From an early age, Alycia Debnam-Carey followed the yellow brick road into the whimsical and colorful and exciting and beautiful world of acting. Raised by a children’s television writer mother, Debnam-Carey was thrown into acting early on in life. “I just loved it from a really young age,” she tells V, explaining: “I always think it was something that was clearly just ingrained in me, I loved performing. I was very confident. I enjoyed putting on performances for my family.”

Her new show, Apple Cider Vinegar, was shot in Australia where the actress is from, and tells the story of Belle Gibson, an Australian wellness influencer who fabricated claims of having cancer and curing it through wellness practices to build her empire. In contrast, Alycia portrays Milla Blake, a wellness influencer who, after being diagnosed with cancer, claims to have cured herself through a holistic program she promotes to her social media following. Unlike Gibson, Milla genuinely has cancer and chooses to try to treat it through alternative methods after rejecting traditional medical recommendations. When deciding how to bring her character to life, Alycia “didn’t want her to feel like a victim.”

Despite having a terminal illness, the goal was to show all the nuances of the character and the intensity of the situation. She describes Milla as “someone who is fighting for herself, advocating for herself, making a lot of mistakes along the way and trying to do what I think she believes in, but at obviously the expense of herself and then others.”

To develop Milla’s character, writer and creator Samantha Strauss encouraged the actress to form her interpretation, allowing creative freedom that added a nuance and authenticity to the portrayal. One of Alycia’s first steps was to figure out the character’s costume and create a uniform. She explains, “It creates the exterior for how they present themselves, for how they exist in the world. And so I’ve always felt that fashion can represent so much more. It’s you, but it’s also like expression, art, and emotion.”

Alycia’s performance has earned widespread acclaim for its profound emotional depth. To navigate the most challenging scenes, she developed a deliberate approach to her craft. “I remember having to ground myself and being, you just have to listen. You have to receive it. You have to be present. There’s a lot of experience and training that finally has gotten me to a place to be better”. With this notion guiding her, Alycia gives her all to a scene that depicts Milla breaking down for the first time after holding on for so long. The actress feels a sense of responsibility: “You do want to do the characters justice and the world justice, and you want to make sure that these characters do feel connected, because it’s an experience that people are going through in their real life.”

For the future, Alycia has the perfect formula down to embody intense characters, and has her eyes set on playing a character that belongs “​​in a world of choices that you as a person can’t or won’t make.”

From V154 Summer 2025 Issue: now available for purchase!

Photography Olivia Malone

Fashion Karolyn Pho

Creative Director / Editor-in-Chief Stephen Gan

Editor Kevin Ponce

Interview Alice Almeida

Hair Lauren Palmer Smith (Forward Artists) using Bumble & Bumble

Makeup Zaheer Sukhnandan using MAC Cosmetics

Producer Suze Lee

Location The Revery LA

1st Photo Assistant Patrick Molina

2nd Photo Assistant Camille Rice

Digital Technician Dustin Edwards

Stylist Assistants Sydney Englehart, Kyle Lynch

Hair Assistant Drew Martin

Production Assistant Andrew Amann