Amid International Women’s Month, we look back at our interview with actor and UNHCR ambassador Kat Graham.
Kat Graham has been busy since The Vampire Diaries concluded its binge-worthy spin in 2017 and, although you may not know it, was gracing our screens long before it aired. Yes, upon a closer inspection of The Parent Trap (the Lindsay Lohan remake), you can spy a Camp Walden camper who is none other than a young Kat Graham. A bona fide child star, Graham oscillated between film and television roles (Lizzie McGuire, Hannah Montana, and The O.C. can all be found on her resumé) and dancing backup for the likes of Bow Wow, Missy Elliott, and Pharrell Williams.
Twenty-four years on, and the multi-hyphenate’s life remains a balancing act, now between a fully-fledged singing career, starring in high-profile movies (including the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me in which she played a young Jada Pinkett-Smith, and meaty roles in Cut Throat City and How It Ends), co-running wellness organization Modern Nirvana, and her duties with the UN Refugee Agency.
But The Vampire Diaries was Graham’s big break. The supernatural teen drama premiered in 2009, riding the coattails of the Twilight-ignited vampire-obsessed era. Replete with fantasy and tortured-with-desire vampiric heartthrobs, the show became an immediate success, and, as such, so did everyone in it. Overnight, the then 20-year-old Graham became the subject of fan accounts and Twitter #appreciationposts by TVD (as the show became known) aficionados, all enchanted by her on-screen character, good witch Bonnie Bennett.
So how did the seemingly eternally measured Graham, who’s been a fixture in Hollywood since she was six years old, avoid falling victim to the often-perilous child star trajectory? “I wouldn’t call myself a measured person by any means. Even as a child, I was an extremist. I was obsessive about dancing and acting. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to find balance. But the majority of my life has been as a workaholic who’s never home,” Graham tells Mission from London, the latest stop on her tour promoting her latest album (case in point.)
Indeed, Graham takes her work seriously and, like most actor-cum-musicians, when I ask, refuses to show a preference for one art form over the other. “To me that question is equivalent to ‘do you prefer drinking or eating?’” she responds. “It depends on what it is. It depends on the project, the people, where my head is at as an artist, what’s going on in the world at the time.”
Graham’s latest album, Long Hot Summer—made up of 80s-inspired dance ballads with titles like “Oprah Rich” and the likely Bonnie-approved “Voodoo”—was created in partnership with GLAAD, an NGO established to address defamatory media coverage of the LGBTQIA+ community. LGBTQIA+ rights lie particularly close to Graham’s heart, as she was ushered into the community’s warm embrace when she performed in gay clubs before her Vampire Diaries days. “I’ve seen human rights being attacked not just within the states but internationally, and I wanted to do a project that would raise awareness and funds for GLAAD,” she says of the partnership. “It’s never been enough for me to put out a project. What am I saying by making it? Who am I trying to represent?” As such, the album and tour proceeds will go to the organization, of which Graham has served on the council for over a decade. Aptly, the Long Hot Summer tour consists of performances at Pride festivals worldwide, from Ibiza to Shanghai. At the time of writing, Graham’s exultant anthems have just served as the live soundtrack for over one million people celebrating Pride in London.
Perhaps the only cause that strikes more of a cord with Graham than LGBTQIA+ rights is the plight of refugees, and it stems from an equally personal connection. “Displacement is part of my family history on both sides,” she tells Mission. During the Liberian Civil War, her paternal grandfather was “lined up on the beach to be shot by the regime of Charles Taylor”—the former president of Liberia, convicted warlord, and Muammar Gaddafi’s protégé—and after escaping, fled the country. Later, he was appointed a UN Goodwill Ambassador, stationed in Liberia then Switzerland, where Graham was born. Her mother’s Jewish family—the religion in which she was raised—were forced to flee Europe amid the Holocaust. After seven years as a “high profile supporter” in 2020, Graham became the fifth American to be appointed a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, an honor she doesn’t take lightly. “Because of my family history, and inspired by my grandfather’s own experiences as a UN ambassador, I have followed UNHCR’s efforts since I was 14 years old. I feel incredibly honored and humbled by my nomination.”
Bolstered by the UN’s support and resources, Graham has visited Uganda, Greece, South Sudan, the Melkadida operation in southern Ethiopia, the Syrian refugee camp Za’atari in Jordan, and, most recently, the Mexico-Guatemala border, to meet with refugees. Her biggest takeaway from her travels so far? “That displacement can take many forms,” she answers. “In Mexico and Central America, I met people who were fleeing persecution for being gay or transsexual. Others were escaping gang violence, while others were leaving their land devastated by climate change. While the root cause may change, they all aspire for a better life for themselves and their children. They seek shelter and safety. They often leave with the clothes on their back, and yet are resilient and hopeful for a brighter future.”
One of the most perturbing realizations that Graham came to was how warped society’s understanding of refugees is. “I guess the most poignant moment was not when meeting with a particular individual during my travels. Instead, it was realizing how profoundly misunderstood displaced people are by the rest of the world and how similar we all are at the end of the day. Given my family history, it could have been me.”
Yet despite spending the last few months recording, touring, and harnessing her colossal following to enact change, the self-professed workaholic’s acting chops haven’t been left on the backburner. Graham has a plethora of cinematic projects either recently or soon to be released.
Heatwave, out now, follows a young professional (Graham) who falls in love with her boss’s wife and is subsequently framed for her murder, “I wanted to play a character where the writing wasn’t pandering to my race or sexuality,” Graham says of the role. As both an actress and executive producer on the film, Graham adapted the script to make her character’s love interest a woman without centralizing her queerness as a plotline. “Not every film that features diversity needs to have it blatantly pandered to every time,” the actress shared on Instagram. “You’ll notice in the film that my sexuality is never addressed.” It’s a sentiment that she extends to race. “Similarly, the color of my skin is rarely addressed in the movies I’ve shot in recent years. In Heatwave…the fact that I am a certain ethnicity or sexuality is something other people observe, but that’s not something I walk with.”
Meanwhile, the upcoming noir-esque indie thriller Collide, co-starring Hollywood mainstay Ryan Phillipe, was “one of the most difficult roles” she’s been tasked with bringing to life. “It’s a pretty wild film…I loved playing a character so calculated,” she adds. Graham is also planning on bringing us some levity amid the drama via romantic comedy Love in the Villa and recently reprised her role as April O’Neil in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie.
But, more critically, the performer and activist will continue to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps, drawing attention to the ever-increasing political, economic, and environmental turmoil that is forcing people to flee their homes. “My mission is to shed light on their circumstances and their journeys to showcase our common humanity and encourage people and nations alike to be more welcoming,” she says. “My family history did more than spark my interest in working for the UN Refugee Agency. It lit a fire within me!”
@katgraham on Instagram
Image by Harold Julian.
