Hayes Warner zips through Los Angeles in her convertible as Azealia Banks’s “212” blasts over the speakers, swinging by to pick up her co-star Kaia Gerber before heading to set. From there, the pair go straight back to 1981. In Ryan Murphy‘s adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis‘s beloved novel The Shards, Warner, Gerber, and the rest of the cast step into Ellis’s sun-drenched, paranoia-soaked world, where a mysterious outsider, Robert Mallory (played by newcomer Homer Gere), arrives at an elite Los Angeles prep school, setting off a chain of obsessions and increasingly violent events. Last week in New York, Gerber and Warner (now best friends after months spent on set) got together to look back on the experience, and ended up spilling on Accutane, getting into car accidents, and their own high school experiences (spoiler: there were far fewer murders).
TUESDAY 9:45 AM JULY 28, 2026 NEW YORK CITY
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KAIA GERBER: I feel crazy.
HAYES WARNER: I’m scared.
GERBER: I’m nervous.
WARNER: I have my hair pasted back.
GERBER: How much hair is left on your head after The Shards?
WARNER: That’s a good opening question. It’s changed textures a lot. When the wind blows on it, different pieces fly out.
GERBER: I have a lot of backlit pictures of your little sprouted hairs.
WARNER: I’ve had to buy different types of gel to paste it down, even when it’s in a high ponytail.
GERBER: Every time I complain about my hair being fried after The Shards, the look in your eyes of rage–
WARNER: But every time I looked over while you were getting your hair done, I would see the steam.
GERBER: After seeing the trailer, everyone seems to be talking about the hair.
WARNER: Because they said no wigs on set.
GERBER: Yeah, no wig. We did our own stunts. I genuinely think the hair is what transports you back to 1981.
WARNER: Yes, It’s big.
GERBER: [Laughs] The hair is big. I want to talk about the first time we met.
WARNER: The first time we met was at Ye Rustic Inn. I thought you were super nice. You thought I was shy.
GERBER: Yeah, you were quiet. I thought you were too cool.
WARNER: Weird?
GERBER: No, not weird. Just too cool for me.
WARNER: That’s not true.
GERBER: Debbie was the character I most wanted to get to know, because I was like, “That’s the person I’m going to spend a lot of time with.”
WARNER: We don’t have to kiss, but we do have to spend a lot of time together.
GERBER: We managed to inject our own romance into the Debbie-Susan plot line. I stalked you as soon as I found out that you were playing Debbie. I found out on Deadline with the rest of the world. I looked at your Instagram, and was like, “Oh, she’s a punk rock star.” You had black and blonde hair, and you were wearing leather. I was like, “She’s like Avril Lavigne. She’s going to be too cool for me.”
WARNER: Okay. Rewind. For you to say I was too cool for you is just really like–let’s fact check that.
GERBER: Everyone has their truth. [Laughs]
WARNER: When we went to Bar Lola, did you think we were going to be friends?
GERBER: Immediately.
WARNER: This is the first time you and I were sitting at the table alone. Just us, no boys.
GERBER: At first, we didn’t speak. We were separated by the boys. But after that, I DMed you and I was like, “Hey, do you want to get dinner just the girls?” Or did you ask me?
WARNER: Actually, I DMed you.
GERBER: Sorry. Well, I was really excited because I wanted that too. Friendship dates can be awkward, but we sat down and immediately I was like, “Oh, we’re going to be best friends.” Also, it’s very rare to meet someone that you have no mutual friends with. I didn’t know anyone who knew you. Now, I’ve realized that we knew a few random people in common.
WARNER: My mom buys jewelry from your aunt. And your cousin’s married to this person I know. It’s weird.
GERBER: Exactly. Do you think you’re anything like Debbie in real life?
WARNER: There’s moments where I’m whipping around LA, not looking at the street, I’m on my phone texting, and I’m like, “Oh no, I’m being Debbie.” But I love Debbie. I also think, from an emotional perspective, I like to push things down and pretend they’re not happening. But I cry in front of you.
GERBER: You’ve seen me cry probably more than anyone else in my life.
WARNER: You’ve seen me cry and have psychosis.
GERBER: You’ve seen me fake cry.
WARNER: You’ve seen me fake cry until I real cry.
GERBER: When we were filming on the first day, they were like, “Improvise!” That was so scary. And you, without hesitation, just started ripping and saying the most insane stuff. I was like, “There’s no way they’re using any of this.” Then, when we watched the pilot, they used so much of your improv in the opening. So, I don’t know who came first, Debbie or Hayes.
