New Amsterdam star Alison Luff spent the last days of summer soaking up the sun in Positano, Italy, on what looked like a babymoon trip. Luff, who plays Alice Healy on the show, shared highlights from her trip, including a beautiful picture of herself posing on the beach in a bronze bikini. “Positano Party of 3 Humpty Dumpty Dump 🌊,” she captioned the sweet post. Luff is a stage actress as well as screen—here’s how she feels about the characters she plays.
Luff is a musician as well as an actress, and shares videos of herself playing guitar on social media. “Studies have shown that music training improves cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory, attention and inhibition) across our life span,” says Patricia Izbicki, PhD. “This has been shown with both short-term and long-term music training. Because playing an instrument requires many different areas of the brain, it strengthens a variety of neuronal connections.”
Luff loves portraying a feminine type of strength with her role as Stacie in Heels. “When I originally read the season one [script], I saw strength within Staci, and I knew that ‘Okay, there’s different ways to show strength.’ Some people would say, ‘Oh, she’s just a mom,’ but she is maintaining her entire household,” she says. “There is strength in that, and it’s so easy to look at strength through like a masculine lens and be like, ‘Oh, strength is just money or physicality.’ I think the great thing that these writers have done is show the strength in these women that through — not to genderize it, but through a feminine lens. Staci’s strength is loyalty. Her strength is nurture; her strength is maternal. Her strength is accountability and action, and it’s not athleticism. It’s not physical strength, but she does have these other strengths.”
Theater star Luff developed a deep affection for Jimmy Buffet after starring on the stage production of Escape to Margaritaville. “I haven’t told him this but I want to call him Uncle Jimmy,” she says. “And I don’t know if he’ll be okay with this, but I feel like he would be because he’s a great guy. He’s so fun. He’s always around. I mean, he’s a really very busy man, but he’s always around. And when he is around, he’s always giving his input, and he’s always being supportive. The other day, the second to last run-through we had in the rehearsal studio, he was laughing like he had never seen the show before. And there were a couple new parts that he hadn’t seen, and I’m looking over to see if he’s laughing and then he is and I’m like, ‘Yes!'”
Luff says playing Jenna in Waitress taught her to embrace her own imperfections. “Jenna has been such a gift and it’s been a dream role,” she says. “There are so many lessons she’s taught me like leaning into the imperfections of who you are, because her imperfections really shine. The line we always remember is, ‘She’s messy but she’s kind.’ Kindness will go a long way and things can get messy, but as long as you stay true—you’re going to stay on track.”
Luff gained confidence in herself when she stopped trying to be better than her peers at doing the same parts, like the role of Jenna. “I think I really started to own myself and my career when I realized I can’t do what they do better,” she says. “I need to figure out what I do best and what I can offer that no one else can. [Jenna] was a dream role of mine back when I saw [Waitress] in November 2016. The first five minutes of watching it I had tears in my eyes, I turned to my husband and said, ‘I have to do this.’ I think about that almost every night when that curtain goes up. I like the imperfect nature of the story. It’s hard to make an affair a love story and make people root for it. I really love doing it.”