With its sleek mix of midcentury and Old Hollywood, Michelle Monaghan’s family home is a place to rest as her star power rises
Words by CHRISTINE LENNON
Photography by BRAD TORCHIA
Styling by PETRA FLANNERY STUDIO
Two vintage disco balls hang in actor Michelle Monaghan’s 1920s Spanish-style Hollywood home. One is in the living room near an antique grand piano. It bounces light that streams in through a picture window with a view to the Hollywood foothills across the interior white walls. The other is in a spacious courtyard that feels like a movie set, with classic archways set against weathered pink stucco, and a stairway that descends from the street level into a tangle of tropical plants with a mind of its own.
“The disco ball in this room catches the light at sunrise and fills the house with this gorgeous dancing light,” says Monaghan, who is curled up at one end of a B&B Italia Arne curved sofa, barefoot in jean shorts and a navy silk button-down. “Then at the end of the day, the other one does the same thing at sunset. It’s amazing,” she says, drawing out the last word for emphasis, fixing her wide-set eyes into an expression as open and awestruck as it gets. Monaghan offers a brief tour, stopping to admire an abstract painting by Chris Hood, a Saarinen dining table with Cherner dining chairs, a pair of vintage velvet chairs she scored at the Rose Bowl flea market, and a painted steel artwork by her husband, Pete White, that hangs over the fireplace.
In the backyard, Monaghan and White removed an old tennis court and used some of the concrete blocks to build garden beds. The house, like Monaghan, evokes an easy, Old Hollywood glamour layered with modern simplicity, and an unfussiness that makes people feel instantly comfortable. It’s elegant, but it isn’t trying too hard.
After a few minutes of conversation, it’s clear that Monaghan brings that same level of unpretentious ease and wonder to all aspects of her life and to every topic: the good fortune she’s had throughout her over-20-year career; the wondrous places her nomadic work has taken her, and sharing those travels with White, a graphic artist from Australia, and their two kids; how nothing could have prepared her for the leap from her small-town roots in Winthrop, Iowa, to the life she leads now. Every minute of it has been amazing, and Monaghan, 48, understands that deeply. “Every time I go home to see my family in Iowa, I take stock of where I’ve come from and where I’ve been,” she says. “I wake up every morning and can’t believe my luck. And I’m still having so much fun.”
“Every time I see my family, I take stock of where I’ve come from and where I’ve been.”
MICHElle monaghan
Monaghan is one of those actors who you’ve seen, and likely loved, in a dozen different things, but who has avoided the pitfalls of too much attention. Part of that is the result of her tremendous range, and her appetite for work across the spectrum of film and television. Two big breaks early in her career established this versatility. One was a part on the David E. Kelley drama Boston Public in 2002, and the next was opposite Robert Downey, Jr. in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 2005. Later Monaghan wowed audiences on the first season of True Detective, playing a beleaguered spouse opposite Woody Harrelson, and racked up a list of credits as long as your arm. Over the past 18 months alone, Monaghan has been on-screen opposite Mark Wahlberg in the action-comedy film Family Plan, played a hardened detective in the sleek ’80s-era slasher movie MaXXXine, and starred opposite Vince Vaughn on the Apple TV+ hit Bad Monkey, playing his shady, mysterious love interest, Bonnie. On-screen, Monaghan is as lanky and confident as her costar, and she left everyone on set wanting more.
“Michelle is the actor you want in everything you do,” says Matt Tarses, the executive producer of Bad Monkey. “Not because she’s so skilled, at both the comedic beats and the dramatic. (She is.) And not because she has that thing where you can’t take your eyes off her when she’s on screen. (You can’t.) And not because she’s always prepared and on time and raring to go. (She is.) You want her because she’s up for anything, she’ll listen to your dumb ideas and try them as many times as you need her to, and she respects everyone she works with — from number one on the call sheet to the kid asking if he can bring her coffee. She smiles and says, ‘No, thank you, buddy,’ and then gets it herself.”
Monaghan, to put it in the simplest of terms, is game for anything.
