Leyna Bloom’s Acting Career Soars With ATTAGIRL! World Premiere at Tribeca

The SI Swimsuit legend will also compete in the Miss New York USA pageant in August.

Leyna Bloom / Rob Kim/Getty Images

Leyna Bloom is a master in front of the camera. The 2021 SI Swimsuit Issue cover model and brand legend has posed for the magazine on four different occasions, and now, the Chicago native is starring in ATTAGIRL!, a nine-minute short that debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, June 6.

Last summer, Bloom spent three long days in Chinatown, Brooklyn and other locations around New York City filming the Klimovski-directed project, which was captured on KODAK film. The short, which also stars Amanda Lepore, Violet Chachki, Jazzelle and Marcos Pedraza, is an homage to the silent film era and is reminiscent of a Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino picture. In the short, Bloom plays a debt collector named Siren, a role that was written for her specifically.

“ I love the idea of women empowering each other,” Bloom says of her part in the short film. “ ... I just really wanted to pay homage to those bad girl films that are kind of sexy, but also super focused on dismantling all gender roles. That’s kind of been the motif of my whole career is opening doors, changing lives.”

Marcos Pedraza, Amanda Lepore, Klimovski, Leyna Bloom and Jazzelle / Rob Kim/Getty Images

Finding success in film

ATTAGIRL! marks Bloom’s second project to premiere at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival (her first was the feature film Asking For It in 2021), and the model and actress found that her time on set with Klimovski was similar in many ways to posing for SI Swimsuit. With only three takes of each scene, Bloom says the pressure was on to execute the material with precision, drawing parallels to nailing a shot on location just before the sun goes down.

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“ It was a beautiful challenge because as an artist and as a creative, you often are put in situations where you have to learn,” Bloom explains. “ ... I was just very lucky and I hope that when people watch [the film they] see a different side of me and they love that part of me.”

Bloom, who also appeared in 2019’s Port Authority, is making her younger self proud and says that having ATTAGIRL! debut at Tribeca felt both humbling and powerful.

“ It’s just been so hard for a person of color, let alone a woman, let alone a person that is queer, and let alone a person that is trans to be in a film,” Bloom states. “ ...  I love the fact that I can go in between two different worlds from modeling to film and really get respect in both places.”

Competing in Miss New York USA

In addition to her recent film work, Bloom is getting ready to compete in the upcoming Miss New York USA pageant in August as Miss Tribeca NY USA. The Miss Universe organization (which was co-owned by President Donald Trump until 2015) has amended several of its outdated policies in recent years, opening up eligibility to trans women and removing the age ceiling of 28.

Bloom, who is Filipina, says pageantry is “like the Olympics” in her culture. As a ballroom competitor and professional dancer, pageantry is naturally the next step in her career trajectory. And while the Chicago native also applied to represent the state of Illinois, Bloom is a quintessential New Yorker who says it just made sense to represent the state she’s lived in since the age of 17.

Leyna Bloom / Rob Kim/Getty Images

“ I think about all the women that have come before me that have competed in pageants in Miss USA or Miss Universe, or even Miss New York, that have been given an opportunity to walk into a room to speak to certain people,” Bloom says, noting that she has a unique lived experience that not many others can bring to the table. “I’m the type of person that can speak to men, I can speak to women, I can speak to trans people, I can speak to older people, I can speak to younger people. I directly am affected by everything in society, being a person that is Asian, being a person that is Black, a person that is queer.”

The Miss New York USA pageant runs Aug. 15 through 17, and if Bloom wins, she will move on to Miss USA, where she would then face off against other state title holders from across the U.S.

Bloom is a huge believer in manifestation and says that everything in her life is beginning to align beautifully with these recent career achievements. And like those who have come before her, the model-actress continues to bring a unique, authentic point of view to every room she enters.

“ Being myself is a form of rebellion, but it’s also a form of healing,” Bloom says.