Interviewed by her friend, Joséphine de La Baume, Rita Ora talks about taking time to be still and being open to new ideas creatively.

Maybe you know Rita Ora&nbsp;(<a href="http://instagram.com/ritaora">@ritaora</a>) because of her hit singles, &ldquo;Your Song,&rdquo; or &ldquo;How We Do (Party).&rdquo; Or maybe from her role in the Fifty Shades film series?&nbsp;from her <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/mezcal-brand-interview-2019">tequila</a> brand, Pr&oacute;spero?&nbsp;Suffice to say, the 29-year-old Brit is a multi-hyphenate extraordinaire.&nbsp;

Initially rising to popularity in 2012 after the featuring on DJ Fresh&rsquo;s single, &ldquo;Hot Right Now,&rdquo; her first studio album, Ora, debuted at number 1 in the UK. She&rsquo;s been a judge on The X Factor, RuPaul&rsquo;s Drag Race All Stars, and Masked Singer UK, and was a host on <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/men/deaf-model-nyle-dimarco-digital-issue-2019">America&rsquo;s Next Top Model</a>.

Ora has been confining with her good friend Jos&eacute;phine de La Baume, so L&rsquo;Officiel USA had de La Baume conduct this interview. Read on to see what Ora has to say about her upcoming film (with the legendary Michael Caine), the in-home music video she made for her latest single, and making cocktails during quarantine.

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J: It&#39;s like we&#39;re meeting all over again whereas we&#39;ve actually been in quarantine together for what, seven weeks?

R: Seven and a half weeks we&#39;ve been living together.

&nbsp;

J: We haven&#39;t had one fight.

R: Now we haven&rsquo;t, wow, a miracle.

&nbsp;

J: How have you been feeling during quarantine?

R: I&#39;ve been okay. I&#39;ve been a bit confused. Some days are harder than other days. I keep myself busy. We work out, cook food, make smoothies, put on <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/beauty-trends-2020">makeup</a> basically just to wash it off again. Shopping online, which hasn&#39;t been easy, making music in the studio, here we have like a handmade studio, which is nice. It&#39;s nice to also not be alone. I can only imagine what it must feel like for people on their own.

&nbsp;

J: Yeah, totally. We&#39;ve been extremely lucky to be all together. Do you feel like creatively anything new has happened for you since you&#39;ve been here that will have an impact on stuff that you might make in the future?

R: I think creatively I&#39;ve become really open to ideas and suggestions whereas before I was very like, this is what I want to do and that&#39;s it. During this quarantine, I&#39;ve had a lot of time to experiment, so I&#39;ve become more open to experimenting and taking other people&#39;s suggestions of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/categories/music">music</a> and just testing things out and trying things that I probably wouldn&#39;t really do if I didn&#39;t have this much time.

&nbsp;

J: You&#39;ve been keeping really busy. I have to say.

R: I have, haven&#39;t I?

&nbsp;

J: Yeah, it&#39;s been pretty impressive.

R: I think we both have, I&#39;ve also been catching up on 10 years of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/wellness/sleep-solutions-insomnia-routine">sleep</a> that I haven&#39;t really had since I&#39;ve been working, but we&#39;ve been really busy and you&#39;ve been teaching me about a lot of movies.

&nbsp;

J: Yeah. And you&#39;ve been showing me fantastic TV shows and I&#39;ve never seen before.

R: You&#39;ve been showing me really highly, critically acclaimed incredible movies, and I&#39;ve been showing Jos&eacute;phine the most amazing reality <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/the-best-movies-and-tv-shows-to-stream-in-may-2020">TV</a> ever known to mankind. You need a balance.

&nbsp;

J: It&#39;s the yin and the yang. We&#39;re helping complete each other in so many ways during this quarantine. We&#39;ve been having really cosy sleepovers too.

R: We&#39;ve been sleeping over, doing <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/diy-masks-face-homemade-beauty-skin-care">face masks</a>.

&nbsp;

J: I&#39;ve got to experiment with your tie-dye obsessions. I&#39;ve been looking like I&#39;m going to Burning Man when I put on your pajama outfit.

R: I&#39;m obsessed with tye-dye.

