Margaret Qualley steps into the world of music with the kind of surreal flair that only she could pull off. Under the name Lace Manhattan, the actor debuts two songs, “In The Sun She Lies” and “ODDWADD,” written for Ethan Coen’s upcoming detective film Honey Don’t!, in which Qualley stars as the enigmatic Honey O’Donahue. Both tracks premiered this week alongside their equally stylized videos, and they’re as much about atmosphere and mood as they are about melody and form.
Produced by none other than Jack Antonoff — Qualley’s husband and pop’s go-to maximalist — the songs are steeped in cinematic oddity. “In The Sun She Lies” plays like a ghostly desert lullaby, soaked in reverb and floating on acoustic guitar, Moog hum, and a kind of sun-drenched melancholy. Qualley’s voice doesn’t try to command the song; instead, it haunts the edges, drifting in like a memory you can’t quite place. It’s more mood piece than pop song, and that’s the point.
“ODDWADD,” on the other hand, is where things get delightfully weird. A synth-heavy, pulsing track with robotic chants and a sweaty, retro-futuristic sheen, it feels pulled from an aerobics tape directed by David Lynch. It’s playful, campy, and oddly hypnotic — perfectly in step with the offbeat energy of Coen’s film and Qualley’s own idiosyncratic screen presence.
Though this may not signal a full pivot to music for Qualley, it’s a strong artistic statement that proves she’s capable of more than dabbling. These songs, while intentionally stylized and theatrical, suggest that Lace Manhattan is less a one-off project and more a creative extension of Qualley’s screen roles — a persona built for sound as much as cinema. Whether or not more music follows, “In The Sun She Lies” and “ODDWADD” set an intriguing tone for Honey Don’t! and place Qualley at the center of a uniquely strange musical experiment.
