I added 2 new albums to the gallery. Click on the gallery links below to see all photos from each album.
I added 3 new outtakes to the gallery taken by Lauren Perlstein for Elite Daily back in January. Click on the gallery link below to see the photos in full size.
They always make superpowers look so cool in the movies, but for angsty teen Sydney Novak, discovering that she can control things with her mind has only led to trouble. Serious trouble. Accidentally murdering her best friend’s unfaithful bully boyfriend at the homecoming dance sort of trouble.
Sydney is the heroine at the heart of the supernatural coming-of-age drama I Am Not Okay With This, and in the hands of actress Sophia Lillis, she always remains a relatable teenager — even as she struggles to keep her newfound abilities a secret.
Together with a cast of rising talents, Lillis has helped capture a loyal audience for Jonathan Entwistle and Christy Hall’s adaptation of the graphic novel by Charles Forsman. (Entwistle previously adapted Forsman’s The End of the F***ing World for Netflix.) Wyatt Oleff plays the fashionably quirky neighbor Stanley, Sofia Bryant is Syd’s good-natured best friend (and crush) Dina, and Richard Ellis radiates a tantalizing menace as ill-fated jock Brad.
Queue caught up with these young actors to learn more about their lives, onscreen and off.
SOPHIA LILLIS as Sydney Novak
Age: 18
Hometown: Brooklyn. Born and raised.
Siblings: I have a stepbrother who’s in his 20s, and I have a twin brother, Jake.
Best part about having a twin: You’re never alone. It has its ups and downs, but mainly it’s a good thing to have a brother who’s the same age as me. We go through the same things at the exact same time. He’s also a much better cook than me.
Favorite meal: I like fried rice. It’s amazing. Jake and I found this really cool Korean barbecue place that does takeout. We get that sometimes, and they make this kimchi burrito thing that’s really delicious. It doesn’t sound good, but it is.
Hobbies: When I’m bored, I usually just doodle. I don’t do full-on watercolors and paints and stuff, but I like to doodle. It’s kind of relaxing.
Desert island reading: I really love The Neverending Story. That was one of my favorite books as a kid, and I still like it now. But if I’m stuck on a desert island, maybe a survivalist’s diary. That’s definitely the smarter way to go.
Entry into acting: When I first started acting, it was something I did as a pastime. I wanted to be more open. I wasn’t really the most outgoing and extroverted type of person. I had a lot of fun in acting class. I felt like I met my people. It slowly turned into more of a job later on because I started doing N.Y.U. student films. Before I knew it, it turned into something I could actually live off of, which I never knew I could do.
First screen role: It was in an N.Y.U. student film called The Lipstick Stain. That was a long time ago. The director was Dagny Looper.
On keeping secrets: I think I can keep a secret. I don’t really have a good memory, though, so I’ll probably forget the secret once you tell me. I’m that kind of person.
Favorite thing about Sydney Novak: I like how she tries really hard and she doesn’t seem to ever really give up. I like that positive side to her. She seems kind of negative at first — like this regular, angry teenager — but you get to know her, and you get to see that she’s going through a lot. She also has these superpowers that are very dangerous, that she doesn’t know how to control. But through it all, she keeps a positive attitude and tries her best to fix everything. The way she tries to keep everything together, I love it. It’s actually inspiring. I wish I could be as positive as she is. I try to be.
Read the rest of the cast interviews at Netflix Queue!
Sophia photographed by Nadya Wasylko for Tidal Magazine. Click on the gallery link below to see all photos in full size.
Sophia is on the cover of the current issue (13) of Tidal Magazine. Order the magazine at tidal-mag.com!
Click on the photo to see it fullsize:
EDIT: Here are two more photos of Sophia for Tidal Magazine. Photography by Nadya Wasylko.
Click on the gallery link below to see the photos full size.
A big thank you to Abby who sent me these photos she took of Sophia at MCM Comic Con last year. Be sure to check out Abby’s Scarlett Johansson Fansite as well! Click on the gallery link below to see all photos.
Credit: Courtesy of leslie Alejandro, Gabriel Langenbrunner and Nicole Walmsley
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.”
Be sure to visit @ny.strong on Instagram to see his photos of Sophia’s brother Jake and her stepfather Christopher Mellevold as well as their comments on the social distancing situation right now. Sophia’s mother, Juliana’s comments can be read under the family photo on ny.strong’s instagrams page.
Photograph: Christopher Mellevold
From playing Beverly Marsh in It to starring in Netflix’s I Am Not Okay With This, Lillis is building an impressive résumé as she graduates from high school
Sophia Lillis is a bit of an old soul. She has a penchant for the word “rather” that doesn’t quite chime with being an 18-year-old who lives in Brooklyn. If she didn’t work so much, she would take up pottery classes. And she isn’t much for going out – even when the world isn’t in lockdown. It all seems a bit coy for a teenager on the brink of stardom.
Lillis is in the midst of building an impressive résumé. She had her first big hits playing Beverly Marsh in Stephen King’s 2017 thriller, It, and a younger Amy Adams in Sharp Objects in 2018. The following year, she landed the lead in Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase.
Lillis was seven when her stepdad first asked her to star in his class film project. But it wasn’t until she was in high school, finishing the filming of It – her first feature movie – that she finally figured out she wanted to act long-term.
Now she is starring the Netflix adaptation of Charles Forsman’s I Am Not Okay With This. Lillis plays Sydney Novak, an awkward 17-year-old coming to terms with her sexuality while getting over her dad’s suicide. Plus, Novak just so happens to have superpowers that are triggered by intense feelings – like a modern-day Matilda, but less PG.
I caught up with her to discuss her life in isolation now that she’s off set and stuck in New York for the foreseeable future. If we were able to meet in person as planned, we would have gone to Lillis’s favorite Brooklyn diner. She would have ordered pancakes or waffles and a side of sausages, and a vanilla egg cream (seltzer, milk, whipped cream and syrup, in case you were wondering).
Instead, we meet over Zoom, of course, but she tells me she still got dressed up for the chat. For her, that means swapping out two-day old pyjamas for one of her more colorful outfits (she usually just wears black) – a black top with flowers on it and a scraggly yellow jacket. Her characteristic short, ginger hair is tucked behind her ears and she’s wearing a huge grin on her face.
READ THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW AT THEGUARDIAN.COM
And here are the rest of the outtakes of the photoshoot Christopher did with Sophia. Click on the gallery link below to see them full size.
I made screencaps from Sophia in “Gretel and Hansel”. Click on the gallery link below to see all screencaps from her in the film.
