THE UNTITLED MAGAZINE COVER STAR DOVE CAMERON OPENS UP ABOUT HER COMING OUT JOURNEY AND HOW SHE FACED THE PANDEMIC IN THE “INNOVATE” ISSUE
Read our feature with our cover star Dove Cameron below, and check out the full 14-page interview and photoshoot by Indira Cesarine in The Untitled Magazine‘s collector’s print edition, The INNOVATE Issue out now.
“Innovation to me really means completely tapping out of every other input from anything other than yourself, drawing completely from the purest space that you can — that is uninterrupted by any other frequency, any other opinion, any other human beings — and creating from there. Creating something fresh, something new from a place that is entirely for you.” It’s a perspective on the concept of innovation that, on the surface, seems simple. But as actress and singer Dove Cameron explains it further, one begins to understand just how nuanced and unique her philosophy is. “In trying to create for others, we muddy our juices and our natural connections to something greater than us. And we introduce our own ego. And I think that ruins innovation. Innovation has to come from a place that is wordless, and then finds its way into the zeitgeist.”
She practices what she preaches by seeking to “cut [herself] off from as many influences as possible.” Referring to a quote from Polish artist Stanisław Szukalski, she elaborates: “‘If you want to create new things for this world, never listen to anybody. You have to suck your wisdom, all of the knowledge, from your thumb. Your own self.’ I think that’s where innovation comes from.” This sentiment also inspires her to not intentionally break the mold for the sake of it, explaining that “the reason we have so much that has already been done and things that are so repetitive and malnourished creatively, is because we’re constantly trying to either do what someone’s done before or reinvent the wheel. But if you suck all of the wisdom from your own thumb, you’ll always be innovating.” Innovation for innovation’s sake is never Dove Cameron’s goal, and keeping that mantra in mind has been remarkably effective for her throughout her career.
The 25-year old star, perhaps best known for her start on the Disney Channel, has since branched out to encompass a rich filmography of musicals, romantic comedies and TV dramas, as well as a growing discography of pop hits. Though living in the spotlight, Dove’s approach to her life and work is introspective, deep, and ever-evolving. Recently, Cameron graced the cover of Gay Times to talk candidly about her status as a queer person. Though Dove informally “came out” on Instagram less than a year prior, fans were surprised, even shocked, at the singer’s queerness. “I think the reason that the Gay Times cover made such an impact was because it was a very black and white kind of announcement. I had been publicly out for…ever, but people just need to have it be done by the book. They need to have it be announced in that way for it to be fully recognized…It wasn’t even registering as anything because it had always been something so natural to me. It’s not that I came out, it’s the Gay Times cover that came out.”
Despite an uneven road to being a public queer figure, Dove Cameron continues to embrace her identity, though people only “re-colored their experience of [her] retroactively.” In fact, the change in attitudes from people shocked by the news is wonderful in her eyes, and has transformed her immensely. “I think it’s positively impacted my career… I think there was always something about me that people didn’t love, and they couldn’t put their finger on the fact of why they didn’t. It was like they saw 90% of me, and whatever the last 10% was that they didn’t see, it was making them highly uncomfortable. I think when the Gay Times cover came out…People are able to love me better and more. Everybody really showed up for who I always have been, that they now really understood, which was kind of amazing.”
The crux of Dove Cameron’s point is that her “white, fem, straight all-American girl next door–presenting” image was very much a narrative constructed by the public; a “super thinly defined, big block lettering” narrative that is never what she authentically presented. “I never had that ‘I can’t be tamed/I’m shedding my good girl image’ moment. Because I was always already that. I never had this big departure, and the image that I had was entirely one where [people] decided who I am, and I’m just not going to disrupt it.” It does not take much digging to see the evidence of Dove’s words. She describes getting her first tattoo at age 14, swearing left and right in past interviews, and even being romantically involved with women. “I was always very comfortable in myself and my sexuality. I dated a woman! People just did. Not. Notice! It was this weird psychology where I was doing all of these things and people were just pretending not to see it because it didn’t fit their narratives.”
Even under such frustrating circumstances — for two years when Cameron constantly thought to herself “what the fuck is it going to take for people to just see that I’ve literally always been here just the same” — she stays optimistic. “I think coming out was sort of permission for people to see me as anything other than how they had been seeing me. The definition of who I was became richer because they were able to see the rest.”
