From French Cinema to Hollywood Success, Gigi Dia on LUX&Ent’s September Cover

As LUX&Ent’s September digital cover star, Gigi Dia arrives at a moment when years of steady work have developed into a career filled with major productions, international films and high-profile campaigns.

The French actress has worked in independent cinema, studio films, television and advertising, but the range of those credits says only part of what she has been building. Dia has also taken an active role behind the camera, learning how projects are developed, financed and produced. More recently, she has begun writing the kind of opportunities she wants to pursue next.

September cover

That instinct goes back to her childhood in France, where books and films first sparked her interest in acting. Her screen career began with Niofar, in which she played a young Senegalese woman who had recently arrived in France. The short received 21 festival selections, including Cannes and Sundance, and won six awards.

It was an unusually strong introduction to the profession, but it also established something that would remain present in many of Dia’s later choices. She was interested in entertainment, though she was equally drawn to characters whose experiences reflected social and cultural questions outside the screen.

Gigi later played a student participating in the final public speaking competition at Sciences Po in A Man in a Hurry, starring Leïla Bekhti and Fabrice Luchini. An appearance in Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible Fallout gave her an early look at a production operating on an entirely different scale.

NYX campaign

Instead of treating those first credits as enough of an education, Dia decided to study the industry more closely. She moved to Los Angeles and enrolled at UCLA, where her coursework included acting, marketing and production. The move required her to begin again in a city where she was still learning the professional culture, the language of the business and the practical realities behind each role.

She continued working internationally. In the French film Number 10, Dia played Aicha, a soccer player trying to build a future in a sport where her ambitions are dismissed because she is a woman. The character’s refusal to accept those limitations made the project particularly meaningful to her.

She later appeared in several films. Among them was The Daily Dreamer, a production in which an interview with a mysterious figure from the art world becomes a psychedelic journey between reality and illusion. The film was selected by festivals in California, Europe and Russia, including the Marina del Rey Film Festival, Moscow Shorts Film Festival, Golden State Film Festival and Esoteric Film Festival.

After Gigi’s face started to be recognized by industry professionals, she was called to appear in the Beautyblender and Sephora campaign introducing a concealer available in 40 shades. Representing a product created for a wide range of skin tones carried personal meaning for her. It was also the beginning of a long relationship with the beauty industry that would eventually lead to campaigns for some of its most recognizable brands.

Her acting work continued at the same time. She appeared as a vendor in HBO’s Insecure, created by and starring Issa Rae, and took the lead in the short film Eating Lisa. In the latter, she played Gamalielle, a woman on a mission to steal and eat the Mona Lisa. For a French actress, the assignment came with an extra layer of absurdity: she quite literally had to take a bite out of one of France’s most famous cultural treasures.

Dia later played a reporter in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix musical The Prom, working on a production led by Meryl Streep and Kerry Washington. She also returned to French cinema for Salim Kechiouche’s The Child of Paradise, appearing with Kechiouche and Nora Arnezeder. The feature premiered at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival.

Her ability to work in France and the United States has allowed her to work between two industries with different traditions and expectations.

A national Hennessy campaign narrated by Nas brought Dia to television viewers during the NAACP Image Awards. It later screened during the BET Awards and appeared on BET. Other commercial work followed for PayPal, Ally Bank, Amazon, Grande Cosmetics and Beautyblender.

Yet acting in other people’s projects was never the full extent of her interest. After raising more than $30,000, Dia produced, directed and starred in the short film Our Boat. The film had its world premiere at LA Shorts International Film Festival, which qualifies films for consideration by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and BAFTA.

Our Boat allowed Dia to take control of the process in a way acting alone could not. The experience also expanded her ambitions. Following the short, she began developing a feature film that she wrote and is expected to lead.

Writing and producing have given her a clearer understanding of what happens before an actor arrives on set. Raising money, assembling a team and guiding a film through production require a different kind of commitment than preparing for a role. For Dia, those responsibilities have not replaced acting. They have given her another way to create the work she wants to see.

Her more recent film credits include Kogonada’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell. She also joined Lauren Caster’s feature Rhythm Is a Dancer, which premiered at the Austin Film Festival and was later released through Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.

Urban Decay

Her beauty portfolio now includes Urban Decay, OFIR Cosmetics, One/Size by Patrick Starrr and NYX Professional Makeup. Her work with Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs appeared in Sephora stores throughout the United States, including campaigns for the brand’s foundation and concealer. She has since added Microsoft, Anastasia Beverly Hills, AT&T, Sheglam and Google to her commercial credits.

No Makeup Makeup campaign

The recurring interest from major brands has given Dia another level of visibility.

Her recent projects also include Ari Lennox’s YouTube miniseries Vacancy Motel, the Meadow campaign film Slow Down and a television and streaming commercial for Victoria Jackson’s No Makeup Makeup®. She also appeared in the music video “My Body Isn’t Ready” by Sombr, alongside Inde Navarrette.

Slow Down commercial

Dia’s professional life has taken her to the Toronto and Cannes film festivals as well. For an actress who began in a short that reached festivals before she fully understood where the profession might take her, attending those events offered a chance to experience the industry from an already established position.

That distinction matters in understanding Dia’s career. The visible moments, from major productions to beauty campaigns to festival appearances, are supported by years of auditions, classes, small productions and decisions that carried no guarantee of a result. Her progress did not come from a single breakout role. It came from continuing to work while becoming more selective about what she wanted that work to become.

For Dia, luxury is not simply being seen in a major campaign or attending an international film festival. It is having more choice in what comes next. With experience as an actress, director, producer and writer, she is now in a position to pursue certain roles offered to her while creating opportunities of her own. Her September cover for LUX&Ent captures that moment: an actress who came to Los Angeles to learn the business and is now deciding how she wants to participate in it.