Sophia is on the cover of L’Officiel Australia Fall Winter Fashion Book. Photography by Mike Ruiz.

SOPHIA LILLIS BY MIKE RUIZ – FALL/WINTER FASHION BOOK (COVER ONE) AND INTERVIEW

How have you been socializing during the quarantine?

Zoom calls mostly. A lot of my friends have gone to college or are doing classes at home. I have one friend I go skateboarding with sometimes. My brother’s at school in Scotland so we mostly just FaceTime or text.

Your breakout role as Beverly Marsh in Stephen King’s thriller IT, were you anxious stepping into such a major role?

Yeah, I was nervous for a lot of reasons. I had no idea what to expect. I’d never worked on a big studio film, just smaller independent/student films. Maybe it was better that I didn’t know what to expect!

Another notable performance was in Sharp Objects directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, can you tell us about Jean-Marc’s direction for your character Young Camille?

Jean-Marc has a very distinctive style and the show, on the whole, was so complex and I was sort of like a piece in the puzzle so his direction was very specific — very visual. I was really just in flashbacks — so it was very loose and dreamlike and spontaneous. A lot of it was just playing in the field or skating down a hill.

This year you can be seen in Uncle Frank opposite Paul Bettany in a film written and directed by Alan Ball. What was your experience like working with those two and tell us about your preparation to play Beth?

I was very lucky to work with both Alan and Paul. I was a huge fan of Six Feet Under so I was honored to be offered the role of Beth. Alan is great to work with — he’s incredibly empathetic and really gives the actors time and room to find their characters. Paul is such a great actor — he’s very thorough and diligent and I learned a lot watching him work. To prepare for the role, I had to work on a southern accent so I had a dialect coach and then Paul, Peter (Macdissi), and I met with Alan for two or three days for rehearsals to go through the script. Most of the focus was on the story of Frank and Wally because I’m really the storyteller, I mean my character has an arc but the core of the story is really Uncle Frank’s story and his relationship with Wally and his family.

You seem to have quite dramatic roles, do you prefer these characters or would you like to play lighter, more comedic roles in the future?

I like dramatic roles, but comedy roles are also fun. I had a good time playing Nancy Drew, for example. You can kind of go more outside the lines with a more comedic role. A lot of my roles have been sort of a mix—there was actually quite a bit of comedy even in IT.

Do you prefer feature films or limited-series to star in?

They both have their plusses and minuses. On a film, it’s fun to go in, do a character, and move onto something else. With a series, you have more time though to develop the character so that can be interesting as well. I was really fond of my character Sydney in “I Am Not Okay with This” and really felt like I was starting to develop her — unfortunately the show was canceled due to difficulties because of the pandemic. I was really looking forward to having the chance to play her again.

It’s not easy during a pandemic, are you looking forward to getting back to the set?

Yes. I can’t wait. I’m trying to make the best of the time, though, working on scene study and dialect coaching — I also take classes in guitar, drawing, and Norwegian (because why not).

Do you have any upcoming projects that you can share with us?

Not at this time. Other than “I Am Not OK With This,” I was also supposed to start filming a western called “The Thicket” which is also still on hold due to Covid. I’m hoping it will go forward. Other than that, I’m discussing a few other projects but so much depends on what can get done while we’re dealing with the pandemic.

If it wasn’t for acting, what would be your profession otherwise?

Definitely, something in the arts. Maybe I’d go to art school but I love being on set so maybe set design or special effects. If I didn’t work in the film/TV industry, maybe I’d be an illustrator.

Sophia Lillis is pondering her brief spell as a teenage self-loather. “I was horrible at socialising at middle school,” she winces, speaking over FaceTime from her Brooklyn family kitchen. “I was talking about this with my brother,” she says. “We realised we both hated ourselves.” As an actor with a taste for dark parts, she needs a little something to draw back on from School. “It’s just this really weird phase, where you’re trying to fit in. I was that outsider who thought, ‘Man, I feel like it’s good to be an outsider, you know, be my own person,’ but at the same time I was trying to get as many friends as possible.”

Sophia is a highly promising young actor with a special gift for moody defiance, deployed to maximum effect in IT, Sharp Objects and most recently as the compelling, telekinetic star of Netflix’s I’m Not OK With This. She has a raw, tomboyish charm, dry sense of humour and something of the young Ellen Page about her.

Sophia is spending her self-isolation time learning to cook (“I’ve done it once before. It was really bad”) and playing video games. She’s a pleasingly bluff 18-year-old whose picket fence New York life feels at odds with the teen diffidence she brings to screen. “You know everyone goes through things,” she says. “It’s not all happy-go-lucky all the time. I feel like I’m really lucky. I have such a nice family, but not everyone has that. I want to portray that on the screen.”

Sophia first discovered acting aged seven when her stepfather cast her as the lead role in his final Film School project. “It seemed like I was enjoying it,” she shrugs, “so [my mother and stepfather] thought, ‘let’s put her up for some extra classes, she needs to do something with her life’.”

Set in a sleepy Pittsburg town, Sophia plays Sydney Novak in I’m Not OK With This, a High School misfit going through changes, grieving the loss of a father who died from an apparent suicide, nursing the weird spots on her thighs and falling hopelessly in love with her best friend Dina, who just got a new boyfriend. She’s angry at school, her teachers, her classmates and the world. Just because. “She has a lot of emotions,” deadpans Sophia.

Directed by The End of the F***ing World’s Jonathan Entwistle, the show offers a relatable, witty snapshot of the agony and angst of being teenage. “Growing up, you always feel like you need to be this normal person,” she says. “But everyone feels like a freak.” The more she enveloped herself in the role, the more she liked it. “I actually came to really look up to Sydney. Everyone has hardship. Usually it’s so hard to deal with, but she surprisingly deals with everything fairly well.”

Now that school is almost over for her, Sophia is looking for an apartment to rent so that she can focus on her career. Post-isolation, she’ll be getting started on her next big project, The Thicket, another thriller, opposite Peter Dinklage in which she plays a young kidnapped girl. “It’s such a weird experience acting, because I don’t know if I could say I have a job, because 75% of my job is finding a job,” she laughs.

On the cusp of a major acting career, she’s considering how much of herself to give away. “I’m more of a quiet person,” she says with a twinkle of the eye. “But I think once you get to know me, I’m very out there.”

SOURCE: THELOVEMAGAZINE.CO.UK

Sophia is part of Netflix – The Undefinables. Photographed by Valheria Rocha.

Below you can also see a behind the scenes video with Sophia. I made screencaps of the video and added those to the gallery.

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