How ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ Star Liza Soberano Stole the Show in Her American Debut
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[This story contains graphic spoilers for Lisa Frankenstein.]
If Lisa Frankenstein is any indication, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Liza Soberano in years to come.
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At the age of 10, the Filipino-American actor moved from Visalia, Calif. to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and she found countrywide success at the age of 16 for her romantic drama series, Forevermore. Soberano has continued to enjoy success as an actor, model and spokesperson, but her American roots kept calling for her to try her hand at forging an acting career in the States.
In the summer of 2022, Soberano finally took the plunge by sending off a self-tape for a key supporting role in Diablo Cody and Zelda Williams’ Lisa Frankenstein, and within a week, she was on the New Orleans set of her first American movie. She plays the eponymous Lisa’s (Kathryn Newton) outgoing stepsister, Taffy, who’s also a pageant girl and popular cheerleader with a dash of duplicity. She has since received rave reviews from the audience and industry alike, and even Newton herself co-signed the notion that Soberano steals every scene.
“I feel very flattered. It was honestly a little unbelievable for me at first. I didn’t expect this many people to take a liking to my portrayal of Taffy in Lisa Frankenstein,” Soberano tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I didn’t expect much when the movie came out. So I’m just really happy and flattered, and I’m very inspired to act again soon.”
Taffy does her best to welcome her new stepsister into her new home, school and town, but a bad experience at a high school party prompts Lisa to make a suicidal wish at a cemetery that results in a reanimated corpse on their doorstep. The Creature (Cole Sprouse), who was once a handsome bachelor during the Victorian era, soon begins a friendship with the forlorn Lisa, and she helps upgrade his lifeless and/or missing body parts by way of people who’ve wronged her, including her stepmother and Taffy’s mother, Janet (Carla Gugino).
(The next two paragraphs contain graphic spoilers for the film’s twistedly comedic climax.)
The story reaches a boiling point when Lisa catches Taffy in bed with her crush, Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry), and to avenge Lisa, whom he’s fallen in love with, The Creature decides to take a hatchet to Michael’s phallus. The much-discussed scene was originally intended to be R-rated, but was dialed back to PG-13 during post-production.
“There was so much blood on me when The Creature initially chops off Michael’s penis, and I think the producers or the studio were like, ‘Oh, this won’t pass for PG-13, so we’re going to have to CGI some of the blood off,’” Soberano shares.
Below, during a recent spoiler conversation with THR, Soberano breaks down that eventful shooting day in detail, before explaining how she created Taffy alongside Cody and Williams.
So you moved from Visalia, Calif. to the Philippines at the age of 10. Did you feel like a fish out of water at first?
Oh yeah, for sure. I didn’t really know how to speak the language, so I knew barely anything about my culture. So it took me about two years to really get acclimated, and that’s because I went to school here. And then I started working when I was 12, so I had to learn the language pretty fast.
Yes, you started with modeling work. When did acting enter into the equation?
I started modeling first when I was 12, but that only happened for six months. So I immediately went into acting, but my career didn’t really take off until I was 16.
Before you moved to the Philippines, did you know there was a performer side of you?
Definitely not. I was very shy and very soft-spoken. I even had a hard time making eye contact with people, so I never thought I would be a performer or be in the entertainment space. But my mom did say that I was in the choir at church when I was really young. I actually have no memory of it, but she always said that I was born to be in front of people and perform.
You achieved notable success working out of the Philippines, so what made this the right time to take a crack at the States?
Well, I’ve always wanted to try my luck out in Hollywood, but I was busy doing other things here in the Philippines. The reason why I always wanted to go back to America is because I still have a lot of family there. So when my acting career took off here in the Philippines, that’s when I started daydreaming about going to Hollywood, and Hollywood is obviously the biggest stage for actors in the world. Any actor on Earth would want to try their luck out there.
Well, you made the right call. I’m sure your inner circle has been sharing quotes with you, but critics, journalists, viewers, etc. have been using adjectives like “scene-stealing” and “breakout” to describe your performance in Lisa Frankenstein. What goes through your mind when you read or hear that audiences have already embraced you in your first Hollywood movie?
I feel very flattered. It was honestly a little unbelievable for me at first. I didn’t expect this many people to take a liking to my portrayal of Taffy in Lisa Frankenstein. I had so much fun filming it, but I didn’t expect much when the movie came out. So I’m just really happy and flattered, and I’m very inspired to act again soon.
