Hailey Benton Gates is a model, actress, director, and journalist—her debut feature, Atropia, took the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year. We spoke with her from a hotel in Puerto Rico about pulling permits, being traumatized by Rachel Sennott's I Love LA, the scene report down Venezuela way, nicotine toothpicks, taking her braces out with a fork as a child, spitting and gleeking, using fetish to your advantage, the eyebrows tell all, Callum Turner's face, filming on a mock military base, breakfast meetings are for sex pests, the film Mash, the transition from working at The Paris Review to Vice, coconut water with pulp, and smuggling oil.

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