Michaela Coel Covers W Magazine 'The New Originals' November, Lensed by Tim Walker

British actor Michaela Coel is on every list that matters this fall. She covers the current edition of W Magazine with its focus on The New Originals. The June, jaw-dropping debut of Michaela Coel’s ‘I May Destroy You’ HBO hit also put her in the current WSJ Magazine Innovators list and earned her a spot on the TIME 100.

‘I May Destroy You’ narrates the story of Coel’s own sexual assault after her drink is spiked at a bar. A long list of critics bears witness to Coel’s leader of a generation talents and her ”unique ability to distill what could have been an unbearable treatise on the nature of trauma into a sharp, funny, complex, deeply personal show about the nature of existence.”

In her groundbreaking lecture at the 2018 Edinburgh International Television Festival, Coel spoke about her assault publicly for the first time. Not dwelling on the blast of authentic, personal history permeating through her audience, the actor then used the rest of her 53 minutes address share her experiences with racism growing up in London, enrolling in a mostly white drama school, and also as a young actor and TV writer.

The entire video is shared in yesterday’s article about the event, in which Coel also held her audience captive with the story of more than one bag of shit left at her family’s front door and also in the mail box.

Photographer Tim Walker captures these intense portraits of the actor for the November issue of W Magazine, with styling by Sam Walker. Playwright, actor, producer and now budding director Jeremy O. Harris, whose Broadway stunner ‘Slave Play’ earned an outstanding 12 Tony nominations, interviews Michaela Coel. / Makeup by Sam Bryant; hair by Cyndia Harvey