WARNER: I remember when we were doing prep, I was Googling acting coaches on Melrose. I was freaking out, but we would just hang out and do random things. I think because we were all friends doing that first day, I just had no filter.
GERBER: This was your first acting job, right?
WARNER: Yeah.
GERBER: That’s insane. Do you want to talk about wardrobe? What’s the look that you felt the most confident in as Debbie?
WARNER: What was really hard is either I felt confident and suffocated, or loose and free, but unconfident. We’d be on hour 10 usually when I would start to have zipper panic attacks. They’d be like, “Cut.” And I would just unzip my top and let my bra fly free in front of everyone. That was the pink shirt–
GERBER: The corset. I know, you were so uncomfortable. Those were night shoots, so you’re already uncomfortable, and your body’s really mad at you. You were in a corset, and really tight pants.
WARNER: Then, with the blue dress, I was free as can be.
GERBER: I love Smurfette. I was calling Hayes Smurfette.
WARNER: I wore it for months. I could tell you what my favorites of yours are, but you go.
GERBER: I think one of the funniest days was the scene that we filmed with Ivy [Wolk] and Evan [Rachel Wood], because Susan and Debbie are very different in their style. And Debbie’s usually in a very sexy, revealing outfit, and Susan’s a lot more buttoned-up and professional looking. And sometimes we were—
WARNER: Aligned.
GERBER: Yeah. But in this scene, I was in a long-sleeve knit dress with high boots, very autumnal, and Hayes was in leather shorts and a pink little halter top.
WARNER: Leather shorts up my—
GERBER: Those were rough. Did playing this version of teenage privilege and chaos make you more or less nostalgic for your actual high school years? We had very different high school experiences.
WARNER: Less nostalgic. I don’t want to go back.
GERBER: You could not pay me to go back to high school. But also, I was homeschooled, which I think is very apparent.
WARNER: It’s not apparent.
GERBER: Really?
WARNER: No.
GERBER: Well, if you can’t tell that I’m homeschooled, I can’t tell that you went to an all-girls private school in New York City on the Upper East Side.
WARNER: Well, yeah.
GERBER: Sorry. [Laughs] That’s public information.
WARNER: Yeah, but we like to hide that.
GERBER: Is there a take of yours that you love that didn’t make the cut?
WARNER: Oh, yes. Remember? We watched it together for the first time with Ryan.
GERBER: Yes. We watched a lot of the episodes with Ryan, which is the best way to do it.
WARNER: Yeah. But Kaia’s more used to watching herself, and you’ve given me a lot of advice on how to accept my performance, and see my performance as a performance, rather than a criticism of everything I did. Being with you watching it for the first time was really helpful for me because I was able to see it as an outsider.
GERBER: Honestly, I learned this lesson the hard way. I’ve watched things that I’m in by myself, and I start ripping myself apart and go into a spiral. It’s nice to have people there to reassure you, and you start thinking about it more as the collective rather than just your own individual performance. But doing scenes with you, we got so close so quickly, which normally is a red flag and feels like not a real friendship, but it stood the test of time.
WARNER: And the test of stress.
GERBER: And the test of stress, and night shoots. It was so lovely that there was never an ounce of competition. I just wanted you to do whatever you needed to get the best performance out of you. That stuff is so alive in the show. I think if we weren’t this close, it might be missing some of that stuff. I want to talk about shooting in LA because you’re not from here, but I am. You moved here for this.
WARNER: I know. Scary.
GERBER: I mean, LA is one of the main characters in The Shards. It’s so specific to LA. There’s so many references. What was it like shooting here? And do you think it helped our show, and helped the performances actually being in this space?
WARNER: It was kind of meta in that I was discovering LA while also discovering LA in the show. I feel like if I hadn’t done The Shards, I would never have spent more time in LA than I needed to. I really had a hard time whenever I would visit. I felt very lonely and confused, and I never felt like I was doing it right. You showed us different parts of the city and your day-to-day life.
GERBER: [Laughs] Bringing you to places that don’t have valet.
WARNER: And if I have to see a breast doctor, I know where to go.
GERBER: Of course!
WARNER: You helped me get accustomed to the city and understand it. I think I was falling in love with LA while my character loved LA.
GERBER: Filming reignited my love for LA because I moved to New York, and I lived there for a few years. Then, I moved back here to work, and I was like, “It is lonely.” But now, I’ve been in this area for six years, and I’m very close to all the references. All the streets in the book that Brett Easton Ellis talks about, a lot of the locations were five minutes from my house. It was actually incredible, a real dream. And I felt like my house became our little–
WARNER: The psychosis coordination.
