Sara Silva on Cruel Intentions and Her Take on Preppy Style

When Cruel Intentions, the 1999 film starring Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe, hit theaters in 1999, critical reviews were mixed, but audiences were not. Grossing $76 million worldwide, the dark and boundary-pushing (for its time) movie was by all accounts a success and became an instant cult classic, spawning a prequel, sequel, musical, and, just in time for your Thanksgiving-weekend viewing pleasure, a juicy new TV adaptation for Prime Video.

The drama, the twisted scheming, the romance, the lies and revenge—it’s all there in the 2024 television version. But instead of returning to the halls of New York’s elite high school Manchester Prep, the show pivots to Manchester College outside Washington, D.C., where Greek life rules. Delta Phi Pi President Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Catherine Hook) is our new ambitious and diabolical queen bee, who, in an attempt to preserve the reputation of the school’s sororities and fraternities as well as her own legacy, teams up with her manipulating stepbrother Lucian Belmont (Zac Burgess) to help recruit new student and daughter of the vice president of the United States, Annie Grover (Savannah Lee Smith), to join her sorority.

Much like the 1999 film, the show features an attractive cast of rising stars—like Sara Silva (American Horror Stories and The Boys), who plays Delta Phi Pi’s social chair and Catherine’s right-hand woman CeCe. The fresh face is a scene-stealer as the tightly wound perfectionist, and not just because of her on-screen wardrobe, which consists of Chanel-like tweed numbers and preppy blazers, but because hers is a journey of growth, and we love that. Not one to shy away from a noteworthy fashion moment herself, Silva, with the help of stylist Kat Typaldos, has been turning out look after look after look throughout the Cruel Intentions press run, so of course, we had to get all of the details.

We caught up with Silva ahead of the show’s Los Angeles premiere to talk about the vision for her press looks, which included supporting young designers and bringing the character of CeCe to life.

Sara Silva wears a Puppets and Puppets navy and black dress with furry jacket and sunglasses.

(Image credit: Ricky Fraser; Styling: Puppets and Puppets dress; Crap Eyewear sunglasses)

Let’s start with your press run for Cruel Intentions. Take me inside your fittings with stylist Kat Typaldos and the narrative you both wanted to tell with your looks.

It was a blast getting to know Kat. We are such kindred souls. This is our first time working together, but I am super stoked to keep working with her because it’s been a blast. Because of that, we were able to collaborate pretty closely on what we wanted, and I felt really comfortable. We took an approach of amplifying my own personal style and working with younger designers, like Puppets and Puppets, Alessandra Rich, and Sandy Liang, which I was super excited about and honored to be wearing all of those brands. We also wanted to use as much vintage as possible because in this day and age with consumerism and everything, we both have a huge passion for vintage.

We wanted to do a good amount of preppy, Upper East Side vibes in keeping with the Cruel Intentions vibe and a modern take on what preppy means and some nods to my character. Although my looks felt more personalized to me and what I might wear, we definitely had some very specific choices that were CeCe things. … For example, CeCe wears a watch, and I wore a watch in a couple of the looks. The attention to detail Kat has is so special. She had me in these [Bonnie Clyde] glasses for one of the looks, which I loved, and it felt like a contemporary take on CeCe.