‘I’ve always had this blind faith’: Morgan Nagler on writing with alt-rock’s biggest names – and making her solo debut at 47

After starting out as a child actor, the US artist found music. Now co-writing with Phoebe Bridgers, Haim and Kim Deal, her dogged, DIY career has been powered by convictionThe title of Morgan Nagler’s solo debut, I’ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I’m Losing It, speaks to the sort of wisdom you can only accrue after several decades in the game, the kind that compels you to put your name to an album for the first time at the age of 47. But Nagler’s MO was there from day one, as an 11-year-old child actor going for a bit part as a popular girl on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. “I showed up and there were 200 girls there,” says Nagler. “I remember thinking, I’m never gonna get this. So I decided to read the lines as a super-nerd.” The producers rewrote the part and hired her to kiss Carlton.Today, Nagler lives in the same neighbourhood as Will Smith himself – not Bel-Air but a semi-rustic enclave of Malibu, California, albeit in the guesthouse of her friends’ place rather