When Aurora Perrineau and I meet on Zoom, she’s sitting cross-legged in bed in a hotel room in New York. She greets me with a big smile. She’s wearing a tracksuit and her hair is in a slicked-back bun. Her eyeliner is perfectly applied. And her blush adds just the right amount of colour to an otherwise natural face. Her beauty radiates through the screen.

As the daughter of actors Brittany and Harold Perrineau (Romeo + Juliet, The Matrix), Aurora grew up in Hollywood. Cutting her teeth on support roles in critically acclaimed shows like When They See Us, The Carmichael Show, and Westworld, Perrineau stepped into the spotlight this summer with Netflix’s KAOS, a dark and satirical comedy that re-imagines Greek mythology. Starring opposite Jeff Goldblum and Janet McTeer, Perrineau shines as Riddy—an unsuspecting heroine. In our quick chat, we talk about hair care, her character’s beauty looks, and her can’t-live-without products.

EW: I binged KAOS and first of all, congratulations. It was so good.

Aurora Perrineau: “Oh, thank you. Thanks for watching.”

Who first taught you about taking care of curly hair? How did you learn?

“Honestly, I was really bad about it for a long time. I did the teenage years of always straightening my hair because I didn’t know what to do with it. Then I think the first time I wore it curly in a project was for When They See Us because the person that I had originally auditioned for had curly hair because she was a real person. Then during that project, Ava [DuVernay] was like, ‘Oh, you should be wearing it curly,’ in so many words. That’s what spurred me to take care of it because it was not in a good spot when I did that show.”

Hair advice from the Ava DuVernay, what a special opportunity. Why, before, were you keeping it straight?

“I think it was for multiple reasons. You know, there’s that feeling like you’re not pretty if you don’t look like the beauty standard. I think in my brain, I was like: oh, all these other actresses have straight hair, and all these other models have straight hair. I guess I should do the same thing. Then maybe I’ll get work doing that. But those kind of things that are so just not true. If anything, I feel way more beautiful now with my hair being out and curly. I feel weird when my hair is blown out. But I think there was that. And also, I didn’t know how to take care of it. I didn’t even know conditioners versus a gel or a mousse. I didn’t I didn’t know any of that stuff. So I had to learn a lot.”

And both of your parents are in the industry. What was it like to grow up in an environment that is notoriously tricky to navigate from a beauty perspective?

“You know, the thing with my parents is that they’re both really, really grounded. And so all of their friends around them were grounded and very normal. I mean, as normal as you can be in this industry. And so I would say it was a pretty positive upbringing with that. My beauty standards didn’t come from their friends or anything because everyone was so diverse. Even in their jobs, not everyone was an actor. And so, you know, they kept me grounded in that. I think the beauty standards that I had were more so from auditioning. When you see that you didn’t get a part and you wonder if it’s because of, you know, a million things that have nothing to do with you.”

When you’re on set, and then also doing press you’re wearing so much makeup. How do you keep your skin healthy?

“When I started Westworld, the makeup artist and I became a really good friend of mine. And she was like, you don’t need to wear heavy foundation. Especially because I was in the sun during filming. And so she was using a tinted moisturizer from Laura Mercier. And that tinted moisturizer was it’s amazing. I use it as my daily makeup. That’s like my foundation now. It has sunscreen in it. It’s super lightweight. So it’s not clogging my pores. I’m also big on washing everything morning and night. I like a meticulous routine. And then sometimes my skin’s feeling dull. I use this Shani Darden acid peel mask. And so that kind of gets rid of the acne-prone skin that’s happening. But yeah, then I’ve kind of just asked to use that [tinted moisturizer] for everything since then. I did two movies where I used that. And I used it on KAOS. But I think, again, that also has to do with the fact that I normally play characters that are very normal people and kind of just look like themselves. I don’t know that that’s always going to be the case.”

As I was watching KAOS, I noticed your character Riddy’s makeup looks seem very normal for lack of a better word. Like no-makeup makeup. Is that similar to your everyday look?

“It is. Yeah, like we tried to have my freckles out. We tried to keep it super natural. I think I wear more blush in real life. It didn’t make sense for Riddy to do that, because she’s kind of hiding from herself, which is also the point of her hair being up in a bun [so much]. And also, they did something where my curls weren’t huge. My curls were kind of small because they wanted her to feel not as proud, and something about like the big mane of hair being out felt like a confident, proud person. And they didn’t want her to feel that way.”

Do you have any favourite looks that you’ve done for the press tour of KAOS?

“So in London, we did a junket and then a photo call situation. And the two looks that I had there, I loved. One was a green Dior high-neck dress. And I just love that dress and the colour was a gorgeous forest-y green. Then the other one was from the designer Dominique Sirop. I just happened to find that dress at this vintage rental shop in London, actually, both dresses I found at a vintage rental shop. And it was just like the most Greek-looking dress. And I loved it because it felt so on theme. I felt really pretty. And it felt really interesting and a little bit weird, kind of like how the show is.”

If you had to choose 4 beauty products that you could die with, what would they be?

“My Kerastase hair stuff. Rhode blushes—they’re my favourite. I think I have every colour.”

Do you have a shade that you prefer?

“Freckle! Yeah, I feel like it’s most natural with my skin tone. And then there’s this lip gloss called Glosshood, which is all-natural and amazing. And then for my last one… I guess some sunscreen.”

Watch KOAS now on Netflix.