GERBER: After work, we’d all come to my house and talk about it. Also, I’ve never had a friend group in LA because I left when I was 16. So, it was my first time having that. Hayes would come by in her convertible, I would hop in, we’d go pick up Graham [Campbell]. Music and driving the streets that we were filming on that day. It was so meta in that way, but it made me fall in love with LA all over again. I think, as an actor, you do your job regardless of the real-life circumstances. And sometimes you have to go pretend to be best friends with people and you don’t speak to them outside of it. I don’t think either of us ever ate lunch alone in our trailers.
WARNER: Not one.
GERBER: I’d walk into my trailer at lunch, and everyone would already be in there. I’d have my grilled chicken, and you’d have your grilled chicken. There are a few unofficial sponsors of The Shards, like spray tans.
WARNER: Oh, the smell of spray tan and grilled chicken! The issue is that it would pile on top of each other.
GERBER: There was no time to fully get the previous spray tan off because we were getting one or two a week. It just kept building up.
WARNER: It was a thick layer.
GERBER: It was collecting.
WARNER: Someone once told me that they thought my natural scent was the smell of a spray tan because I always had one. That really hurt me.
GERBER: Sheets destroyed.
WARNER: Sheets look like I have a disease.
GERBER: I feel like Erewhon was an unofficial sponsor.
WARNER: The Erewhon salmon.
GERBER: And the seeded Good Bar that I ordered for you. Goop.
WARNER: Oh, the seeded Good Bar. Yes.
GERBER: By the end, we all knew each other’s orders.
WARNER: Harmless Harvest coconut water, I would chug that.
GERBER: Everyday. IVs, Zofran—unofficial sponsors.
WARNER: These are really good.
GERBER: I want to say one of the things Hayes and I bonded over immediately was sharing doctors. I’m not a gatekeeper at all, but it was like gynecologists, facialists, gastro doctors.
WARNER: [Laughs] I have to say, you were so good about that. You could have gatekept anyone.
GERBER: I would never.
WARNER: That speaks to your character.
GERBER: I would never with you, I should say. I would with someone else, but I liked you. So then, I was using your lymphatic drainage doctor and you got me on Accutane, so I owe my life to you.
WARNER: I lent it to you. Not illegally, but as a friend. [Laughs]
GERBER: Can I say this?
WARNER: Of course.
GERBER: I had perfect skin before the shoot, and then I was obviously breaking out every day. Then Hayes was like, “Oh, microdose Accutane!” I was like, “I have never even heard of this.” So then, she connected me to her doctor and it was incredible. Hayes and I would definitely be honest about each other’s puffiness levels. There was real honesty there.
WARNER: When you don’t sleep a lot, sometimes you get a little—
GERBER: There’s some puffiness that happens. It was the fake smoke, maybe.
WARNER: I had an allergic reaction to my hair bleach too. Remember that?
GERBER: Oh my god, that’s right. And then my mom told you to put Splenda in your hair or something?
WARNER: And I did.
GERBER: Did it work?
WARNER: No, but it was really nice of her to think of that.
GERBER: If tonight was completely unplanned and you can do anything in LA, no work, no cameras, what would you actually do? But this is such an easy question, because what do we do every single week?
WARNER: No, I know. It makes us sound like spoiled brats!
GERBER: It does make us sound like brats, but here’s why it’s okay: We go to a place of work because our writer’s room for The Shards is at the Chateau Marmont. I wasn’t, like, someone who went to the Chateau.
WARNER: But do you know what it is?
GERBER: That it’s five minutes away?
WARNER: No, it’s the pick up. It’s the journey that gets me alive. I go to Kaia’s. I pick her up. I’m blasting “212” by Azealia Banks, “Girls” by The Dare. When I get you, it’s “Sex, money, drugs, chains on my chest, vintage Celine” by Slayyyter. I blast them at full volume. I don’t really look at the road much, and I go fast. The wind in our hair, that’s my favorite thing to do.
GERBER: Hayes took off someone’s mirror.
WARNER: I did. Sorry. I’m not the best driver. I never really learned to drive.
GERBER: But she drives a convertible. There was a week where I leased a convertible because I was so obsessed with Hayes’s convertible, but then I was like, “I just want to drive with Hayes.”
WARNER: Also, you can’t drive top down. You’re going to get abducted.
GERBER: You know what? Your face is all over LA right now.
WARNER: It’s all over LA, but with no pores.
GERBER: I think that’s what we would do. We like to get chicken nuggets and french–
WARNER: Vegan chicken nuggets, french fries, and blast Azealia Banks.
