L'Officiel exclusively talks with its September 2021 cover star about her new Hollywood project and her future career endeavors.

From her various acting roles on screen to a budding music career, Liza Soberano is surely a force to be reckoned with. With her incredible popularity and success in the Philippines, the Filipina actress hopes to take her career to the next level and goes to pursue her dream of working in the glittering industry of Hollywood. And now that she has landed a remarkable role in an upcoming movie that also stars Cole Sprouse, the future looks bright for the 24-year-old actress. Here, L&rsquo;Officiel Philippines exclusively chats with its September 2021 Cover Star Liza Soberano on her upcoming Hollywood movie, artistry, and future career moves.

Behind-the-scene shots from L'Officiel Philippines September 2021 Issue

First of all, congrats, we&rsquo;re so excited about your upcoming horror comedy film. How did that come about?&nbsp;
A few months ago, I went to LA and went to different Asian-American Heritage events. I got to network with a lot of amazing people, and one of the people that I really became close to at that time was Zelda Williams who is the director of Lisa Frankenstein. The reason we connected so much is because she&rsquo;s also partly Filipino, and I later found out that she&rsquo;s the daughter of Robin Williams who is an actor that I really look up to. The day I met her was when she got this project greenlit, and so she told me that she had already cast the lead characters but was looking for someone to play Taffy. The role of Taffy is the character that I got cast for. She asked me if I would be interested in auditioning for that, so I said that I&rsquo;ll take a look at the script and if it&rsquo;s something that I&rsquo;m interested in then I&rsquo;ll audition for it. About two months after, I finally got to read the script, and I instantly fell in love with it. It was everything I was looking for in a project. It had a bit of romance, a bit of horror, and comedy. I had to film myself, something very new to me &ndash; something I&rsquo;d never done before. I did that then I sent in my audition, and I got cast for it.

Can you talk about your role, Taffy?&nbsp;
I play Taffy who is a high school cheerleader from the 80s and I play Lisa&rsquo;s stepsister. That&rsquo;s pretty much all I can share for now because we are still in the early stages of production and have yet to talk about the plot and everything.

When you were in LA, what sort of projects were you eyeing? This opportunity came unannounced. What were your expectations for Hollywood?
Really, what we&rsquo;re just trying to do was trying to get friends from the industry &ndash; from directors to actors and people behind the scenes &ndash; to get a grasp of how things work in Hollywood. The intention wasn&rsquo;t to bag a role or bag a project right away. It just happened. We just wanted to meet genuine people that we vibe with and that&rsquo;s exactly what we did. I got to make so many friends, and I learned so many things from them, and a bonus was I got this project &ndash; that was really cool. I didn&rsquo;t go to LA with any expectations really. I feel like it&rsquo;s better that way because then, I don&rsquo;t get disappointed if something doesn&rsquo;t go my way. I just replace all of my expectations with gratitude.

Horror comedy is not your usual genre in the Philippines. Are you doing any preparations for it? Are you scared of it? Are you excited?&nbsp;
No, my dream was always to be in a horror film. Horror films are actually my favorite &ndash; it&rsquo;s my favorite genre. I love horror comedies too. That&rsquo;s why this was so interesting because as an actor in the Philippines, I never got to do the things I&rsquo;m actually interested in as a viewer or as the audience. I was mostly in romantic comedies or romantic dramas which are fun but aren't like the type of genres that I would normally watch.&nbsp;

Do you have any influences when it comes to horror or comedy? What do you watch?&nbsp;For plain horror, my favorite would have to be old classics like Bates Motel.For horror comedies, of course, Scream.

How does it feel like to work with Diablo Cody and Zelda Williams who&rsquo;s part Filipino?
I&rsquo;ve had the opportunity to work mostly with Zelda as she is the director. It&rsquo;s so much fun working with her because she makes me feel so comfortable and so at home. She&rsquo;s always making sure that I am comfortable, and the great thing about her is she&rsquo;s very collaborative as a director. She never tells us exactly what to do &ndash; she tells us the specifics, the technicalities, where we need to be when we need to do a certain thing, but like in terms of emotion, she lets us express ourselves. If she needs a bit more from us, she tells us, &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re at a six with happiness right now, I need you to be at a ten.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s what she&rsquo;ll say, she doesn't give us a specific &ndash; she doesn't tell us to react or act in a specific way which is so much fun. We have complete freedom to experiment with what we want to do. With Diablo, I met her &ndash; I&rsquo;ve only had the chance to speak with her twice so far. She&rsquo;s such a sweetheart. The first day I met her, she even handed me a gift and was thanking me so much for being a part of the film, and I was like &ldquo;No, thank you!&rdquo; for like asking me &ndash; I&rsquo;m so happy to be part of this project. She&rsquo;s just so cool, just being next to her, I feel like I&rsquo;m instantly cooler. She just has a cool vibe with her and so does Zelda. They&rsquo;re just very strong female figures in the industry.&nbsp;

Have you already met the cast?
I&rsquo;ve had the opportunity to work with almost everybody except for Carla Gugino. I&rsquo;ve mostly had the chance to work with Kathryn since we play stepsisters in the movie. With Cole Sprouse, this is not my first time meeting him actually. I met him when he was in Manila before for a Bench event, but he didn&rsquo;t remember that he met me there, obviously, because he met so many different people during that time. When I brought that up to him, he mentioned that he really loved the Philippines. Like he loved the food, the culture was interesting to him, and he remembers he was well taken care of while he was there. We left a good impression on him, to say the least. Working with Kathryn and Cole &ndash; they&rsquo;re awesome people; they&rsquo;re industry veterans, and they&rsquo;ve been working since they were kids. Especially, Cole, he&rsquo;s been working practically his whole life. At a young age, they know exactly what to do, and they know exactly how to carry the energy and the vibe of the set which is very important for lead characters because they bring the energy. The best thing about them is behind the scenes and cameras, they are just sweethearts; they&rsquo;re very genuine people. They&rsquo;re always making sure that I&rsquo;m comfortable and that I feel like I&rsquo;m part of the cast.

