EVE HEWSON: THE INGENUE

To prepare for her role as a New 
York nurse in this month’s Cinemax miniseries The Knick, Irish actress 
Eve Hewson practiced an American accent, brushed up on early-20th-century medicine (the show is set in 1900), and even bought a nurse-
training DVD. But there was still one major hurdle: her fear of needles 
and blood. “I’m a huge fainter,” she 
says. “I went with my mom to get a blood test, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God!’ My mom 
said, ‘Eve, you’re about to play a nurse. Get your shit together!’ ” And that 
she did. In the first episode, Hewson attempts to resuscitate a newborn 
and injects a man below the belt. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, The Knick follows the staff of a flailing hospital, including a curmudgeonly surgeon (Clive Owen) and the enterprising head of its social-welfare office (Juliet Rylance). Hewson plays Lucy, a bright-eyed, eager transplant from 
West Virginia. “I walked on to the set and thought, Is this actually happening?” 
says the 23-year-old, who is the daughter 
of the rock star Bono and the activist fashion entrepreneur Ali Hewson, and who spent much of her childhood touring with U2. “My dad wants to be an actor now,” she says with a smirk. “He’s like, ‘What do you think of me being in a movie with Beyoncé?’ And I said, ‘Stick to 
your day job!’

by Vanessa Lawrence

Photography by Bjarne Jonasson

Styled by Patrick Mackie

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