&nbsp;

J: You&rsquo;ve been having pretty sexy outfits when you&#39;re going to bed I have to say as well.

R: Thank you. I have to. I dream better when I look sexy.

I've really discovered a lot about myself, about being calm and being at one place at one time and not thinking about the next day or the next day. It's taken a lot of anxiety off me.

J: What do you dream about?

R: Sex.

&nbsp;

J: Who isn&#39;t at the moment. So tell me about music. You have a new video coming out.

R: Yes. I have a song that&#39;s out already called &quot;How to be Lonely.&quot; It was by Dave Meyers, the original music video, but because of quarantine I wanted to do an in house edition. So, I bought a green screen, we set up the whole room and I reshot a little home edition of the song. That&#39;s going to come out very soon. But &quot;How to be Lonely&quot; is really funny because people think it&#39;s about now, obviously, but it&#39;s actually a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop%20culture/celebrity-breakups-miley-liam-kylie-travis-2019">breakup</a> song. The song has now taken a whole new meaning. I guess it&#39;s meant to do what it&#39;s doing.

&nbsp;

J: What a crazy coincidence. Or you&#39;re a psychic, one or the other. And your movie project?

R: Yes. I have a few movie projects that I&#39;m doing. The first one I think I&#39;m really excited about is the remake of Oliver Twist. I&#39;m playing Dodge, Artful Dodger, which was originally played by a man, so the fact that I&#39;m doing as a female is very <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/john-yuyi-gucci-new-work-fashion-art">modern</a>. We wanted to switch it up a bit. And then Michael Caine plays Fagan.

&nbsp;

J: What a legend. How is it working with Michael Caine?

R: He&#39;s very professional. He swears a lot, which I love. Very East <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/the-highlights-of-london-fashion-week-men-s-fall-2019">London</a>, very cockney, just what he&#39;s always been like. And Raff Law plays Oliver, which is really exciting. He looks great in it.

&nbsp;

J: When is the film coming out?

R: Oliver Twist was supposed to come out this year, but with everything happening, I think it&#39;s been moved to next year. I don&#39;t know now. But all I know is that when it does come out, it&#39;s going to be really cool.

&nbsp;

J: Do you have one good anecdote from this filming? Is there anything embarrassing that happened on set or something memorable that happened on set?

R: Well, it&#39;s definitely very different from the music industry. I have to say the long hours are killer. I would wake up at like 5:00 AM and we&#39;d film until like 9:00 PM. I really at times thought I was so tired I was going to die. And then I was like, obviously people have been doing this for years, but it&#39;s always with music, you work on your clock, it&#39;s with the music world, it&#39;s for you. People do what I kind of want them to do, you know? But with film you have to really be patient and wait.

&nbsp;

J: It&#39;s a lot of waiting. What were you doing when you were on your trailer waiting?

R: Sleeping.

&nbsp;

J: You love sleeping. You&#39;re a great sleeper.

R: I am. I sleep for a long time. I like sleeping. I <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/categories/save-the-date">party</a> hard and I rest.

&nbsp;

J: We&#39;ve had a lot of fun in this house. You&#39;ve been trying to teach us to twerk. Is it even called twerking?

R: I think it&#39;s still called twerking.

&nbsp;

J: I feel like it&#39;s more of a twist on it. You have a twist on it.

R: That&#39;s the French version.

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J: I&#39;ve had to settle for the French version, which has nothing to do with your version cause I couldn&#39;t master your version. Yours is impressive.

R: The ghetto version is a lot of bounce. You know, you&#39;ve just gotta let it go. Let it bounce.

&nbsp;

J: It&#39;s a bit more graphic.&nbsp;

R: But we&#39;ve also been making cocktails.

&nbsp;

J: We&#39;ve been making cocktails. We&#39;ve been really liking the Picante which we&#39;ve stolen from um...

R:&nbsp; A lot of different <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/pretty-rickys-lower-east-side-cocktail-bar-new-york">bars</a>. We&#39;ve been using my tequila as well, which I love.

&nbsp;

J: The tequila has been incredible. Can you tell us more about this tequila?

