Emma Corrin Is Enby Gamine Goals

Emma Corrin first became known to me as the first Princess Diana on The Crown, and they played the part with an uncanny observation of Diana’s anxious tics. Their eyes roll, not insouciantly but compulsively, as if the eyes themselves are avoiding meeting a gaze. Their shoulders climb up around their ears, and their chin lowers, dipping the head in a near-constant bow. Corrin embodied the sort of discomfort and anxiety felt by the too-observed, the sort of nervousness that comes from being micromanaged by an uncaring monarchy. Since this first exposure, Corrin has grown as an artist and as a person. They starred in an adaptation of Lady Chatterly’s Lover and the Harry-Styles-is-a-serious-actor-dammit vehicle My Policeman. They came out as non-binary (aka enby) and dealt with the negative backlash that comes with that. On the stylish mystery A Murder At the End of the World, Corrin steps forward into a new mode as the sharp-minded sleuth/hacker/true crime memoirist Darby Hart and with their aloof mannerisms and of-the-moment look, they’re the rebel detective for a new age.

As Darby, Corrin’s avian features lend a falcon-like intensity to every narrowing of the eyes and quizzical cocking of the head. They carry themself with an anxious tension that could have easily been a copy of their work as Diana, but Darby’s affectations are their own: the unblinking stares, the blunt way they speak, the boxy way they comport themselves with their limbs pulled in close. Darby is tightly coiled and inelegant, too engaged with the churn of her thoughts to worry about how they’re coming across. Corrin serves us two spins on this fascinating character: a younger Darby who lives as the daughter of a coroner picking up the trail of the Silver Doe killer, and a current-day Darby who’s solving a twisty mystery in a remote hotel full of powerful elites. Corrin plays the younger Darby with guileless myopia; she takes death and its physical remains casually and expects others to do the same without any recognition that her upbringing and background might set her apart from others. Corrin embodies the well-observed timidity of a kid, but one that knows her shit. The current-day Darby builds believably on the younger by maintaining the introverted trappings and evolving them. She still speaks bluntly in a murmur, but she exudes a confidence that comes from growth. Corrin’s body is more relaxed, their style more bold and eye-catching, and their suppositions are more confident than before.

Corrin’s Darby Hart is the best argument for the return of ’90s fashion I’ve seen lately and that’s coming from someone who has wondered more than once lately why we’re repeating the sins of low-rise jeans. Appropriately for a “Gen Z Sherlock Holmes” hacker beset by high-tech mysteries, Darby serves lewk after lewk that could’ve been ripped straight from Hackers. With their pink hair cut into a stylishly messy pixie and their large pale eyes in their elfin face, Corrin is enby gamine goals. It’s a rare thing to see a non-binary person be presented as not just striking or different but chic and aspirational. I didn’t know before that I wanted to be a hacker-sleuth-writer with a penchant for geometric earrings, but Corrin radiates a type of “indie sleaze” cool that makes me want it. Check them out:

The world is full of hunks and honies in the traditional molds of masculine and feminine, but enby babes like Emma Corrin are here to remind you that beauty is beyond that binary. They feel like a herald of better times to come, when we might call a hottie a hottie without even thinking whether they’re masculine or feminine. Corrin feels like a fashion plate from a finer and more fluid future and for that, they deserve inclusion in your Pajiba 10.