Olivia Taylor

The most talked-about teenager on the planet is sitting on a bed, 3,500 miles away on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, looking impossibly chic in a rented house in London. The room is immaculate in the manner of high-end Airbnbs — pressed linens, botanical wallpaper, fluffy green pillows. Hair pulled back sharp, she’s wearing a velvety leopard-print bomber jacket atop a nondescript black crew neck long-sleeve and black pants, like a behind-the-scenes musical theater hand might. Fitting, considering that before Olivia Rodrigo became an overnight sensation for her monster-hit torch song “drivers license,” she was best known for her role as theater nerd Nini Salazar-Roberts in Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Except, of course, this is real life and she is center stage.