Even with such a positive outlook, Dove makes a point, similarly to her views on innovation, not to put too much pressure on herself to be an ambassador for the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, she doesn’t expect anyone to. “I am not an ambassador for anything. I am a growing, evolving, changing, human being.” This sentiment was one that developed over time for her, however. The younger version of Dove would have been “terrified to represent everyone well, and to know everything and be an ambassador for the community.” But as the cultural mores have shifted, any anxiety around being a perfect spokesperson has dissipated. “The space the LGBTQ community takes up now is so warm and healthy, and really in the last few years has become so much more. I think that we’re in this really amazing time culturally where we are being kinder to everyone, ourselves, and leaving more room for people to be human.” During the immediate aftermath of the Gay Times cover, Dove, wrought with anxiety, took solice in her closest queer friends, who helped her through. “ I called all of my queer friends shaking and crying, and they were like, ‘prioritize how you’re feeling. Come back to earth when you’re ready. This is a process for everybody. You don’t have to know everything and we’re here for you.’
If that experience taught her anything, it is to truly let yourself evolve into who you are at your own pace, not according to external expectations or standards. “I resent this idea that we’re defining who someone is from the outside. All I want from the people that I look up to is that they be fully themselves, how they define that, and then bravely share that when they’re ready, when they want to, in all of the messiness that comes along with that. I don’t want to hold anybody to some high standard to represent a large group of people, or to say everything right or do everything right while they’re figuring themselves out. I think that’s very anti-human. So if I want that from the people that I look up to, that’s all I expect from myself.”
It’s a remarkably compassionate philosophy on how we should define ourselves and interact with the world, and all the more impressive considering Dove’s small town upbringing on Bainbridge Island – a tiny, remote satellite of Seattle that you connect to by ferry. Describing her hometown, Dove details just how isolated she was growing up. “At night, it is entirely dark. You can’t see anything because it’s more trees than people. It’s the exact place where you wouldn’t want to be murdered. Just not a friendly place for a child. I was very isolated. My parents were always home because they owned a business, and I was homeschooled a lot of my life. We didn’t have cable or my own phone or laptop or anything.” But according to Dove, it was that loneliness that led her to fall in love with cinema. “The only places that I felt seen were watching people do Jesus Christ Superstar and Lawrence of Arabia and Gone with the Wind.”
That, combined with her mother putting her in theater, brought Dove to where she is today, at least personality-wise. “As a child, I was very stubborn and you could not get me to do anything that I didn’t want to. I’m very intense too, so if I want to do something, I do it 1000% with utter focus and I can’t look away from it, or, I cannot make my body and my cells align to be invested in it.” Even as a small, uncertain child, Dove never felt the need to prove anything to her peers. “I have been unable to tap into this whole ‘prove myself’ thing, which is probably a good thing. I just never cared! My love for what I do is actually completely divorced from how I view other people. It’s almost like it’s not even a career, it’s just something that I do. So I take no pride in any sort of echelons or accomplishments or new heights or anything.”
Along with the social isolation of growing up in such a remote place, Dove also experienced pervasive bullying as a child, on which she provides a remarkably unique perspective: she attributes it to her “deep reverence and love for humans.” She explains, “all I wanted growing up as a highly emotional person was to connect to my peers and the people around me. And I think that my intensity of love for them was actually part of the reason that I was so bullied.” Neatly mirroring her Gay Times cover anecdote, it just came down to the fact that “they completely didn’t understand me.” And just like recently, “a lot of my life has been me trying to explain myself to people, because they just don’t see me, don’t get me, don’t understand me. The more that I wanted to do that, the worse it got. I’ve only recently found my people through only focusing on myself.”
And that inner focus has certainly been paying off over the last decade or so,with several exciting new projects on the horizon. When asked about which resonate most with her currently, her first answer is the musical project she has underway (recent singles of hers include “LazyBaby,” “We Belong,” and her collaboration with Rezz “Taste of You”). “I’m really excited to be working on my music in this new space right now because I feel more myself than ever, and creating from that point of view as any kind of artist and performer is so exciting. You think less and you embody and exude more.” Dove’s appreciation for her friends and collaborators within these creative spaces is exuberant. She is “surrounded by people that I respect and look up to and worship…These people that I would be fans of, are now my friends and I get to create with them.”
