W #1/2026 - Best Perfomances

W #1/2026 -  Best Perfomances

Everyone from Howard Hughes to Greta Garbo has lived in Chateau Marmont’s penthouse for a spell—usually either to hide-out or to celebrate. Last night, on January 10, W Magazine’s Editor in Chief Sara Moonves and Editor at Large Lynn Hirschberg threw a party in the hotel’s penthouse to celebrate our Best Performances Issue. Presented by Christian Louboutin, the night gave actors and directors a chance to let loose as a months-long awards season starts.

The first guest to arrive was Lana Del Rey, who brought along her husband, alligator wrangler Jeremy Dufrene. Shortly after, Elle Fanning—who once played the daughter of a washed-up actor living at the Chateau—walked in with her sister, Dakota Fanning. Then came Jacob Elordi with his parents. He caught up with his Euphoria co-stars Sydney Sweeney and Maude Apatow, who play sisters on the show. Meanwhile, One Battle After Another star Chase Infiniti chatted with Sinner’s Michael B. Jordan, while Infiniti’s on-screen father, Leonardo DiCaprio, arrived, black hat pulled over his eyes, with his girlfriend, the model Vittoria Ceretti. Mother-daughter models Cindy Crawford and Kaia Gerber coordinated in slinky black dresses. Their fellow models, Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner, were attached at the hip all night.

When Jennifer Lopez rolled in, she immediately fed song requests to DJ Ross One, then shimmied around the dance floor. Zoe Kravitz and Tessa Thompson danced, too, as did Sombr when his own song came on. But it was the Fanning sisters who really dominated the dance floor with Hirschberg. Meanwhile, Odessa Azion and Drew Starkey stuck by the DJ booth.

Guests prepared their bodies for tonight’s Golden Globes with warm-up glasses of Moët & Chandon, which is the official Champagne of the show. Perhaps that’s why it was a big night for cheek kissing: Colman Domingo planted one on Quinta Brunson; Christian Louboutin did on Domingo; Hirshberg did on Benicio del Toro, who arrived in a hoodie. And that was all before Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie walked into the penthouse. He promptly planted one on Moonves.

The Best Performances portfolio, shot by Tyrone Lebon, looks like behind-the-scenes stills of an astronomically big-budget Hollywood movie. The images were blown up and plastered around the penthouse’s walls. Emma Stone posed in front of a photo of herself wearing a mini dress, dragging a dead body. Amanda Seyfried and her Housemaid co-star Sweeney took a selfie in front of Seyfried’s photo, in which she’s screaming bloody murder. The filmmakers behind the actual movies up for awards admired the stills, too: Marty Supreme’s Josh Safdie, Bugonia’s Yorgos Lanthimos, Sirât’s Oliver Laxe, Sentimental Value’s Joachim Trier, The Testament of Ann Lee’s director Mona Fastvold and writer Brady Corbet. Sean Baker, whose film Anora won Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars last year, joined them.

Substack, a sponsor of the evening, provided lighters—largely used for cigarettes smoked over the balcony, with a view of Sunset Boulevard. Two of the platform's star writers, Derek Blasberg and Evan Ross Katz, hung out on the penthouse deck.

The party wound down around 1:30 in the morning. Considering three-quarters of the guests needed to get ready for the Golden Globes first thing this morning, that was very late.

W is an American fashion magazine that was launched in 1972 as a sister publication to Women's Wear Daily. W began as a biweekly spin-off of Women's Wear Daily.