As Buzz Builds for Her Latest Acting Role in ‘Palm Royale,’ Kaia Gerber Looks Like An Exact Copy/Paste of Mom Cindy Crawford While Out in NYC

Rachel Burchfield

December 18, 2023 at 4:09 AM·4 min read

Kaia Gerber: model. Actual twin of mom Cindy Crawford. And burgeoning actress—which we’ll get to see on full display this spring in Apple TV+’s Palm Royale, where Gerber plays Mitzi, a Palm Beach manicurist, alongside an all-star female ensemble cast including the likes of Kristen Wiig, Laura Dern, Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb, and Carol Burnett (Josh Lucas and Ricky Martin also star). The premise? A woman works towards attaining a place in Palm Beach high society in 1969; the show is based off of the 2018 novel Mr. and Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel. (A surefire pick if there ever was one for Gerber’s digital book club on Instagram Live.)

This isn’t Gerber’s first acting role—among other credits, she was in 2021’s American Horror Story: Double Feature, where she played the character Kendall Carr in four episodes of the show, and she earned recognition in 2022’s Babylon and 2023’s Bottoms. We don’t yet know a whole lot about Gerber’s character other than that she is a manicurist, and we have certainly fallen in love with an onscreen manicurist before (hello Jennifer Coolidge’s Paulette Bonafonté in Legally Blonde). It’s the continuation of an acting career that isn’t just a side project but a true calling for her.

“Acting has always been my passion, though,” she told Elle UK earlier this month. “It feels fulfilling and I would love to keep doing it. I can’t believe how lucky and fortunate I am. I did an Apple TV show last year [Palm Royale] where I got to work with a lot of my heroes, like Laura Dern and Kristen Wiig. I was on set with wide-open eyes, hardly able to believe I was there. I got to learn so much from working with them and I’m excited for people to see that. I hope they like it.”

As to the difference between acting and modeling—perhaps heretofore the career she’s most known for—“With modeling, I learned the power of transformation,” she said. “When I started acting again, I had to completely forget that the camera was there, which is really the opposite of what you do as a model. But I think both go hand in hand.” Even before she began modeling, she told Elle UK, she was acting in school, “and that made my innately shy personality a little bit more outgoing. It made me more comfortable being around people.”

Just as she no doubt has discussed her modeling career with her mother, Crawford—you know, only one of the most renowned supermodels of all time—Gerber has her boyfriend, Oscar nominee Austin Butler, to discuss acting with if she so chooses. The two stepped out this week in New York City for a screening of George Clooney’s latest, The Boys in the Boat, and hopped over to the Polo Bar in Midtown Manhattan after the movie, where Gerber wore a silky black dress with a flowy, subtly pleated skirt that she wore underneath a navy coat with black buttons (and looked identical, by the way, to her mom). She added black leather square-toe boots and a small brown and black trapeze shoulder bag by Celine to complete the look. (Side note that you can take to your next dinner party: Clooney is a longtime family friend of Gerber’s; he cofounded the popular tequila Casamigos with Rande Gerber—her father—in 2013.)

Also this past week in New York City, Gerber stepped out with Crawford in a long brown plaid Ralph Lauren coat over a black top, paired with dark jeans and black sneakers. Other than being each other’s exact doppelganger and being successful models, Crawford herself had a hit on Apple TV+ this past year, with September’s The Super Models. Let’s hope Palm Royale is as well received—it premieres on March 20.

“My childhood was focused around quality family time,” Gerber told Elle UK. “My parents both worked very hard, but when they were home, they were really home with us, giving us all of them. I look up to my mum’s career so much, but I look up to her as a person even more.”