Mia Goth

• 1. Introduction

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  Mia Goth spent her early years moving between three countries before she ever set foot on a film set. As a teenager she worked as a model, appearing in campaigns and magazines, before turning to acting in her late teens. From modelling sets she moved into small supporting roles across horror, science fiction and period drama, roles that drew notice but not yet a breakthrough. Then came a project that asked her to play two opposing characters in a single film, and everything about her career shifted. It opened a path toward a screenwriting credit and award nominations. Eventually it brought a kind of attention that had nothing to do with film reviews, including a legal dispute far from any red carpet. What took her from teenage modelling campaigns to that turning point is only part of the story. The rest begins with a childhood spent across three countries.

• 2. A Childhood Between Continents

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  Goth's mother was Brazilian and twenty years old when Goth was born in 1993 at Guy's Hospital in London. Her father was Canadian, from Nova Scotia. Her maternal grandfather was the American artist Lee Jaffe, and her maternal grandmother was the Brazilian actress Maria Gladys. When Goth was two weeks old, her mother moved them to Brazil, since she needed her own family's help to raise a child at twenty. They returned to the United Kingdom when Goth turned five, and when she was ten the family briefly relocated to her father's native Canada. Goth later described that period living with her father as very difficult. In Canada she attended nine schools within a single school year. At twelve she and her mother settled in southeast London, where she attended Sydenham School. Her mother raised her alone, working as a waitress to support them both. That single-parent household, where wages came from waitressing rather than industry connections, is where Goth's path toward modelling would soon begin.

• 3. Discovered at the Underage Festival

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  Fashion photographer Gemma Booth spotted a fourteen-year-old Goth at the Underage Festival in London and signed her to Storm Model Management. Storm placed her in advertising campaigns for Miu Miu and Prada. Her image also appeared in magazines including Wonderland, Vogue, Vogue Italia, W, Love, Dazed, Interview, AnOther, British Vogue, Document Journal, Glamour and Pirelli. Her runway debut came only in 2023, when she opened the Miu Miu autumn-winter show, more than a decade after she was first signed. Acting entered the picture once Goth reached eighteen and finished sixth form, and she began auditioning for film roles around that time. Her first part came in Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac, released in 2013. She appeared in the segment titled "The Gun," alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe. That same year she played Sophie Campbell in an episode of Sky Atlantic's crime drama The Tunnel. She also appeared in Future Unlimited's music video for "Haunted Love," directed by Shia LaBeouf. Within a year, more parts would follow, including a short film in 2014 and three further roles across 2015 and 2016.

• 4. A Run of Supporting Roles

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  In 2014, Goth appeared in Magpie, an introductory short film directed by Stephen Fingleton, alongside Martin McCann. The following year, Fingleton cast her in the lead role of Milja in his post-apocalyptic thriller The Survivalist. That same year, 2015, she played Meg Weathers in Baltasar Kormakur's disaster film Everest. In 2016 she appeared as Hanna Helmqvist in an episode of BBC One's crime series Wallander. Also in 2016, Gore Verbinski directed her in the horror film A Cure for Wellness, one of four projects that would earn her wider recognition. In 2017 she also appeared in the thriller Marrowbone, playing a character named Jane Marrowbone. She followed it with supporting roles in two 2018 films, Luca Guadagnino's remake of Suspiria and Claire Denis's science fiction mystery High Life. Guadagnino also directed her in the short film The Staggering Girl in 2019. In 2020 she took the role of Harriet Smith in Autumn de Wilde's Emma. In 2021, Goth starred in Karen Cinorre's action drama Mayday, playing Marsha alongside Grace Van Patten and Juliette Lewis. Nearly a decade after her debut, these varied genres had built a reputation as a versatile performer, and her defining role was still to come.

• 5. Two Faces of Pearl

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  Ti West's slasher film X reached theaters in March 2022 to widespread critical acclaim, giving Goth two roles in a single production. To play the elderly killer Pearl, she wore extensive prosthetic makeup. She described "a good 10 hours in the makeup chair," followed by a 12-hour day on set. Makeup artist Sarah Rubano, she said, was constantly touching her up and checking her contacts. West praised her range across both parts, saying, "She understood the characters really well, and she understood the duality of Maxine and Pearl." David Sims of The Atlantic called her dual performance "a remarkable one." Goth then co-wrote Pearl, a prequel that she began filming immediately after finishing X, and which reached audiences in September 2022 to positive reviews. Her performance in Pearl earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Performance, among other nominations. It is regarded as one of the strongest film performances of that year. Through these two roles, Goth gained notoriety within the horror community and became known as a modern scream queen. That reputation followed her into the projects that came next.

• 6. Reviews and Recognition

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  Alongside her live-action breakthrough, Goth lent her voice to a character named Mabel in a 2022 segment of the anthology film The House. Brandon Cronenberg's body horror film Infinity Pool paired her with Alexander Skarsgard and premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews. David Fear of Rolling Stone offered some of the strongest praise. He wrote that Goth "makes an even stronger post-Pearl case for her being the single most interesting actor working in genre movies at the moment." Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting praised a "scene-stealing level of unhinged glee that might give Pearl a run for her money." Goth then returned as Maxine Minx in MaXXXine, the third film in the X series, released in 2024. She felt its script was the strongest of the three. Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times called the performance "as usual, sublime." Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com took a different view. She wrote that Goth "remains a singular screen presence" even as the character grew less compelling as the story went on. Awards attention followed too, including nominations at the MTV Movie and TV Awards, the Critics' Choice Super Awards, and the Saturn Awards. Even as her film career grew, headlines about her personal life began to compete for attention.

• 7. Life Off Screen

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  Goth met American actor Shia LaBeouf in 2012 while the two co-starred in Nymphomaniac. On the 10th of October 2016, the couple appeared to marry in a Las Vegas ceremony officiated by an Elvis impersonator. Two days later, a local official said the pair were not legally married, and that a commitment ceremony had taken place instead. Later that month, LaBeouf confirmed the marriage on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In September 2018, the couple announced their separation and filed for divorce. By February 2022, they had reconciled, and it was reported that Goth was pregnant with their first child. Their daughter was born in March 2022, though the relationship ultimately ended in early 2025. Goth speaks English, Portuguese, and Spanish. In January 2024, background actor James Hunter, who had played a corpse on the set of MaXXXine, sued Goth for verbal and physical assault. He alleged that she had kicked him in the head. Hunter said he suffered a concussion and was fired the following day. A24, the studio behind the film, issued a statement denying the allegations and defending Goth, a dispute unfolding even as new roles already awaited her.

• 8. What Comes Next

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  Guillermo del Toro cast Goth in his film Frankenstein as Elizabeth Harlander, Victor Frankenstein's love interest. She also plays young Victor's mother, Claire Frankenstein, in the film's early flashback scenes. In June 2025, Goth was cast as the main antagonist in Shawn Levy's upcoming Star Wars film, Starfighter. Her filmography also lists a role in The Odyssey, credited as Melantho, which had reached post-production by 2026. Starfighter, meanwhile, remained in the filming stage. With Starfighter still filming and The Odyssey in post-production, Goth's work was already moving on two more projects before Frankenstein had finished its theatrical run.