Olivia Dean Creates a Sculpture of Herself

What's the film where, like, he's sat behind her

and they're doing that?

[Producer] Ghost.

Ghost.

I've always sort of wanted that moment for myself,

but it's never happened.

So maybe this is my Ghost moment [chuckles].

Hello, I'm Olivia

and today we're sculpting my self-portrait.

[bright music]

First of all, we need the apron

'cause we're serious about this, professional.

I've never sculpted anything in my life.

I have already an idea of what I wanna do.

Can I just get into it?

Let's get into it. Okay.

I'm just gonna say as a disclaimer,

I'm gonna go quite abstract with this.

Like, you may not see the resemblance,

but look a little closer and maybe you might.

What will I do with all of these?

[bright music]

Wow, that's a great question.

I think I have a nice nose.

I like my nose.

I think it's sweet.

And I really like my freckles too,

and they come out when the sun shines.

This is kind of terrifying [chuckles].

This has kind of got a Halloween feel right now,

but let's just go with it.

So immediately when I sat down

and I was like, Wow, this is my first chance to sculpt,

and also to sculpt myself,

I was like, I'm gonna do something fun here.

I'm planning to do,

like, my piece, my idea is every sort of sense on my face

is gonna be reflective of how I feel about that sense

or like how I want to feel about that sense.

Positive vision [squeals].

The vision is there

but I just haven't quite realized it yet.

Don't worry, it's gonna be right.

[bright music]

I was in school and I was in my music class

and my teacher, Mr. Doherty,

he played us a video of a live version

of Paul Simon performing a song from Graceland,

Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes,

with Ladysmith Black Mambazo

and I just remember being completely stunned

by the amount of joy everybody was having on stage

and it was like just this beautiful cross-culture

of people coming together for the love of music.

And I just remember thinking

that, A, I wanted to experience that joy on stage,

but also I wanted to create that joy, you know?

And create performances

where people can come and have fun, you know?

Ooh, this is gonna be good [chuckles].

[bright music]

I definitely felt that second album pressure

where it's like you've done something once

and you're like, Can I do that again?

Am I a fraud?

Whoa, imposter syndrome.

I don't know if I can.

Who am I now?

I definitely felt that pressure,

but then I was just like, You know what, Olivia?

Why don't you focus less on the product

and focus more on how the process could be fun for you?

And then it doesn't really matter what you make.

And also, nobody can take that away from you.

Like, you can say that you don't like my album

and you can say that it doesn't speak to you,

but you can't say that I didn't have fun making it

and you can't say it's not honest and true to me.

So, whatever.

[chuckles] Sorry, you can't take that away from me.

I'm really driven by my passion for music.

I just do it every day.

Like, I love my job.

It doesn't feel like a job,

and it is a job in many ways.

Like, not all of it is fabulous,

but I just love what I do.

I love the people that I work with,

I love my team, I love my band,

I love the music I get to make,

and so it's not difficult to be productive.

Maybe I'll slow down at some point

but that doesn't feel the time right now.

I feel like I'm an athlete in their prime [chuckles].

[bright music]

Neo soul is a genre that I associate to such comfort

and, like, companionship to my life.

I think it's been so important to my mom and my auntie

and, like, the Black women in my life

and those artists and those albums like Angie and D'Angelo

and Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott,

like, they're the kind of albums you return to

when you've gone through some shit

and you're like...

Like, my mom and my auntie always tell me this story

about when my auntie was breaking up

with one of her boyfriends

and they went and they drove all around London

to Pissed Off

and they were like, Just run it back, in the car,

Run it again, you know?

And I would watch them

and I would watch their connection to that music

and I think that perhaps with this album, in a way,

I was trying to create something like that,

or not even reference it musically so much,

but like the feeling of those albums

that are like an emotional toolkit

or like something that you could return to

if you were going through a breakup

or if you were falling in love

or if somebody just did you dirty, you know?

We lost a great one with D'Angelo.

Like, such a pioneer

and, you know, we're always referencing his live stuff

when we are putting the show together

and, yeah, I think he's inspired

like all of your favorite musicians basically.

All the things that you love probably,

all the things that you think are the best thing

you've ever heard,

it's probably because they were listening

to D'Angelo, you know?

[Olivia laughs]

This is terrifying.

No, you like it, you like it?

Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

I think I'm gonna take this piece off.

Oh my god, I just ripped my mouth off.

Will I get to keep this afterwards?

[Producer] Do you want to keep it?

Not really.

[crew laugh]

Truthfully, no.

[bright music]

I think it's a mixture of things, truthfully.

I think most of the time, it's really lovely

and it's flattering and it's fulfilling

and it makes it feel all worthwhile.

I think sometimes it can be strange.

You know, I think that's okay to say.

Like, I'm someone who loves my anonymity.

Like, I love going to the cinema by myself

or, like, I love going down to the market when I'm in London

or just walking around.

And I think some of that

I guess has been sacrificed a little bit

and sometimes, yeah, you're kind of being observed

all the time,

but I think that is a small price to pay

because I get to do like the most amazing job

in the world, you know?

And everyone's really lovely, you know?

I'm not being egged, so I can't complain.

Oh, this is cute.

I think it needs other colors.

I'm gonna add green next somewhere.

Ooh, I know, I know, I know, I know.

I'm sort of very stereotypically British in that way

where I hate receiving compliments.

Like, my mind goes

to when, like, someone pays me a compliment,

it's like, You're just saying that

'cause you just want me to feel nice.

Like, you don't mean that, you know?

Like, quite often after a show,

someone will be like, That was great.

I'm like, You're lying.

That was average.

I can be way better, you know?

Which I think is quite toxic [laughs].

