“I was excited by [Sophie]… the variety, all of the colors that there is to play in her,” Sophia tells Teen Vogue, admitting that she’d probably be a Never in real life. “When I first looked at the character description, I was like, ‘Hm, princess. Let me read this script.’ And I was like, ‘Oh no, she’s not just a princess, she’s also kind of a devil.’”
Throughout the fim, Sophia’s character teeters between protagonist and antagonist as she tries to take unapologetic reign of her own destiny. Sophie effectively enters her villain era — if that’s what it truly means to forge your own path.
“I think it can be difficult, especially for young women, not knowing exactly who you are and not knowing or not feeling comfortable pushing the boundaries as a young woman, but I think Sophie very clearly does that,” says Sophia. “She pushes everybody. She just crosses every boundary.”
Sophie’s redemptive qualities, from standing up for her outcast best friend to empowering her Never peers, is what makes her an unexpected antihero. According to Sophia, Sophie’s journey across the spectrum good and evil teaches audiences a valuable lesson.
“There’s a little bit of both [good and evil] in all of us, and that’s okay,” she says. “You don’t have to be perfect [or] really good all of the time, because that’s just not how humans work. It’s not how people work.”
Helen Sloan SMPSP / NETFLIX
Her complex character arc also shows young women that they don’t have to conform. Like her character, Sophia doesn’t conform to a label either.
“With my fashion choices, with my music, or the work I choose, I want to push boundaries and just be ever-changing and reinventing myself all the time, because it’s how you figure out who you are,” she says. “You experiment in all the different versions of yourself. There’s a million versions of me and who I am. I’m not just one thing. I’m not completely solved in who I am, [I’m still] figuring that out. I always say to myself, ‘We’re all just growing ourselves up all the time.’ We’re all still realizing who we are… ever-changing and morphing, and I’m always reinventing myself in search of self.”