R: This is a whole nother thing that I&#39;m doing. I do a lot of things. For people that don&#39;t really know about me, I&#39;m a really three 60 type of businesswoman. I like to see myself as that. So I have a tequila that I started with a woman in Tequila, Mexico. It&#39;s a very male-dominated industry so I wanted to do a tequila that is usually run by males, but a female version. Pr&oacute;spero is the name of my tequila. And that was what inspired me to get into the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/guaro-colombia-summer-cocktail-drink-2019">alcohol</a> industry. I wanted to do something with a woman who was behind the scenes of a lot of tequila brands that you all drink. She makes them all&mdash;Don Julio 1942, all of that. I asked if she was okay being behind the scenes and she was like, well I&#39;m used to it. I said, you should be in front of the camera and have your own tequila, because you make all of them, and that&#39;s how the conversation started. Now we have this tequila, we&#39;ve sold a lot in America, hopefully&nbsp;it&#39;s going to come to Europe soon.

&nbsp;

J: You won something even, wasn&#39;t there a contest?

R: There&#39;s a usual alcohol thing, it&#39;s like a top 10 rank every year of all the most famous celebrities who have the biggest alcohol. You have George Clooney and you have Jay Z with his whiskey and then <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/drake-euphoria-2019">Drake</a>. I was the only female in that list of males, and for the first year, we were at number seven, which was very impressive cause there&#39;s a lot of alcohol out there. That&#39;s a really good sign that this tequila is hopefully going to grow.

&nbsp;

J: I&#39;d really like to thank you and your entire team for saving our quarantine with your tequila. That&#39;s been a fantastic crutch to some moments of misery, which we haven&#39;t had a lot, but you know, it&#39;s been nice sometimes just a little bit of help.

R: It&#39;s been nice to have friends and me who can really calm each other down and keep you until the sane.

&nbsp;

J: Exactly. Your tour in South America, right? That had to be canceled, which is devastating.

R: I was meant to be on tour right now in South America and it was rescheduled until November. I mean, let&#39;s see what happens, but that&#39;s what they said. It&#39;s the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/music/music-festivals-2020">Lollapalooza</a> run which is really exciting, you know, the whole of South America. It was going to be so, so fun. It&#39;s a bit sad because touring for me is my favorite thing in the world.

&nbsp;

J: Is there anything during this quarantine that&mdash;we&#39;re moving onto a bit more spiritual stuff&mdash;during this quarantine do you feel like you&#39;ve come to any sort of epiphany or realization or things that you might have figured out about yourself that you hadn&#39;t?

R: I think just to be still, I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve ever been still for the past 10 years. I don&#39;t know if I can be still. And I&#39;ve really discovered a lot about myself, about being calm and being at one place at one time and not thinking about the next day or the next day. It&#39;s taken a lot of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/lili-reinhart-riverdale-hustlers-anxiety-swimming-lessons-poems">anxiety</a> off me because I&#39;ve always been very self-critical and very competitive and hard-working, so I would always think about the next thing. It really takes a toll on your mental health.

&nbsp;

J: You&#39;ve been quite impressive actually at being very solid in this house when maybe some other people were a bit more emotional. Almost like the way you live your life has trained you. It could have done the opposite where suddenly it would&#39;ve been such a change of lifestyle could panic you. But you&rsquo;ve managed to apply, within this stillness, a very proactive way about things and it&#39;s been very inspiring for all of us to see you do that. On that note, is there anything you&#39;d like to tell people or some kind of message that you feel might help them through the next stage of all of this?

R: I want to just say to my French and American fans specifically, thank you for being there for me all these years. It&#39;s been about 10 years since I&#39;ve been in this industry now. The journey has been tough, the journey has been long, there&#39;s been highs and lows, but I&#39;m very grateful to have made such strong fans on both sides of the pond. During all of this, I think it&#39;s a good reminder that no matter who you are or what it is that you do, we&#39;re all in the same boat right now. And I think there&#39;s something very special about that. If we can get together and be a bigger <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/clandestina-2019">community</a>, that will only make us stronger.&nbsp;

Interview: Rita Ora on tie-dye, tequila, and taking things slow

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