Interview: Munroe Bergdorf on ‘Love & Rage’
Munroe Bergdorf never expected someone to make a documentary about her life. “I had no idea that anybody wanted this story to be told,” she says. “You just don’t think that anybody wants to make a documentary of you.” But four years later, Love & Rage: Munroe Bergdorf exists. The documentary, directed by filmmaker Olivia Cappuccini, who previously helmed a documentary about the life and career of tennis player Andy Murray, doesn’t just explore Bergdorf’s public life (although there is enough material to justify a film solely about her activism and the very public pushback she faced from the media). It also explores Bergdorf’s personal life, starting from her upbringing (through very well-done re-enactments of her childhood and adolescence), all the way to her life as a model, author and activist in 2025.
“I have this kind of Hannah Montana life,” she says. “There’s the public-facing side — the activism, the work, the media — and then there’s the part that’s just me with my dogs, my boyfriend, my best friends.” The film opens the door a little wider, letting people in on the quieter, messier parts of her life, and ultimately humanizing her in the process. Aside from her modelling work, Bergdorf is primarily known for her fiery, impassioned speeches at rallies and her poised, composed appearances on talk shows and news channels, in which she usually provides clearheaded, rational rebuttals to anti-trans sentiments. Through Love & Rage, audiences are shown a whole new side of Bergdorf. Not the polished spokesperson or the media lightning rod, but the woman behind it all.
But from the beginning, Bergdorf knew she couldn’t just rely on any team to bring her story to the screen. “Universal Documentaries [the production company behind the film] gave me the opportunity to build the crew,” she elaborates. “I wanted a female director. I wanted someone I could go on a journey with.” That turned out to be Cappuccini. “We didn’t know how long we’d be filming — it ended up being four years — so I needed to know she got it,” she says. “That I wouldn’t have to explain things to her.”
The care went beyond just the director. Producer Andee Ryder, who is trans, brought a level of understanding and trust to the project that really made a difference for Bergdorf, who was involved in every aspect of the film. “It was really important to have someone in a position of real power who understood what I’d been through,” she says. “Not just surface-level diversity — but people who just got it.”
Then there are the reenactments. Through dreamlike, aesthetically pleasing sequences, the film recreates Bergdorf’s childhood to give a clearer, more complex picture of how those moments shaped her into the person she is today. Jaden and Jaz Terry, the two young actors who play Bergdorf in those scenes, bring a quiet intensity to the screen. For Bergdorf, watching those scenes back was surreal, even painful, but ultimately cathartic. “It felt uncomfortable at times,” she admits. “They really look like me at those points in my life. And they depict some very painful moments.” One scene, which depicts Jaden dancing alone in a school hall, hit especially hard for her. “It was this moment of what if,” she says. “What if queer kids felt free to be themselves? What if we didn’t have to go through all this trauma just to arrive at pride?”
In addition to her childhood, Love & Rage incisively explores Bergdorf’s adolescence and eventual coming of age, cycling through her friendships and early relationships. It’s in those quiet, vulnerable moments that the film becomes something more universal. “These aren’t just trans experiences,” says Bergdorf. “So many women have been in abusive relationships. So many people — cis, straight, queer — have been bullied at school or struggled with their bodies. These are human feelings.”
But Love & Rage is just as unflinching in its portrayal of what it means to live on the margins. To be queer, to be different, to feel othered. It captures the loneliness that can come with that, and the fear that being true to yourself might mean losing everything. “We’re scared of what we’ll lose if we choose the freedom we’re told not to seek,” she says. “For me, it was: do I be myself and get rejected by everything I know? Or do I become what everyone tells me to be and abandon myself?”
It’s a question that many queer people are more than familiar with. The push and pull between self-preservation and self-expression, between being accepted and being free. And while the film doesn’t sugarcoat the losses that can come with choosing yourself, it also makes space for what’s gained in the process. “Yes, you’ll lose some people,” says Bergdorf. “But you’ll also find others who really see you.”
Moving to London in her early 20s marked a new beginning for Bergdorf, who managed to form friendships and connections with people who not only allowed her to accept herself but also encouraged it. That sense of chosen family gave her the strength to keep going, even when things were strained at home.
And eventually, some of the people who didn’t understand at first, like her parents, ended up coming around. “When I first came out, we didn’t talk for a while,” she says. “But people grow. And often, when you love someone, you just need time to recalibrate with new information. It’s actually a joy now, getting older and seeing my parents as people — not perfect gods who need to get it right every time. It’s always painful to feel unseen. But you give each other a chance, and sometimes things get better.”
At a time when trans lives are being debated in the abstract, Love & Rage: Munroe Bergdorf asks people to look closer. Not at the headlines, but at the human beings behind them. “Hopefully people can see these stories and feel something — whether they’re trans, straight, gay, non-binary,” says Bergdorf. “Hopefully, they can realise these are just human experiences.”
LOVE & RAGE: MUNROE BERGDORF is now available on VOD.