Quotes from Lily Cole


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The average Londoner knows just one neighbour. I travel a lot, and I'm always surprised by the strong sense of community in some countries. We've lost something fundamentally human, and we don't even realise it.


There is a degree of role-playing in modeling, for sure, and you're also in a high-profile job - there are lots of similarities for sure. But when I'm acting, I've got to try and be present, and I've got to be emotionally committed to a character, both physically and intellectually.


In British culture, redheads get teased at school. But I've grown up enough to realize I love my hair.


I part-own a bookshop for some strange coincidence of reasons, and it is one of the best things I part-own in my life, or own in my life. I do not know, it just feels great.


The need to protect the environment has emerged as an undeniably important priority for me.


It doesn't make me very happy to be on my computer all the time. I've never been drawn to that world.


Marilyn Monroe and Vivienne Leigh are real icons of mine. In terms of visual culture, they are both so iconic. There weren't any paparazzi shots of them falling out of taxis, so they will always look so incredible.


As users of the Internet, we all have a role to play in defining what we want it to be.


I love modeling but also see it as a platform for the million other things I want to achieve and create in life.


The relationship between art and a job is not quite linear, but I really love any and all manifestations of art, really respect any kind of artistic impulse, whether it's paintings and sculptures or really good filmmaking or music. I really see the relationships between these different mediums as very fluid.


Don't overpluck your eyebrows. A make-up artist told me this once, and I've always remembered it.


It was a scandal when I did French 'Playboy' in 2008, though I was never actually nude in it. I think it's really funny that I'll have a cover of 'Playboy' to show my grandkids.


I think models have a lot less power than they did in the '80s, when there were, like, only 10 supermodels who could dictate the rules, whereas now there's so many, and that changes the power dynamic and makes it a more insecure business.


I think a lot of the most interesting work in art and in films are often kind of polarized opinions and affect people in very different ways, which may be less successful commercially, but they elicit a dialogue that's quite interesting.


I love beautiful things; I like having nice clothes, and I can appreciate why other people do - but I've also started to learn more about the impact of what we buy: how things are made, how much you buy and the quality of everything.


I don't personally follow trends; I don't even like the idea of trends. I think it's kind of absurd that you have to change every six months, so I always try and buy things that hopefully I'll like forever, and resonate with me.


As the generalization goes about the art industry, people can be really challenging and thought-provoking in their thinking and questioning the status quo, and it's really important that the status quo can be questioned and that there are people doing that.


America has had an influence on me, as has going out with a Cuban-American guy and having lots of American friends. But I am still fundamentally British and speak with a British accent and feel very English.


Acting is something I've done since I was six years old, performing for my mum and my family in the living room, and I do it because my heart's in it.


There are so many great, great vintage clothes to find; there's a whole territory unexplored there.