“I love action, comedy, and drama, and get to explore all the facets of my personality in those different genres. I love indie films and working with first-time directors,” she says. “It’s just about finding the right writing and a great director who is interested in letting you explore the subtleties of a character. I’m a big list maker and all about goals in life, personal and professional, and I’m really intentional about things I want to do. I’m lucky that I’ve had a team that’s helped me strategize and figure it out.”
Part of her success, first as a model, then as an actor, is attributable to her lithe and versatile looks. She has a face that can move from guileless joy to steely dissatisfaction just by raising a single brow.
“I left home when I was about 17 after I started modeling, and I never really went back,” she says. “I went to college for a while and studied journalism, but when it came time to apply for internships, I realized I didn’t want to go back to Iowa and work an office job. I couldn’t go back. I had already seen so much of the world, and I didn’t want to stop exploring.”
With her tomboyish athleticism and low voice, there’s also a hint of Lauren Bacall or Katharine Hepburn in her DNA. And she’s developed a personal style over the years that plays on that strength.
“I’ve figured out my look, and it’s usually a men’s button-down and a great pair of jeans,” she says. “Then I play with accessories, like jewelry, a great bag, or a belt.”
By the time she was in her mid-20s, she was living in New York with White, a graphic artist, and traveling to Los Angeles for weeks-long stints in hotels while she filmed shows and movies. After the couple married, they were considering buying a place, and the idea of migrating west took hold.
“I was pregnant with my first child, and she was due in the winter, so we thought we’d move out here until I delivered the baby and then go back later in the spring when it was warmer. But we just never went back,” she says. “It’s nice being a few hours closer to Australia, because we visit Peter’s family there all the time.”
An adventure-loving Aussie was a good match for Monaghan, who loves taking a road trip to surf or ski, spending weekends camping, and embracing every chance to travel. Shooting Bad Monkey in Miami, a noir comedy from Bill Lawrence based on Florida novelist Carl Hiaasen’s book of the same name, made her fall in love with the city.
“I was so excited to work with Bill, but it was also great to be in a colorful, vibrant city. It was next-level humid, but it’s also such an international place, and it’s very family-oriented. My family came to visit, and we’d be out at dinner at 9 p.m. and there were multigenerational families out together. It has a real joie de vivre.”
“I’m all about goals in life, and I’m really intentional about things I want to do.”
MICHElle monaghan
Monaghan is also appearing in the much-anticipated, and secretive, third season of The White Lotus, which filmed in Thailand over six months early in 2024. “We were all staying together in this little bubble, like ‘Camp White Lotus,’ and the Thai people were so incredibly warm and welcoming,” she says. “I just soaked up everything I could about the people and the history. And the food. I did not get tired of the food.”
There is a bit of irony woven into the fact that Monaghan, who has used her platform to raise awareness about skin cancer after she had a melanoma removed from her leg, has spent the better part of a year bouncing from one tropical paradise to the next.
“I’m usually so covered up in the sun, so it was odd to spend so much time in a bikini,” she says. “There was a lot of self-tanner involved, and plenty of sunscreen.”
Monaghan can’t reveal much more than that, other than what a thrill it was to meet one of her favorite actors, ’90s icon Parker Posey. But she did offer a few more adjectives from her gratitude lexicon to describe the experience. She was “blown away.” And “mesmerized.” Working with Mike White was “a gift.”
And traveling and working, and bringing her loved ones along for the ride is, she says, “the greatest pleasure of my life.”
Styling by MEEHAN FLANNERY and MARCO MILANI of PETRA FLANNERY STUDIO.
Hair by BRIDGET BRAGER at The Wall Group.
Makeup by SARAH USLAN at Visionaries Agency.
Manicure by STEPH STONE at Forward Artists.
MICHELLE MONAGHAN wears LORO PIANA jacket and skirt, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN shoes, and VRAI x PETRA & MEEHAN FLANNERY jewelry.
Feature image: SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO top and skirt, prices upon request, and belt, $410. BULGARI ring, $11,000.
This story originally appeared in the Fashionable Living 2024 issue of C Magazine.
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