I know it&rsquo;s just been a short time, but what have you learned from the experience?&nbsp;&nbsp;
In terms of professionalism, this is something that I already do but isn&rsquo;t something that I expect from all actors. Always come prepared to the set, knowing your lines completely, and being in that headspace already for what your character needs &ndash; like the headspace your character needs to be in for that day. They come completely prepared, like Cole, he took lessons in advance for his role. What I like the most about them is that they&rsquo;re not afraid to be goofy in front of the camera. For that type of film that we&rsquo;re making, you need to be imaginative and go outside of the box.

That&rsquo;s cool. Is that something we could expect from you soon?&nbsp;
Yes!

Are you moving to the US?
I wouldn&rsquo;t say that I&rsquo;m 100% going to move to the US, but I will say that I plan on staying half the year here and half the year in the Philippines. I will be spending more time here since I&rsquo;m really trying to do more work out here. There are things that I am trying to audition for and things that I&rsquo;m planning to do that aren&rsquo;t really concrete yet.

What made you decide to join Careless? Everyone&rsquo;s talking about it, but we want to hear more from you with regard to that decision.&nbsp;
What drew me to Careless was when James [Reid] told me that they really prioritized artistry which is something that has always been very important to me and that their method of managing is similar to how people manage here in America. They make the artist feel like they&rsquo;re the boss. James always says to me I'm his boss and that he works for me which is kind of funny. It&rsquo;s also a great thing that James himself is an artist, so he understands the ambition, the pain, and the headspace of an artist. We really see eye-to-eye on things. He&rsquo;s also very hardworking. I feel like we share the same drive for wanting more &ndash; for wanting to be the best versions of ourselves and knowing we haven&rsquo;t reached the pinnacle of what we can be.

Are you taking an actress-music performer route, or is Careless expanding more into acting?&nbsp;
I do want to venture into the music scene as well since that is Careless&rsquo; expertise, and it is something that I&rsquo;ve always wanted to do, but never really had the time to do. With Careless, I&rsquo;m excited to see how things would play out, but I do think that Careless is trying to also expand on the entertainment side. They don&rsquo;t want to be just a music label now, but they also want to work in the entertainment industry.

You mentioned artistry a while ago, can you talk more about the things you want to do &ndash; where your artistry can shine a bit more?&nbsp;
I just want to become more of a versatile actress. I want to diversify the different projects and genres that I take on.&nbsp; I want to do stuff that I&rsquo;ve never done before. I want each project to be different. Not to say that my previous ones weren't, but there were a lot of similarities because of the genre. I was sticking to just romantic comedies or romantic dramas most of the time, and eventually, I felt like I wasn't growing as an actress &ndash; I wasn't challenging myself.&nbsp;
The fact that I was working in a love team has its pros and cons. You get so comfortable working with the same person over and over that you literally know how to navigate your way through scenes. Eventually, because you&rsquo;re so comfortable, and you know exactly what to do &ndash; you&rsquo;re no longer growing; you're no longer learning. I love working with Enrique, obviously, but I also felt like I needed to do things outside of that because I&rsquo;ve never done anything. Since I got into the love team, I&rsquo;ve never done anything outside of it. He also felt the same way, but he was also able to do a lot of things outside of our love team while we were in the love team, so he didn't feel the need as much. Also, he has been in the industry longer. I came to a point where I just needed to do something more or else I&rsquo;m not going to be as in love with what I&rsquo;m doing anymore.

What could your Filipino fans expect from this career move?&nbsp;
I&rsquo;m really trying to prioritize international work at the moment just because I feel like in the Philippines, I&rsquo;ve done everything that I wanted to do. I feel like we&rsquo;re also in a weird space right now in terms of entertainment where resources were limited for the longest time. I wasn't sure if they would be able to do any projects that I was looking for. I told them I wanted to go on a mini break, and kind of figure out what I really wanted to do. While I was on that mini break, I realized that I want to go outside of the country &ndash; it has always been a dream of mine to be in Hollywood. That's exactly why I&rsquo;m prioritizing it because the opportunity has finally fallen upon me, and I guess I should just maximize that. While the iron is hot, go in for it. I do acknowledge that the majority of my fanbase is still in the Philippines, and a majority of the people that know me are still in the Philippines, so if a project does come that excites me and brings me toward the direction that I want to be in, then I will definitely consider it. I&rsquo;m still mainly prioritizing being an actress, so at the end of the day, if a project really excites me and allows me to grow, and is something new then I will always consider it.

While the iron is hot, go in for it.

Catching Up With Liza Soberano On Her Upcoming Movie Lisa Frankenstein

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