FALLING FOR GRACE

Why Grace Caroline Currey, Our August 2026 Digital Cover and Star of “Fall,” “Shazam!” and “The Leader,” Is So Easy to Love

Taken from VALŪS Issue 005 Autumn 2026 - pre-order your copies NOW!

Written by GAWAIN SEMLEAR

The gorgeous and free-spirited actor Grace Caroline Currey has already cultivated a repertoire across multiple genres. Known for playing Becky Connor in the original “Fall” film from Lionsgate, as well as Lady Shazam in both “Shazam!” movies from DC Films, Currey has been active in the industry since childhood. At just six years old, she was cast as a young Natalie Wood in Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Mystery of Natalie Wood,” launching the fledgling Currey into Hollywood. Now, at 30, she’s maintained a deep commitment to sincerity, with characters that delve into realms uncomfortable and messy. Currey’s technical prowess is undercut by a philosophy that, as she describes to VALŪS, is “gritty and raw.” 

This vulnerability, however, is not without caveats. “You have to be okay with people not always receiving it well,” Currey notes. But it's exactly this risk that differentiates her performances, and makes people love her all the more. A gambler with high emotions, she throws more and more chips into the center, raising the stakes for everyone involved. 

Shirt and tie by SCULPTOR WORLDWIDE, vintage pants, boots by ALDO

This is no more apparent than in Currey’s recent turn in “The Leader” from director Michael Gallagher, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. Acting opposite Vera Farmiga and Tim Blake Nelson, Currey portrays Michelle, a member of the infamous Heaven’s Gate cult whose members committed mass suicide together. Michelle represents a national fear from that real-life experience: the susceptibility to radicalization. 

“When I read for the character Michelle, I felt a quiet connection to her heart,” Currey says. She, like the other Heaven’s Gate members, “was a person who didn't really feel like [she] belonged within classical society.” Under the dominion of warped leaders Do (Tim Blake Nelson) and Ti (Vera Farmiga), Michelle and the other cultists succumb to a haunting obsequiousness that lead to the largest mass suicide in U.S. history. Currey’s character serves as a reference point for what could make a seemingly normal person join a cult. She, like so many others, is “messy, searching, and hungry for love.” Cults have held a peculiar fetish in our psyches for the better part of the last century. This might be because, in our own microscopic ways, we’re all engaged in cultish behavior insofar as we’re believers, whether consciously or not, of a doctrine. What’s more, now we have social media ubiquitously assigning us the “follower” label. People like Michelle become an extreme case of something we’re all entrenched in and consequently drawn to, for perhaps no other reason than to better understand our collective psychology.

Bridging the gap between the quotidian and the surreal, Currey’s performance in “The Leader” holds a mirror to the fickleness and desperation of humanity. So much of her preparation, she explains, came from having her heart broken by the many documentaries and stories of the young girls who got involved in the cult. The poignancy she brings to Michelle is not manufactured but comes from a place of real pain and empathy. “Thinking about the gradual change of this group, finding their beliefs and their way of life, I discovered just how sensitive a lot of them were.”

Currey is a good actor in part because she is a compassionate actor. She doesn’t just memorize scripts, she absorbs them, sometimes to her detriment. In Scott Mann’s 2022 box office smash “Fall,” Currey plays Becky Connor, a grief-stricken woman who acquiesces to her friend’s plea to accompany her on a two-thousand-foot climb up an abandoned radio tower, leading to a sequence of panic-inducing consequences. Filmed in the desert and subject to the natural rhythms of wind, sun, and storms, Currey describes it as “quite literally one of the most taxing experiences I’ve ever had.” Though not just physically; Becky’s depressive mood, internalized through weeks of shooting, became Currey’s own. “I was telling my body and my brain so much of Becky’s story and what her inner world was, and her pain and her thoughts. Your body doesn't know it's not real. It's like creating a state of insanity.” Her performance, violent in the harrowing mood it creates, highlights one of the ultimate quandaries of being an artist. How far are you willing to go for what you love? Where is the line? Reflecting on the experience, Currey said it made her realize that she’s much more capable than she thought. “I grew a ton. That cost a lot, but this is exactly the kind of thing I want to do.” 

The success of “Fall”—which had a budget of $3 million, grossed well over $21 million worldwide, and is a frequent fixture on Netflix's suspense charts—has spawned this September’s “Fall 2: Deadpoint," with a new cast and new dizzying stakes. “It’s exciting to see the ‘Fall’ universe take shape,” Currey says. “The success of the first ‘Fall’ is something I’m so proud of and I’m still surprised by!”

Though they belong to fundamentally different universes, Becky of “Fall” and Michelle of “The Leader” have a lot in common. Both are susceptible young women who yield to negative influences. While Michelle is lured in by the sycophantic philosophies of people who are outwardly unwell, Becky is victimized by something much less blatant: the attention economy, personified by her best friend Hunter who vlogs every bit of their thrill-seeking life under the moniker “Danger D.” Becky and Hunter film their ascent up the tower before things go horribly wrong, underpinning the insincerity of the adventure itself. Just like the Heaven’s Gate cult, they too hope to reach that “next level,” doing whatever it takes to get to the top. 

On the subject of this overlap, Currey explains that she relishes the chance to play characters that are unpolished. “Certain projects have parameters for how uncomfortable your performance can be,” she opines. “I really respond to a tortured soul, performances where I feel liberated to use as much of me as possible. I admire artists that are messy, and I hope to live in that category more myself, especially as I age!”

Lucky for us, the future holds much more of Grace Caroline Currey. With domestic distribution pending for “The Leader” and her upcoming horror film “The Freeze” slated to come out later this year, we can expect to see more of this indomitable talent on the silver screen very soon. In the meantime, Currey is keeping herself busy with other creative pursuits. One of which is renovating her house. “We’re attempting to do pathways. I’ve been digging dirt. It’s hard work shoveling dirt, you know?”

TEAM

Photographer | BIL BROWN

Wardrobe Stylist | BRANDEN RUIZ 

Hair + Makeup Artist | ELAINA KARRAS at Art Department

Editorial Assistant | EMMA BLAIR

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