Lana Del Rey on Finding Love, Leaving New York, Wanting to Act, and Her Hallmark Obsession

It feels right that Lana Del Rey, pop’s reigning patron saint of cinematic melancholy, is the face of W Magazine’s Fall Fashion Issue (Volume 4). Released today, the first of three covers for the issue arrives under the theme “Peak of Chic”—a glossy homage to Steven Meisel’s early photography. The poses nod to the past, but the mood is firmly anchored in now: Lana, enigmatic as ever, carrying a kind of vintage glossiness into 2025’s cultural frame.

Credit: Steven Meisel

On stands September 9, the issue folds Lana into a lineage of fashion storytelling that Meisel defined, arresting, theatrical, and instantly iconic. Inside, she opens up about the big and small mythologies of her life: from finding love in unexpected places to romanticizing California highways and, in true Lana fashion, her unlikely affection for Hallmark movies.

About her husband, Jeremy Dufrene, she recalls the kind of line that could’ve been written into one of her songs:

“I realized pretty immediately that I loved him, but that it might get difficult because of what I was bringing to the table. Jeremy said, ‘I work with alligators—I have tough skin.’ And he is a man of his word… he would just listen and say, ‘You be you—and I’ll just love you more.’” 

It’s domesticity, but with Lana’s signature bite, romance that acknowledges the rough edges.

Credit: Steven Meisel

She also remembers her leap from New York to Los Angeles, told with that familiar haze of nostalgia:

“When I moved to L.A. from the East Coast, I didn’t know anyone who had been to California… I bought a one-way ticket to L.A. and didn’t look back.

I had to romanticize it, because I was enchanted by the landscape… I’d have Mexican hot chocolate at a food truck, and I’d visit my favorite magazine stand and study W! I got so many melodies from L.A.” The detail "the 76 gas station, the hot chocolate, the magazine stand" is pure Lana, alchemizing mundanity into lore.

Credit: Steven Meisel

And while music has always been her medium, she doesn’t rule out other forms of performance. Asked if she’s ever considered acting, her answer is both self-aware and characteristically offbeat:

“Yes, I’d love to be in a film… Of course, I love Quentin Tarantino.

He and David Lynch have been the biggest influences on my work. But the majority of what I watch is not films. My favorites are shows on the Hallmark Channel… I had Hallmark running on the TV 24 hours a day.”

It’s the tension that makes her fascinating: Lana as both Hollywood muse and Hallmark obsessive. High fashion, low-key domesticity. A Meisel cover girl who still romanticizes gas stations. W’s Fall Fashion Issue doesn’t just dress her up in the clothes of the season, it frames her as the cultural contradiction she’s always been, and why we can’t look away.