The Musical Metamorphosis of Diana Silvers

"There's something about Diana Silvers that feels like the moving, breathing contents of a vintage picture frame. The grainy particles dancing across the film camera, capturing Silvers's often contemplative, sometimes playful expression, look like they could be part of her—silver halide crystals sparkling beneath her skin."

These are the first words I typed in my Notes app after watching the multi-hyphenate's music video for "Airplane," a paramount track from her debut album, From Another Room. Silvers, a model, actress, and newly minted musician, has just completed yet another phase of her creative metamorphosis. Her gossamer wings are spreading into the music industry, and she has a bright and shiny record to prove it. Mind you, it's her third act at just 28 years of age.

I first "met" the burgeoning star and forever fashion person when I watched Booksmart in my sophomore year of college, where Silvers graced the screen as the leather-clad cool girl Hope, fashioned by director Olivia Wilde. "Low-key, I think that Hope would fuck with my record," she later tells me with a laugh. I'd grown used to seeing her face in luxury campaigns and on runways, walking and posing for names like Prada, Celine, and Stella McCartney. However, I actually met the ever-evolving star during a laid-back video call, revealing a sweater-clad Silvers with her arms poetically draped over an acoustic guitar. The Los Angeles born star is very New York in her ways, as she joined our call early to workshop a few chords. "It's a little cliché, but I honestly really just enjoy doing it," she laughs. "It's the first and last thing I do every day."

We're chatting only nine days after her 28th birthday, which she says she spent lying on her friend's red light therapy mat, eating princess cake, and watching the Timberwolves vs. Nets game. "I love the NBA," she says with a drawl. Silvers speaks about her favorite teams—the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, and Minnesota Timberwolves (where her dad is from)—with the same fervor as her favorite books. Her shelf, she tells me, is currently stacked with Murray Stein's Jung's Map of the Soul, Jon Krakauer's Classic Krakauer, and Cameron Crowe's The Uncool, to name a few. I tell her this makes sense—her songwriting sounds like she reads good books. And I'm not just buttering the star up. Silvers's ethereal sound and poignant lyricism are unexpected yet unsurprising talents in her arsenal.

If you're wondering where the curious actress had time to become a singer, songwriter, and producer while simultaneously working on another project (she was shooting Netflix's Lena Headey led American Western series The Abandons when this record began to bubble up inside of her), get in line. The truth is that Silvers didn't try to write an album. Actually, she didn't even try to write a song. "I wrote 'Airplane' on September 22, 2024—I know because I have it in my diary—and I remember it kind of scared me," she tells me, the sanctity of it settling into her voice. "It wasn't that I sat down and wrote lyrics and then wrote a song. I started these chords, and then I was like, 'I think something's coming.'"

The track "Airplane" came out of Silvers "like an emergency," she writes in an Instagram caption, but the way she describes it to me sounds like a sonic release—lyrics, chords, and choked-up sentiments that she couldn't seem to keep down. "Most of my songs don't really follow a format because they tend to be more stream of consciousness," she explains. "Then I come to, and I'm like, 'Oh, cool. A song just happened.'" This process seemed to resemble The Artist's Way esque morning pages for the singer during the time of Donald Trump's presidential reelection: a form of therapy, an unleashing of trapped creativity and pent-up frustration. "I remember listening back to ["Airplane"], and I was like, 'Whoa, okay. I just learned something about myself and about how I'm feeling,'" she says.

On its surface, the track is a symphony of sweet guitar chords with a nostalgic graininess. Her soft vocals are colored with Alanis Morissette like lilts and instrumentals accented by her beloved childhood instrument, the cello. As I dove deeper into the lyrics, I was swept into the undercurrents of pain rippling through the feathery melody, words Silvers describes as a protest woven into a pretty lullaby.

How quickly a song about a plane departing from New York City shifts into the scolding of a grown man's childish behavior. "There's a man in the seat in front of me, and he's angry about a baby girl who's crying, and I feel like I could punch him in the throat," she croons on the track.

For a brief moment, the guitar halts its strumming—almost as if it's for comedic relief. Cue the laugh track. ("I used to not understand why they'd laugh at that line," she says as she reflects on the audience's reaction during Jon Batiste's Big Money Tour, which she opened for this fall. "But I guess it's good. I'm glad that you're laughing because now you're tuned in in a different way.")

"He doesn't know," she sings. (Coy. We're in on the joke.) "I hope she never knows."

Understanding slams like a tidal wave.

This contrast between Silvers's pillowy instrumentals and sharp songwriting is evident throughout the other 10 tracks making up From Another Room, and it's the direct result of a childhood scored by the discreet, honeyed fire of "Falling Rain" by Link Wray, "Modern Love" by David Bowie, and "Blackbird" by The Beatles. The album is a library of sonically sweet (hell, even fun) melodies that mask the emotional blows sustained when you really listen to the lyrics. "I think that's a really powerful way to invite people to think, to question, to challenge the world around them in a way that's not forcing it," she explains.

After scribbling the last lyrics, Silvers was able to sit with the grief and anger that flowed so effortlessly from her pen. "I was like, 'I don't know what to do with this right now because I don't think anyone cares, and I don't think that I'm that good, either,'" she admits. "But it feels important." Silvers decided to wait until The Abandons wrapped to refocus her attention on whatever this new discovery was. "[On my] first day home, I wrote another song," she adds. Was this something worth exploring now that there were two? "And then Trump got reelected. And I was like, 'All right, I'm really fucking angry. … I need to put this out,'" she continues.