Indeed, she sees herself first and foremost as “just a freak fan, eight years old in the back of my parent’s room with a camcorder, trying to entertain my family, looking up to these incredible artists.” That visual comes through vividly as she details how excited she feels sending her poetry to her “massive fucking icons and inspirations,” and having their voice notes come back saying “‘this line stands out to me,’ and ‘wow, this really impacted me.’” The Disney leading lady, blockbuster movie star and hitmaker with over 50M Instagram follows, is starstruck constantly. “I will never, ever, ever, ever be anything before I am a fan of massive talent and people that inspire me. So to suddenly be surrounded by that… just to be in conversation with these people and think about creating with them, that is the most exciting thing in the world to me. And unless I had fully embodied myself and really become myself, I would never find myself here. That is so crazy and gratifying and such a fucking life lesson.”
While naming the talented people that inspire her, Dove mentions comedian Cecily Strong, her co-star on Apple TV’s Schmigadoon!, a comedy series that parodies some of the most prominent Golden Age musicals of the 1940’s and ‘50s. However that is the tip of the iceberg as far as what she’s been working on the past year and a half. Since the pandemic, Dove has shot a season of a TV show, a pilot, had three movies released, and written “so much music.” In fact, according to her, “I’ve worked more now than ever. I’ve never been so overextended in my life.”
Of the mountain of projects on her schedule, one she is particularly excited for is HBO Max’s Field Notes on Love, which is an adaptation of the young adult romance novel of the same name by Jeniffer E. Smith. Hoping for “a classic big, sweeping romantic comedy,” to cross her path, Dove fell in love with the original novel, chock full of classic “When Harry Met Sally/coming of age/ finding yourself through finding love/very big romance” elements she loves. Accustomed to playing teenagers, Dove is also excited to finally “play somebody who is my age, somebody who is dealing with the things that I’m dealing with, and not have to alter myself in that way.”
Dove gave us the rundown on the film: “Basically, these two people find themselves, total strangers, on a cross country train ride across America, as my character is making a documentary about love and interviewing different people, asking them all of these questions about their relationships.” Working closely with the producers herself, Dove is really gunning for “real people and real stories” to include in the narrative for an added sense of authenticity. Her co-star, Jordan Fisher, is also a close friend of Dove’s, and one she can’t wait to work with. “I’ve worked with Jordan so many times and he’s one of my absolute best friends. So we have this comfortability, this chemistry, that I think is really going to lend itself to a deep intimacy on camera.” She continues: “as she’s filming these people, she’s falling in love with Jordan’ character, who is there to get over a breakup. It’s this sort of beautiful parallel love story. They’re checking into every hotel together and seeing the States together, living in close quarters. It’s just a beautiful classic love story.”
On the polar opposite end of the spectrum is the highly anticipated CW reboot of The Powerpuff Girls. Though delayed due to the pandemic and a pending pilot reshoot, the series, simply titled Powerpuff, has been acquiring massive buzz over the last year, and Dove can’t help but be hyped up herself. “I think it’s not what people would think. There’s a lot of emotions. It’s highly grounded…We pick up when the girls are 25, and they have all sort of left their childhoods in the past. Except for Bubbles, [who I play], who’s having a really hard time letting it go. As you can imagine, being in the public eye and fighting crime, being seven and eight and nine-year-old scientific creations who are semi-based in humanity, with no therapy, killing and harming people, and then being worshiped and revered as celebrities, and then hated and objectified. Would really fuck you up, you know? They have to reunite, and what that means for them is different. The trauma behind that is different for each girl.”
True to her statements about being a fan of talent first, what Dove has the most to say about is her praise for executive producer and writer of Powerpuff, Diablo Cody, writer of classics like Juno, Jennifer’s Body and Young Adult. “My favorite thing about Diablo is that she is so good at bringing camp into a sort of dingy, gross, indie, human, normal space. It’s very Scott Pilgrim, where you’re looking around and you’re in modern day Toronto in a fucked up North Face, but then you’re also fighting animated villains. She’s so good at holding our hand through the camp of it all. And so for that reason, I think that what we’re doing is really different and highly exciting.”
