While Margaret Qualley (birthname: Sarah Margaret Qualley) has gained most visibility in lead or co-lead roles in a handful of impactful cable and streaming series, including HBO’s The Leftovers (2014-2017), Fosse/Verdon (2019), and Netflix’s Maid (2021), she has spent most of her acting energy during her nine-year career on feature films, collaborating with such world-class directors as Claire Denis (Stars at Noon) and Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things).
Qualley’s screen debut was accidental, as she was cast by director Gia Coppola on the spur of the moment when she was visiting a friend on the set of Coppola’s Palo Alto (2013), with James Franco and Emma Roberts. Her first intentional screen role was in Shane Black’s crime comedy, The Nice Guys (2016), with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, and then her first co-starring role happened with Maggie Betts’ impressive nun drama, Novitiate (2017), with Melissa Leo and Julianne Nicholson. Qualley’s first feature to go straight to Netflix was in 2017, with the supernatural Death Note, with Lakeith Stanfield and Nat Wolff, preceded by IFC’s release of Tim Hutton’s Donnybrook, with Frank Grillo, Jamie Bell, and James Badge Dale.
Displaying her genre breadth, Qualley starred in a busy 2019 in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama, Io, with Anthony Mackie and Danny Huston; Rashid Johnson’s and Suzan Lori-Parks’ adaptation of Richard Wright’s Native Son, with Ashton Sanders; as a member of the Manson family in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; the thriller Strange but True, with Amy Ryan, Brian Cox, and Blythe Danner; and the biopic Seberg, opposite Kristen Stewart and Jack O’Connell. Qualley portrayed author Joanna Rakoff in Phillippe Falardeau’s Canadian production, My Salinger Year (2020), with Sigourney Weaver and Colm Feore, and received a Best Actress Canadian Film (Iris) award nomination.
With writer-director Claire Denis, Margaret Qualley co-starred in the Nicaraguan revolution drama, Stars at Noon (2022) with John C. Reilly and Joe Alwyn, premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. She followed with director Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things (2023) (based on Tony McNamara’s adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s novel), with Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, and Christopher Abbott—with whom Qualley co-starred in the erotic drama, Sanctuary (2022).
Qualley was cast by co-writer/director Ethan Coen in the co-starring role, with co-star Geraldine Viswanathan, in the crime comedy, Drive-Away Dolls(2024), with Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, Matt Damon, Miley Cyrus, and released by Focus Features/Universal Pictures.
Qualley then reunited with filmmaker Lanthimos for his three-story anthology film, Kinds of Kindness(date to be announced), co-written by Efthimis Filippou, and co-starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer, and released by Searchlight Pictures.
Margaret Qualley joined the cast of Demi Moore and Dennis Quaid as director/writer/producer for Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024), which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Screenplay Palme prize and was released by Mubi.
Qualley continued her pattern of working regularly with major filmmakers by rejoining director/co-writer/producerCoen for the second film in his so-called “lesbian B-movie trilogy,” Honey, Don’t! (2025), co-starring Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, and Charlie Day, co-written by Tricia Cooke, and released by Focus Features.
Margaret Qualley co-starred with lead Glen Powell, Ed Harris, Jessica Henwick, Topher Grace, and Bill Camp in the black comedy, Huntington(date to be announced), director/writer John Patton Ford’s loose adaptation of Kind Hearts and Coronets(1949) for StudioCanal and released in the US by A24.
Qualley co-starred with Ethan Hawke (as songwriter Lorenz Hart) in the musical biopic from director/producer Richard Linklater for Sony Pictures Classics, Blue Moon (date to be announced), with a supporting cast including Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott.
Qualley co-starred with Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Guy Pearce, and Benedict Wong in director/producer Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama, The Dog Stars(2026), co-written by Mark L. Smith (who also produced with Scott) and Christopher Wilkinson, and released by 20thCentury Studios.