The artist felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility to speak her mind about the message that this presidency sent to American youth—that injustice could be rewarded at the highest level. "I wanted to mobilize my frustration somehow, and the only way I know how to do that is through art," she says.

While this project marks her first official foray into the music industry, one could argue that music is embedded in Silvers's DNA. "I'm one of six children, and it was a requirement in the house I grew up in to play an instrument—a classical instrument," she tells me. "Music was very prevalent in our household. If it was quiet, it was creepy. Why isn't there music playing? That's when you hear the spirits of our old house come alive. You're like, 'Okay, let's put music back on so you don't hear the ghosts!'"

Young Diana plinked around on the piano when her dad wasn't looking (it was his prized possession, and she wasn't formally trained) and had a brief stint with the viola. "It turned out I just didn't like holding something up like this," she explains, throwing an arm up to mimic playing the too-small instrument. Still, it was important that Silvers found her musical match, which she finally did in the cello. "Loved that I could sit down," she jokes. But really, this moment marked the artist's love affair with music. "I love the sound, the timbre of the cello," she muses. "To me, it's the closest thing to the human voice—the pitch, the range, the quality of sound."

Though Silvers would have likely found her way to music one way or another, it helped that she was born into what is essentially a blood-related orchestra. "My dad was like a music encyclopedia. He knew every song, when it charted, the year it came out," she explains. "So I think I'm kind of prepped to have this knowledge and do something with it."

An overwhelming sense of pride stains her voice as she tells me about her five siblings, who are all musical in one way or another. The multi-hyphenate even takes a second to plug her brothers' and sisters' solo projects. "My younger sister, Ray Silvers, is an incredible musician and songwriter in her own right. She has a project out," she gushes. (Her debut EP, Loving Is Intention/Forgiving Is Redemption, came out just shy of two months before Diana's.) "My brother Joe put out this interesting cello instrumental EP over the summer, which was really cool. Holidays are fun. Sometimes, we all play music together."

It's Silvers's bustling childhood home that the star credits for readying her for modeling, which set her up for acting and later music. "I just learned to adapt. I feel like that's kind of my MO," she tells me. "Coming from a really large family, you're sort of always shifting around a lot of energy and a lot of different people's needs and personalities." As a middle child, Silvers felt that she started acting long before she ever stood on her first mark. "You're like, 'What is my place in this? Where do I fit?' I feel like I played many different roles in my childhood," she says.

The star began studying the craft at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, but she eventually fell out of love with the curriculum and began pursuing her career solo. "Because I didn't finish the program and I left school, I didn't have the same kind of support and [that] community," she reflects. "I did later on, but when I first started, I felt like I was just on my own." As she was cast in Wilde's coming-of-age project and Blumhouse's 2019 thriller Ma, it's safe to say that Silvers navigated her way to the big screen just fine. "What I love about acting is getting to be part of someone else's creative vision," she explains. "Getting to help see that to fruition is really unique and special."

Acting, however, wasn't the only interest Silvers was investing in at school. The star also majored in history, which she feels informs her storytelling in both music and fashion. "I love wearing something or listening to something or holding a guitar that I'm not the first one [to do it]," she shares. Silvers is enamored by "all this energy" that items with historical value seem to hold, whether it be a song from her parents' generation or a vintage gown from her favorite thrift store.

This sentiment holds true in Silvers's wardrobe, especially when she's styling herself on tour with Academy Award winning Batiste. She remembers an early modeling agent remarking that the star dressed "like a grandma," to which she responded with gratitude. Silvers happens to love hand-me-downs. A mixed bag of new Sandy Liang dresses, belts from her mom's teenage years, fringe suede jackets, and coral-flecked jewelry, Silvers's current style is akin to her music: a kaleidoscope of aesthetics, generations, and intentions. "I like incorporating new and old, like designer with vintage with hand-me-downs," she says.

The star didn't look to muses or have so much as a Pinterest board when she crafted her tour wardrobe. She just pulled from her closet. "It was fun to just wear my own clothes," she explains. "I already felt comfortable and confident in these clothes because they're mine." It was the creative process of dressing herself and writing her own music that gave Silvers the confidence to be fully present onstage. "On a day-to-day basis, I feel like I'm more tuned into how I feel and what I want to wear rather than stepping into something that someone else thinks I should be wearing," she tells me. "It's nice to just be like, 'I think I should be doing this, so I am.'"

It's with this newfound confidence that Silvers plans to expand her already-massive future. One thing we can certainly expect in the near(ish) future is another album. "I wrote a lot of songs on the road. Even before the songs on the road, I already had all the songs written for my next record," she tells me excitedly. "I know what I want to name it. I know [what] I want the cover art to be already." A new itch that Silvers didn't know she had until this year and can't wait to scratch again is going on tour. "Getting to play shows and connect with people in real time in that way is very unique," she explains.

Though Silvers is basking in the glow of this new musical era, don't think that she's abandoned her acting career. In fact, it sounds like she's just getting started. "I wrote a full-length feature that I hope I can get made! I think it's really funny," she indulges. "There [are] certain filmmakers I'm dying to work with. Hopefully, they find this record, and maybe they'll feel inspired by me because they inspire me."

I catch the sparkle of hope in her eyes, the quiet fire of someone whose creativity burns unbridled. "Who knows where the wind will take me," she closes.

Photographer: Kat Irlin
Stylist: Kirby Marzec
Hairstylist: Marki Shkreli
Makeup Artist: Tatyana Makarova
Manicurist: Nori
Creative Director: Natalia Sztyk
Fashion Director: Lauren Eggertsen
Entertainment Director: Jessica Baker
Producer: Erin Corbett