This story appears in V139, the Supermodel, Superhero issue: now available for purchase!

It wasn’t long into Chloe East’s life that the actress dared to think up an impossible dream. There she sat in her childhood home, legs dangling off the couch as her TV program came to an end, when she first laid eyes on a Welch’s grape juice commercial. One look at the pigtailed girl on-screen, and the soon-to-be star was certain of one thing—she would be on TV,  whatever it took. “I get really  intense about things I’m passionate about,” laughs the 21-year-old actress from her Palisades home, fresh off the plane from the Toronto International Film Festival. While her childhood aspirations seemed nothing more than humble fantasies, they launched a career far greater than commercial stardom, earning her the role of Monica Sherwood in famed director Steven Spielberg’s latest film, The Fabelmans.

It was on the set of a different film that East first got the call—a request from Spielberg to speak with her on Zoom. He had seen her audition tape she sent in months prior, and now he wanted to meet her himself. “Waiting for that call, I felt like even if the whole experience was a Zoom with him, I’d be happy,” she remembers. “I would have met the greatest filmmaker of all time.” But that’s not where the story ends for East. One day later, the role was hers.

Considered to be Spielberg’s most personal film yet, preparing for the semi-fictionalized autobiography was quite the feat, even for East. Having spent her youth starring in series like HBO’s Generation and with guest appearances on Disney Channel’s Liv and Maddie, she was more familiar with a film set than a classroom, but nothing would compare to working with her idol. A film-lover at heart—a passion influenced by her actress mother and play-producer father—the pressure had never been higher. Cutting the long hair she had grown all her life to become the 1960s teenager, she set off to Zuma Beach for the first day of shooting.

Filled with months of anticipation, East stood at the shore and looked out on the set, a modern-day world set 60 years back. Though the news of her achievement was long past fresh, East couldn’t shake the feeling of disbelief. As if on cue, a man came to greet her, interrupting her racing thoughts with a kind smile and casual conversation. “It was a turning point,” she says, recalling her first time meeting the director. “He’s a genuine, down-to-earth guy.” Realizing she had nothing to fear, East felt excitement replace her worry, allowing herself to enjoy the process as the artistic journey she’s always known it to be. A decade and counting since that prophetic afternoon back home, it’d be an understatement to say East is fulfilling her dreams—now, she’s outliving them.