Lily Allen turned a difficult chapter into something unexpectedly luminous on screen. Her Night & Day costar Haley Bennett said Allen brought remarkable vulnerability and energy to the role while navigating personal turmoil.
The British singer played Mary, a suffrage activist, opposite Bennett’s aspiring astronomer Katharine. Their characters formed a powerful friendship in 1910 London, while Bennett said a similar bond developed between the actresses off camera.
Haley Bennett praises Lily Allen for turning her split from David Harbour into a powerful performance in ‘Night & Day’
Speaking exclusively to PEOPLE, Bennett revealed Allen was experiencing “a really hard time” while filming. Yet the actress said Allen remained “incredibly alive as a performer” throughout production. She believed Allen had transformed that difficult period into something meaningful. “And I think she’s turned her pain into gold,” Bennett said. “I feel incredibly privileged to have shared the screen with her.”
Allen separated from her then-husband, David Harbour, in January 2025. The couple had been married for four years. The split followed Allen’s earlier discussion of her mental health. In December 2024, she addressed a “tough time over the last months” on her BBC podcast, Miss Me? She also described struggles with her eating habits as a “real issue.”
Allen later channeled aspects of that experience into her music. Her 2025 album, West End Girl, became her highest-charting album in more than a decade. She described the project as “a mixture of fact and fiction.”
Speaking with British Vogue, Allen acknowledged that her marriage influenced the record. “There are things that are on the record that I experienced within my marriage, but that’s not to say that it’s all gospel,” she said. “It is inspired by what went on in the relationship.” Bennett saw that same honesty in Allen’s Night & Day character. She said Mary “opens Katharine’s eyes to another way of being a woman,” much like Allen has done publicly.
“Lily has done that for so many women herself,” Bennett said. She called Allen “incredibly brave about speaking her truth.” The admiration went both ways. Bennett said Allen was “tender” and “vulnerable,” creating an unusually supportive working relationship.
“I think it’s important that women bolster other women,” Bennett said. She added that women sometimes understand each other through “a special shorthand.”
Directed by Tina Gharavi, Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day also starred Jack Whitehall, Elyas M’Barek, and Timothy Spall. The film premiered in the U.S. on September 4.
