'I’ve always been called 'Suki,' but my actual first name is Alice. My boyfriend started calling me Alice because I told him that that was my name when we first met, and I called him something else, too. It was just something fun, but then I stopped and he didn’t, so he introduced me to everyone as Alice. It confuses people sometimes. You know, on True Blood the character’s name is Sookie Stackhouse, and my name is Suki Waterhouse. So, I get people saying, ‘Oh, I thought we were meeting the girl from True Blood.’ [Laughs] It’s nice having a more traditional name as an option—I can be Alice or I can be Suki.
Anyway, I grew up in Chiswick, West London. My parents are both English. My dad is a plastic surgeon—his name���s Norman Waterhouse, but we call him Normy. And my mom’s a nurse, which is how they met—in a hospital, over decaying bone. My mom’s kind of a secret hippie, and my dad always had us doing things like rock climbing and karate—I got my black belt because he’s a black belt. He really treated me like a boy.
When I was around 16 or 17 I got asked to model, but because I was very 'tomboy' at the time, I wasn’t interested. But then I had a bit of teenage rebellion, and I saw modeling as an opportunity to get away from school and parents, so I thought, ‘OK, maybe I will be a model.’ [Laughs] But even so, I’m still not someone that, like, blow-dries my hair every morning. I’ll sleep in my clothes sometimes. I sleep in my clothes all the time, actually—in my coat. I just hate getting changed for bed; I like the idea of falling asleep in a natural way. It’s a bad habit, but I will sleep in all my clothes, under the covers. I don’t know, it’s a comfort thing; I just want to be constantly wrapped in stuff.
I do try to wash my face before I go to bed now, which I never really used to do. Sometimes, if it’s really dire, I won’t, but most times I get around to it, even if it’s just with water. I usually don’t take off eye makeup, though, because it’s a nightmare and mascara will be running down everywhere. I do keep Lancôme Bi-Facil Eye Makeup Remover by the bed with some little wipes, so I can just roll over and do it.
I’m using Crème de la Mer The Cleansing Lotion at the moment. It’s really nice. I get dry, so the moisturizing cleanser is really good. I’ve just started using sun cream in the last month. I don’t like it, but I’ve got these sun spots that popped up a few months ago, and they’re not that easy to get rid of. I’ve started treatment, but my mom was saying she has the same thing. It’s because I’ve been so careless with sun cream my whole life—going on holiday and getting burned all the time, and being in the sun in LA and never wearing sun cream. So I just saw these spots and I was like, ‘Oh my god!’ So now I’m using Obagi Sun Shield Matte Broad Spectrum SPF 50. I also use Obagi Nu-Derm Foaming Cleanser and Nu-Derm Toner if I feel like I’m getting zit-y. It dries you out quite a lot, but it tightens everything and when everything’s tighter it feels like nothing can creep through into the skin.
My dad also has a skincare clinic in London—I’m so lucky, I just go in there every week and raid the products and say, ‘Give me a facial!’ I also have a facialist in LA that Rosie Huntington [Whiteley] recommended named Shani Darden. She’s really cool; she does treatments in the back of her house. I just had a facial with her and it was amazing. She recommended I use retinol, just to start doing that kind of stuff.
I will do crazy skincare things in the kitchen, as well. I love coconut oil, so if I come home at night feeling all dry and like a fossil I’ll put my hand in a jar of coconut oil and just mush it over my face. I'll put it in my hair, too, and sleep like that…in my coat. Just kidding, I wouldn’t do that in my coat. [Laughs]
If I do want to wear a little bit of makeup, I really like a pink lip. There's one called Lip Mist in Pink Heather from Burberry that I love. That and a little bit of mascara. I use Chantecaille Future Skin Gel Foundation, which comes in a little pot. I have to reapply it quite often, but I like it. I’m shit at doing eye makeup, though. It’s really embarrassing. I'm not very well-coordinated in some ways—my fingers are just all over the place. I’m always using Bumble and Bumble for my hair, especially the Prep Spray. My hair is like flat baby hair after I wash it, so it needs something in it to get that 'day after' texture. Then also I will use Oribe Dry Texturizing Spray, or just a bit of dry shampoo from the drugstore. I’ve got the one that’s called Pssssst!. I think it’s great. And I use a lot of bobby pins when I want to get rid of my fringe.
At the moment, I'm thinking of growing out my fringe, I’ve just gotten so tired of it. When someone does it for you at the salon, it’s great, but maintaining a fringe is such a bollock. It’s a nightmare. I’ll just end up cutting it with a pair of kitchen scissors. It’s just hard to get it to look nice—it’s a maintenance thing, and also the fucking wind! I probably look like a prat, but I’ve recently just been pinning it down on the sides. I should get the little girl clips from Claire’s, then it would be super '90s Drew Barrymore. I’ve had a real phase of that recently.
Style-wise, I am very much influenced by things I come across on shopping sprees, people I see, movies I see… I don’t feel like I ever have my style set in stone. Sometimes I love looking super groomed, and sometimes I like to look super weird. For instance, there’s something great about ugly shoes, there really is. I wore this old pair of Dr. Martens for years that I found in a skip, which is like a dumpster, that I just looooved. I painted them—I quite like doing that. The Burberry show that I just walked in London was all inspired by Bloomsbury art, and they’ve painted all these sheepskin jackets in the collection. It’s awesome. I was asking them how they do it and they showed me and gave me all the tools to try it myself. It’s like ‘70s Shampoo vibes. I love that film. I’m super inspired by that and Boogie Nights.”
—as told to ITG
Suki Waterhouse, in a Burberry leather jacket and jeans, photographed by Emily Weiss in Los Angeles, CA on April 4, 2014. Suki is the face of Burberry's new fragrance, Brit Rhythm. Buy it here.
