Across the parking lot at the Rustic Canyon Recreation Center, Gracie Abrams is kneeling in the grass next to her long-haired dachshund, Weenie. It’s a quiet Friday afternoon in Los Angeles, and we’re the only two people in the lot, so she’s easy to spot. She hurries toward me in cargo pants, a sweatshirt that says “BUG” in block letters, and a navy Red Sox cap covering her dark brown pixie cut.
Her casual dog-walking look almost makes Abrams, 26, pass for a college student visiting her parents on break. You could, for at least a second, forget that she’s a global, Grammy-nominated pop star who counts Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Lorde among her biggest champions.
In some ways, she kind of is a kid home for a quick visit. Abrams spends time in London now, with her boyfriend, the actor Paul Mescal. Her parents, filmmaker J.J. Abrams and producer Katie McGrath, raised Gracie and her two brothers near here, in the Pacific Palisades. They used to bring her to Rustic Canyon every Friday to hang with parents they met through Mommy & Me classes. Abrams tells me she still has friends from those days and is determined to soak up as much time as possible—with them, with her parents, and with Weenie.
Perhaps Weenie most of all, who has been waylaid in LA. “There are so many papers,” she laments, unhooking his leash as we sit on a shady bench. “Paul’s desperate to get him out to London.” Abrams’s parents have stepped in to take care of him—which, she’ll admit, is probably a good thing. Even her time in LA has been hectic. Just the Sunday before, she was on Mescal’s arm at the Oscars, dressed in a glittering, black, midriff-baring two-piece ensemble from Chanel. They could both be seen screaming enthusiastically for Mescal’s Hamnet costar Jessie Buckley as she won best actress.
