Kate Kicks Back

Thanks to her new marriage, a healthier way of eating, and animal advocacy work she’s passionate about, Kate Mara has found her bliss zone.

- Pam O’Brien

Lots of people talk about living in the moment, but only a few master the experience. Kate Mara is one of them. “I’m not a person who plans ahead,” says the actor, 35. “I enjoy the here and now as much as I can. I’m at my best when I’m not worrying about the future.”

That strategy is clearly a winning one, because Kate’s life these days is pretty fantastic. Last summer she married her boyfriend of two years, actor Jamie Bell, becoming stepmother to his 4-year-old son. “I love knowing that I have a partner for life,” Kate says. “I feel very proud to call Jamie my husband and to have made that commitment to him.” Her career is also soaring. Kate is starring in the movie Chappaquiddick, and she’s playing a leading role in Pose, a groundbreaking musical drama debuting this summer about life in New York City in the 1980s, featuring the biggest transgender cast ever on a TV series.

Then there’s her other great passion: working on behalf of animals, which Kate calls life changing. Two years ago, she and her younger sister, actor Rooney Mara, traveled with the Humane Society of the United States to Liberia, where a group of chimps abandoned by a medical organisation was struggling to survive. Kate helped raise money for the chimps’ care and assisted in getting the medical group to pay for a large chunk of it. “The project was a huge success,” Kate says, as she cuddles on the couch with one of her two beloved Boston terriers. “I didn’t realize what I was missing until I started working with and for animals. To protect innocent creatures in ways they can’t do themselves is really an amazing thing.”