Charli xcx Opens Up About How Her 'Volatile' Side Inspired “The Moment ”at Sundance Premiere: 'I Am Quite Nice Too'
- - Charli xcx Opens Up About How Her 'Volatile' Side Inspired “The Moment ”at Sundance Premiere: 'I Am Quite Nice Too'
Jack SmartJanuary 24, 2026 at 7:19 PM
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Charli xcx -
The Moment, a mockumentary starring Charli xcx and inspired by her life, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 22
“I'm obviously quite related to my character, so I had a lot of inspiration to pull from,” said the singer of making the highly personal film
A24 will release The Moment, also starring Rosanna Arquette, Hailey Gates and Alexander Skarsgård, on Jan. 30
Charli xcx is having a moment at the Sundance Film Festival.
The British singer-songwriter, 33, took the Utah festival by storm on Friday, Jan. 22 with the premiere of The Moment, a mockumentary directed and co-written by Aidan Zamiri that was inspired by Charli’s real-life music tour. A24 will release the film in theaters on Jan. 30.
“I'm obviously quite related to my character, so I had a lot of inspiration to pull from,” quipped the “360” singer onstage alongside her costars after the screening. “I would like to think I'm not as much of a nightmare as Charli in the film, but my real managers are in the audience and they probably know the true answer to that."
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Charli xcx
The Charli in The Moment has "spiral moments" the musician could relate to, she added. "I have been there. I think I am, as an artist, quite a volatile person. And nice though. I am quite nice too. Right?"
Zamiri chimed in, saying hurriedly, "Yes, yes, confirmed." Charli responded, "Too f---ing right.”
Joining Charli and Zamiri at the premiere were most of the movie’s cast: Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Jamie Demetriou, Hailey Gates, Trew Mullen, Mel Ottenberg, Isaac Powell, Rachel Sennott, Rish Shah, Tish Weinstock, Michael Workéyè and Alexander Skarsgård. (The film also features an appearance by Kylie Jenner.)
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A24’s official synopsis for The Moment is simple: “A rising pop star navigates the complexities of fame and industry pressure while preparing for her arena tour debut.”
As Charli discussed at the Sundance premiere, the international tour for her 2024 hit album Brat, which ran from November 2024 to August 2025, directly inspired the film. "I've gone through various different stages of my career where I've felt on top of the world, where I felt like an absolute piece of s---," she said.
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Eugene Hernandez, Aidan Zamiri, Charli XCX and Kim Yutani
"And I've also met different versions of like all of the characters within this film. I've met the people who are truly kind of like rooting for you no matter what, even if you are an a--hole. I've met the people who are in it to be close to the artist. I've met the sort of people who are so like, ‘We totally get you’ and they really don't," she reflected. "So I think for me I've had a lot of practice reacting to all of those different kinds of characters in my real life. I was just drawing from that, really."
Zamiri pointed out the influence of the late Rob Reiner's music mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. "We had a really amazing plethora of films to draw from that kind of were about something real but not quite," he explained. "We also wanted to combine those references with something that felt cool and fresh and sort of weird and also beautiful."
Charli is having a busy debut at Sundance between the premieres of The Moment, the Gregg Araki-directed, Olivia Wilde-starring I Want Your Sex and the Cathy Yan-directed, Natalie Portman-starring The Gallerist.
"I think for all of us as artists, it's like, you wanna challenge yourself and you wanna totally switch the creative soup that you're in and go and live in a different bowl for a while or whatever, you know?" she said when asked about launching such an ambitious onscreen career. "I really just want to work with these incredible directors like Aidan, Gregg Araki, Cathy Yan, like who I feel like I can just live completely different lives with."
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
The Moment
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival runs from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s the last iteration of the fest to be held there ahead of a move to Boulder, Colorado in 2027, and the first to be held after the passing of its founder Robert Redford.
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