How Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia Dimoldenberg Turned Teen “Delusion” Into Hollywood Domination

Now, she’s the red carpet interviewer du jour. By the time you read this, she’ll have served as the official social media ambassador of the Oscars. “And the red carpet correspondent,” she chimes in, “which I added [to the title]. I’m quite particular.” Today she’s in prep mode, squeezing in a quick club sandwich at The Landmark before she’ll take a call with the Academy. She’s living out of hotels currently, her pinstripe trousers, round-neck cardigan, and Glossier perfume grabbed from a suitcase this morning, rather than the east London flat she shared with her sister, Zoë, until a few days ago. (“She’s moving in with friends. When she told me I was really sad,” Dimoldenberg laments.) Tomorrow she’ll fly to LA for six weeks. While there, with her cowriters, Albie Swingler and Rory Marshall, she’ll mainline YouTube videos of every Oscars guest, preparing bespoke and only slightly unsettling questions for each she may encounter.

“Oh, my God—oh, my God—I need to do a good job,” is how she’s feeling right now. “I need to make sure I’m as researched as possible, but then also forget it all and just have fun with it.”

If she manages to maintain an aloof veneer on-screen, there’s more of a giddy energy to Dimoldenberg in person. In her videos, she reads as dry, fearless, and a little offbeat. Today, she’s warmer—self-assured, yes, but also self-deprecating and very silly. She speaks at a fast-forwarded pace, veering off into energetic asides, each told with wiggling eyebrows, ironic flicks of her honey-colored waves, and spurts of laughter. For example: “Do you know who smells really good? Drake.” She makes her eyes wide. “He was drowning in fragrance. An oud.”

She’s always been a talker. Growing up in Marylebone, with her Labour councillor and PR dad and librarian mum, “I never, ever had an issue with being confident.” She and her sister tore up the city as teens. “It was here,” she recalls of when Zoë raced over to this very hotel to get a picture with Lana Del Rey. “I actually had a really nice chat [about it] with Jack Antonoff at the GQ Men of the Year Awards,” she says. “And Jack was like, ‘Send me the picture,’ and sends it to Lana.” Later, as a fashion journalism student at Central Saint Martins, Dimoldenberg was equally unshrinking. “I used to go into the design studios and try and give my two cents, and then everyone would be like, ‘Amelia, you’re not meant to be here.’” Did she have any insecurities back then? “Maybe not being very desirable,” she says. “I was the last person [at school] to have my first kiss; I didn’t have a boyfriend until later. But, then again, there’s been a benefit: it’s created who I am, my personality.”