On the subject of trauma, Dove is unfortunately no stranger. “I’ve had a lot of strange trauma in my life where somebody suddenly dies or there’s a murder, or something truly, actually life-changing [happens].” She is referring to a string of unfortunate losses of friends and family from a young age, from her childhood best friend’s murder by her own father at age eight, her own father’s suicide at 15, or her recent best friend Cameron Boyce’s epileptic seizure that took his life only two years ago. It is enough trauma for two lifetimes, especially for a 25-year-old, but it is part of the reason Dove “finds [herself] highly adaptable in situations that seem like, ‘oh, holy shit. No one ever thought this would happen.’”
The “holy shit” moment in particular this time was of course the pandemic, and Dove largely attributes that cavalcade of trauma to readying her for it, seeing herself as “mentally more prepared for something like that, weirdly.” She understands the universal struggle, however. “It’s hard on everybody. It’s one of the most awful things that’s happened in the history of anything. I was in constant therapy.”
Dove feels her life experiences have brought her closer to people around her, and have kept her “highly plugged in to other people’s human experience.” From feeling “very close to the sort of lowest of lows that humans can go through and the deepest places that people can go to” because of her plentiful up close and personal experiences, Dove finds herself indelibly “close to human beings,” circling back to those sentiments imprinted on her from childhood, which she still lives by. “I am very aware of how short life is every single day, and I’m also very aware of how fragile we all are, and that we’re all fighting unseen battles. So while it is a lot to deal with, I also think it colors my own personal experience of life. I’m grateful for this perspective. If we have a reverence for life, then I’m going to take from it what I can, which is that I’m grateful to understand human beings more, feel closer to myself, and use it to speak about mental health.
Dove’s attitude towards mental health and trauma management is simultaneously casual and profound. Waxing both simplistically and poetically on her experiences, she explains, “trauma lives in the body, and I have granted myself permission to feel the weight of these things since I was very small. And I think that heartbreak around the loss of the people that I love is just heartbreak. It’s not something that I think about. It’s not something that I try to deconstruct. It is so much bigger than me, and I’ve always known that I am so insignificant compared to human pain. I would find it almost, in my personal experience, disrespectful to try to sit around and break it down and think about it.” Circling back to her father, who gave her the nickname “Dove” as a child, inspiring her to change her name, she elaborates: “That’s how I’ve always felt about my father’s death. He was in so much unimaginable pain, that there’s nothing that I could sit around here and come to the conclusion of that would even scratch the surface of the world that that inhabits.” Indeed, Dove doesn’t see trauma or pain as a burden, but rather something to be acknowledged as a part of life. “I don’t even try to hold it. I know that it has nothing to do with me. I know that it is grander than I could ever be.” This perspective makes it not only manageable, but necessary, so she feels no need for a dedicated mechanism to alleviate it. “I think when you just feel it, there are days when it takes you. And when it takes you, you let it happen. And other than that, you have practices that keep you in your body, that keep you plugged into your emotions so you know you’re not avoiding anything. And then you make art with all this spare time that you have.”
With more than a prolific volume of art underway for Dove, she still notes to us that there is much more to come in the future. “Over the course of the next year, keep an eye out, I’m releasing a lot.” Along with her intimate upcoming solo tour, An Evening with Dove Cameron, where she’ll be performing her entire discography, she also hopes to kick off 2022 with her first EP. “The creative output is very high over here, and it changes literally daily. I’m in a great, lovely creative zone/spiral/tornado/twister, and I’m excited to see what comes of that. And I’m excited to share with you guys!”
To view the full 14-page feature, pick up a copy of The INNOVATE Issue – available now from our online boutique.
Dove Cameron @DoveCameron
Photography by Indira Cesarine @indiracesarine for @theuntitledmagazine
Stylist Erin Walsh @erinwalshstyle
Stylist Assistant Madeleine Kennedy @madeleinekennedy
Make-up by Melissa Hernandez @melissa.hernandez
Hair by Clayton Hawkins @claytonhawkins
Photographed on location at Sofitel Los Angeles @sofitellosangeles
