Charli XCX Just Landed a Role in Martin Scorsese’s Next Film, and the Way She Got There Is the Best Part
Charli XCX Just Landed a Role in Martin Scorsese’s Next Film, and the Way She Got There Is the Best Part
Some career moves announce themselves with a press release and a red carpet. This one arrived quietly, through a casting report, and it still managed to stop the internet in its tracks. Charli XCX, the British pop star who spent the past two years turning herself into a serious film actor, is reportedly set to appear in Martin Scorsese’s next movie, What Happens at Night, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.
Yes, that Scorsese. Yes, those costars. And yes, the story behind how she got there is almost as good as the casting itself.
What Variety reported, and what is still secret
According to Variety, as reported by PEOPLE, Charli XCX will make a cameo in What Happens at Night. Her exact role has not been revealed, and representatives for Charli and for Apple TV did not immediately respond to requests for comment when PEOPLE reached out.
That secrecy is part of the appeal. Fans are already guessing whether she will appear as a singer, a guest, or someone far stranger. For now, nobody outside the production knows.
What we do know is the company she will keep. DiCaprio, 51, and Lawrence, 35, play a married American couple who travel to a snowy European town hoping to adopt a baby. After they check into an eerie hotel, they meet a series of unusual characters, including a chanteuse, a businessman and a faith healer, and reality begins to blur. Mads Mikkelsen, Patricia Clarkson and Jared Harris are also in the cast.
A story that starts with an album cover
Here is where the story gets delicious. Charli did not just cold call Scorsese’s office. Earlier this year she released her album Music, Fashion, Film, and its black and white cover featured Scorsese himself, sitting alongside musician John Cale and fashion designer Marc Jacobs. Each man represented one of the worlds in the album title.
Photographed by Aidan Zamiri, the artwork brought together three figures from three different creative universes. At the time it looked like clever album art. In hindsight, it looks like the first scene of a much bigger story.
Now the director who posed for her album cover is reportedly directing her on a film set. That is not a normal career path. That is the kind of full circle moment that only happens when an artist is taken seriously in a second field.
What Happens at Night, explained simply
What Happens at Night is a gothic psychological drama based on Peter Cameron’s 2020 novel of the same name. Patrick Marber wrote the screenplay. Deadline first reported Scorsese’s plans to direct the project in September 2025.
The plot sounds simple and unsettling in practice. A couple travels far from home for something hopeful, the adoption of a baby, and finds themselves in a place where nothing quite adds up. The line between what is real and what is imagined starts to wobble.
DiCaprio, Scorsese and Apple TV shared a first look in March, showing DiCaprio and Lawrence holding hands against a snowy backdrop while production was underway. Apple Studios is producing alongside StudioCanal. No release date has been announced yet.
For Scorsese, the film is his first narrative feature since 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which also starred DiCaprio and earned 10 Oscar nominations. Adding Lawrence and then Charli as a wild card suggests Scorsese is building something deliberately surprising.
Charli’s second career is no longer a side project
It is easy to treat a pop star’s acting career as a hobby. Charli’s recent run makes that impossible. According to Variety, she has appeared in seven films over the past two years, a pace most full time actors would envy.
Her credits include the Brat era mockumentary The Moment, Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero, Pete Ohs’ Erupcja, Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist, and more. Earlier this year she also worked on the soundtrack for Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights, released in February, which included House, her collaboration with Cale.
That is not dabbling. That is a deliberate reinvention, built film by film. Scorsese has a long history with music, from directing The Band’s concert film The Last Waltz to documentaries about Bob Dylan, George Harrison and the Rolling Stones. He does not cast a musician lightly.
Why a cameo can matter more than a lead role
Some fans may hear the word cameo and feel disappointed. They should not. In a Scorsese film, a small role can become the scene everyone talks about on the way home. Think of the musicians he has cast before, or the character actors who steal a film in ten minutes flat.
A cameo also fits where Charli is right now. She is still touring and recording. A short, sharp appearance in a major Scorsese project gives her credibility without pulling her away from music for months.
It also fits the film itself. A familiar pop star appearing in an unfamiliar, eerie setting could unsettle the audience in the same way the hotel guests unsettle the couple.
The timing tells its own story
The casting news arrived in a hectic week for Charli. She is currently on her Music, Fashion, Film Tour, and on October 20 she announced that she had to cancel her October 21 show in Glendale, Arizona, after losing her voice while battling illness on tour. She told fans she had been fighting sickness throughout the run of shows and had completely lost her voice, and that her team could not secure a new date at the venue.
She still performed her scheduled October 23 show in Las Vegas, closing out the United States leg before European shows in February. The fact that a Scorsese casting report landed in the middle of that punishing schedule only underlines how fast her film career is moving.
For more on that difficult tour week, read our story on Charli XCX cancelling her Arizona concert after losing her voice. For another big casting story, see Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood joining The Gentlemen season 3. And for a reminder of how Hollywood honours a lifetime in film, read Tom Cruise receiving the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2027.
What to watch for next
The next clues will probably not come from an official announcement. They may come from a set photo, a festival listing, or a quiet mention in an interview.
Until then, the facts are clear enough to be exciting and honest enough to stay grounded. Charli XCX is reportedly set for a cameo in Martin Scorsese’s What Happens at Night, a gothic drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, based on Peter Cameron’s novel, with no release date announced yet. Her role is secret. Her costars are legends. And the album cover that started it all now looks like a prophecy.
From Brat to Scorsese in two years is not a normal trajectory. It is the trajectory of an artist who decided that one career was not enough, and then did the work to prove it.
