Rowan Blanchard rocked the Disney kid paradigm when she came out as queer at the age of 14, and she hasn’t stopped rocking it since. The former Spy Kids and Girl Meets World star has consistently broken out from under the discipline of the Mouse to support Palestine, including in a 2018 Instagram post criticizing the Israeli violence in response to the Great March of Return actions. In September 2024, she was arrested along with 25 other people for blocking Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s motorcade during a visit to the UN headquarters, and continues to be a fixture on the street protest scene. The kids are, as they say, alright.
Where are you right now?
On the C train headed into Manhattan.
What are you never without?
Cigarettes.
When and where do you do your best thinking?
I’m not sure what my best thinking is, but I tend to think in a more expansive way alone in a park, after watching an excellent film, or after reading a great essay or poem.
What’s the last project you abandoned?
Trying to write a poem about my mother to share at a reading.
Favorite novel?
Off the top of my head, Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick.
Favorite smell?
Roses.
