collection. ''Novitiate'' saw positive reviews and is "certified fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' praised that as part of the film's ensemble, actresses Dayan, Agron, and Julianne Nicholson "would be the highlight of any other film, the person audiences would go home talking about".

Dayan portrayed French actress Sarah Bernhardt in the 2020 Nikola Tesla