A constant source of inspiration, Sophie beams that she’s “bold and driven and doesn’t let anyone tell her what she can and can’t do”: “She successfully runs a business and raised my sister and I to believe that we could do and be whatever I put we put our minds to. Sophie’s mum, Sandi, she says, as taught her much also. So, the main thing that acting has taught me, is to always lead with empathy.” I love that each character is a new challenge, there are not two characters who are the same, and that from the outside you can never be sure of what someone is going through. I constantly find myself curious about why we are the way we are. “Acting has taught me that the human experience is truly the most fascinating thing to exist. It has brought me endless joy, a sense of community, and most of my closest friends.” Anyone who has grown up around the theatre knows that there is a certain magic to it. “The feeling I felt from being on stage with people I had grown to love, and the rush it gave me, I knew I would be chasing that feeling for the rest of my life,” she says.
Sophie’s first public performance was as Mary in her kindergarten nativity play, then, she says, drama classes became her “safe haven” where she could “express myself and transform”. I’d put on voices, play different characters and make my parents hysterical with my silly impressions that I’d stolen from watching Disney Channel. My sister-who is a makeup artist-would dress my cousins and I up, do our makeup, and we would act out talk shows, dance around and sing songs.
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“Chatty and bold like my parents! Our piles of home videos are full of concerts I’d put on for them. “Since I can remember, I’ve been an extremely extroverted and animated person,” she says. Among Aotearoa’s most promising creatives (read: actor, singer, writer, and theatre-maker), Sophie is currently majoring in drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and has already performed in the UK as well as New York, singing in Carnegie Hall, Windsor Castle, and Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod festival.