Who Is Josephine Langford? Why You Recognize Moxie’s Emma

Moxie is a coming-of-age story with a feminist, punk rock twist, and it features Josephine Langford, who is recognizable from a number of projects, as the character Emma Johnson. Directed by comedic icon Amy Poehler, the film has just been released on Netflix, and it’s set to channel the female-led, music-infused vibes of the 1990s’ Riot Girrrl movement. Inspired by her mother’s social issue-dedicated and feisty youth, Moxie follows Vivian (Hadley Robinson) and her fellow high school girls as she creates a titular “zine” (a self-published, small scale magazine), fighting back against the school’s (and also society’s) status quo, channeling the ferocity and hurt that has also been explored, albeit in a much darker fashion, in recent films such as Promising Young Woman.

Girls in the movie’s trailer discuss their frustration with their male classmates ranking the school’s female members with titles such as “most bangaable” and “best ass,” and getting away with this type of behavior. Langford’s Emma is portrayed as a popular cheerleader archetype who joins the zine. But this isn’t Langford’s first time on-screen – far from it, actually. The 23-year-old actress, who hails from Perth, Australia, has already been in a handful of movies and TV series.

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She nabbed her first big role with 2017’s horror-fantasy drama Wish Upon. She played a minor role as high school bully Darcie Chapman, who harasses the main character, Claire, and her friends. The same year, she also had another part within the same genre vein, briefly playing Emma Webber in the Australian horror TV show Wolf Creek. Emma’s character was vacationing with her parents as part of a tourist group in the Australian outback before being terrorized by a serial killer on the loose. And, in 2019, Langford hit the big screen in what was arguably her biggest role to date: the teen romantic drama After. She played Tessa Young, a relatively low-key and conservative college freshman who falls into a steamy romance with bad boy-type Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin).

In 2020, the two would star together again in the sequel After We Collided. Then, in 2019, Langford played Clair Singer in the Hulu horror anthology series Into the Dark. In season 1, episode 9, Clair and her sister and father take a road trip in the wake of her mother’s death from cancer before encountering supernatural antagonists. And, most recently, although it’s not a visual medium, Langford has even been a recurring voice actor on the COVID-19 quarantine-inspired podcast Day by Day. Langford has a solid list of credits for her age, but she’s not the only member of the family in the limelight.

Her sister, Katherine, who’s a year older, has also been in notable productions. She starred as Hannah Baker, the character everyone orbits around after her death, in the enormously popular Netflix teen drama 13 Reasons Why. She also played Meg Thrombey in Rian Johnson’s 2019 murder mystery film Knives Out and the character of Leah in 2018’s coming out story/romantic dramedy Love, Simon. She was even close to being a part of the MCU, as she was featured in a deleted scene of 2019’s Marvel blockbuster Avengers: Endgame. Though never released as part of the film, she portrayed an older version of Tony Stark’s daughter, Morgan. Most recently, she headlined Netflix’s breakout fantasy hit Cursed, playing Nimue on a twist on Arthurian legend. It’s clear that the Langford sisters have both a penchant and a talent for acting. And, with the looks of Netflix’s Moxie, it seems as though Josephine will become a breakout star just like Katherine.

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Lindsey DeRoche
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Lindsey DeRoche is a TV and movie features writer for Screen Rant. She received a BA in English, with a concentration in writing, from Plymouth State University in 2018. She’s had a passion for reading, writing, TV, and movies since her early years.

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