And, yeah, I'm quite bad at receiving compliments.

I find it quite awkward,

but I'm trying to learn to just take it.

I'm so like, Oh my God, don't look at me

but also look at me.

I'm singing.

But, guys, stop looking at me.

What? No.

[chuckles] You know?

It's confusing.

That's like my mind all the time.

[bright music]

The one that I kind of really had to sit with for a minute

before I could even respond was Questlove.

Yeah, he just hit me up

and he said that he thought it was superb

and that I should come on The Jimmy Fallon Show

and I said, I've already been there.

I was already there, yeah.

But that for me is like the highest praise.

Somebody that I regard as like a taste maker

and just genius in sonics

and, like, feel in that way

to validate me was unbelievable.

Yeah.

So I'm at this point where I'm like,

You could say my album was shit,

but Questlove said it was superb.

So ha, ha, what about that?

[bright music]

At the moment I'm really trying

to keep like my weekends, if I have them off, very skeletal,

make no plans with nobody.

Don't tell anybody you have an off day,

'cause then it's really an off day.

You think I'm on but I'm off.

I wake up, maybe I put some vinyl on.

I make a lovely little coffee.

I just got a milk frother.

Guys, game changer.

I froth the milk.

I have a lovely coffee on the balcony.

I listen to some vinyl.

Maybe then I drive.

I love to go for a drive, really clears the mind.

I go to the gym.

Maybe I do a hot yoga class. Stunning.

I don't shower at the gym.

I'm not into that. I shower at home.

I cook a new recipe I've never made before

and then maybe I speak to a friend on the phone

and then I just get on the sofa, put my slippers on.

I'm really into games at the moment.

I'm playing Red Dead Redemption, loving it,

and I just game until I'm tired and then I go to sleep.

Sounds perfect.

[bright music]

How I feel about myself now

compared to when I was like 18, 19, is like night and day.

It's almost like two different people inside my mind.

I think that I felt a lot of confusion,

like, around being mixed race

and feeling like one of two things, but not quite both.

But now I'm just like, 'Wow, I'm the best of both.

I'm like, I'm a beautiful mix of things

and that's so lucky

and, like, why would I wanna change that?

Like, I love my hair,

I love the way that I look,

and I love that I can kind of tap into,

you know, both those different parts of me

and different people in my life,

and thank God.

[scoffs] So tiring living the other way, you know?

Constantly sort of wanting to be something else

or, like, you know, living in comparison, the thief of joy.

I feel proud of that journey for myself, you know?

Think about the people that you love most in your life.

Maybe that's your best friend.

Maybe that's your mom,

maybe that's your sibling,

maybe that's a partner.

Whoever that person is that you're like,

Wow, I really love you.

Like, I have so much love for you,

talk to yourself that same way, the exact same way.

I think we're very hard on ourselves sometimes.

I mean, I do it all the time.

I'm like my worst critic.

But it's important to just, yeah, give yourself the love

that you know you're capable of giving to other people.

It's easy to give,

well, it's not easy to give it to yourself.

That's a big fat lie [laughs].

It should be easy.

Like, it can be easy.

I think that's what I'm trying to say.

I don't know.

I regret this part, but I'm gonna continue with it.

It looks like a toupee.

[bright music]

I love my independence.

It's so sacred to me.

Perhaps sometimes I wonder if I'm too independent.

It can sometimes get you in trouble

because when you love your own company so much

and you don't be needing anybody,

sometimes you're like, Damn, I'm not with anybody.

[Olivia chuckles]

But I think independence just means to me

just like having my own back

and being comfortable with my own company

and still just, you know, do my own shit.

Like [chuckles], I'm just,

yeah, I've always kind of been okay with myself in that way.

I think it's a good skill to have.

Ooh, girl.

Ooh.

I don't have the clay and the skill to do a blowout.

So I've decided to sort of channel the ocean

as a kind of like framing of the face.

And my story with the ocean

is that I'm deeply terrified of the ocean.

Very scared.

It's really scary

and we don't know what's down there.

And I never really swam that much as a child

and I only really learned to swim quite recently

and now I'm getting more and more confident in the ocean.

And sometimes I'll go just to the point

where my toes can't touch the bottom.

Not too far, not too far.

[bright music]

I guess I would like to,

sometimes I think about shows that I'd love to play again.

I wish I could do Glastonbury again,

when we played on the Pyramid Stage.

I was really conscious that I wanted to be present

and I remember thinking so much before I was going on stage,

like, Be present.

Like, remember this.

Like, you must remember this

'cause you've been working so hard to get to this point.

Like, remember this, you know?

Like, taking so many mental photos.

And yet, still, I don't really remember it [chuckles].

It's just such a big amount of people,

and when you're playing a show,

you're trying to gauge if everybody's having a good time

and you're like, Okay, this bit of the crowd

is kind of vibing

but you guys are yawning.

What's going on over here?

You know, what is going on?

It's like people management in your mind all the time.

And I wish that I had just enjoyed it a little more.

Like, of course I enjoyed it,

but I think if I could do it again,

I would maybe worry a little less about everybody else

and just be present like I said I was gonna be.

[bright music]

Okay. Are you ready?

[Producer] How are you feeling?

Good.

[Olivia chuckles]

Take it in.

Take it in.

[bright music]

I think it sparks joy at the very least.

But, yeah, sunshine for eyes because a positive mindset.

A heart for the mouth because spread loving words.

A flower for the nose because I love flowers.

They're cute.

And a wave, sort of ocean framing for the face

because I used to be scared of the ocean,

but I'm conquering my fears now.

Thank you, Vanity Fair,

for allowing me to sculpt myself here,

and sending love wherever you are.

Thank you [chuckles].

[bright music]