How lengthy was your audition process for Taffy?
It only took about four days, I would say. I got the script, I read it right away, I taped my self-tape and then I got the call two days later.
There was no Zoom read with Kathryn Newton or a meeting with Zelda Williams and Diablo Cody?
There was no Zoom. I sent over my self-tape, I got the call two days later, and then I flew to New Orleans three days later to film. So it was really that fast.
From winning Junior Miss Hawaiian Tropic to being a cheerleader, Taffy is a quintessential Type A personality. Did you know plenty of Taffys when you were a teenager?
I can’t say that I personally knew of any girl that was similar to Taffy, but I did watch a lot of teen movies and stuff like that. So that’s where I grabbed a lot of inspiration from in building her character. But I would say that I have a little bit of her in me, especially the more human side of her, not the stereotype that she is. The thing that we share the most is our earnestness. We’re very candid and genuine.
Did you lean on one high school movie in particular?
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Zelda wanted me to take inspiration from [Ferris’] girlfriend [Mia Sara’s Sloane].
She actually fits the description of what I’m about to bring up. Diablo told me that she wanted Taffy to talk like a female character from the ‘80s. She described that tone as “mannered and feminine.” How quickly did you find that voice?
The first day we started filming, I was still iffy about what tone to use for Taffy, but my conversations with Zelda and with Diablo on set really helped as we were filming. I just wanted to make sure that we were seeing eye to eye on the portrayal of Taffy, and I wanted to know how much I should lean into the stereotype of her being a really popular cheerleader. I also wanted to know how genuine her kindness is, because when I read the script, I couldn’t really understand at first if she was genuinely nice or if she was pretending to be nice. So our conversations really helped.
Yeah, she does seem kind and caring in some instances. She’ll invite Lisa to social outings and share her clothes with her, but then she’ll go behind her back in more ways than one. So, what did you ultimately decide as far as how genuine she is?
The way I attacked it was that she would genuinely say something nice to somebody, but it’s just a matter of how it came out. I drew inspiration from [Carla Gugino’s] character, Janet, actually. I was like, “So Taffy is Janet’s daughter and Janet is a handful. She speaks her mind. She says whatever she wants. She’s mean. She’s ruthless.” So Taffy grew up with Janet and has some of those characteristics. She grew up not understanding that those characteristics are wrong, but in the deepest of her heart, she is a genuinely kind person. So it was really a matter of finding the right balance between the two, and I would say that Taffy is just tactless more than anything. She doesn’t think twice before she says something, but she doesn’t mean any harm by it.
Taffy compared herself to her mom since they both believe they’re “intuitive persons” or “IPs.” Did you and Carla Gugino have time to collaborate and inform each other’s choices?
I didn’t get to meet Carla till halfway through filming, and so I didn’t really know what her character was going to be like at the time. In the first few weeks of filming, I was just relying on the script. But the minute I started filming with Carla, I saw how she brought Janet to life, and that’s when I started to inject some of her mannerisms and thought process into Taffy.
Zelda and I traded favorite lines, both of which belonged to you. Mine was: “I tried using her new last name, her old last name, her old-old last name.”
(Laughs.)
And Zelda’s was: “You don’t have to worry about anything because your mom’s already been murdered.” Do you have a favorite among Taffy’s lines?
Honestly, I liked that second line: “You don’t have to worry about anything because your mom’s already been murdered.” There was also a line that actually got cut. I forget what the exact line was, but Taffy was talking to one of her friends and she basically called out her friend for being a slut. They ultimately removed it because they wanted to make the movie PG-13, but I thought that was pretty funny. Everyone on set was laughing with us, too.
At the very beginning of the movie, Taffy drives Lisa to a high school party and asks her to reveal her crush. Taffy then admits that she doesn’t know who Lisa’s crush (Henry Eikenberry’s Michael Trent) is, but she meets him at the party and starts a secret relationship with him behind Lisa’s back. Why did she cross her stepsister like this?
So I didn’t understand why at first either. I then asked Zelda whether Taffy already knew who Michael Trent was, but she genuinely didn’t. When Taffy saw that Lisa was out of it after drinking PCP, she went to Michael Trent and argued with him, but during that fight, they took a liking to each other. In the next scene between Michael Trent, Taffy and Lisa in the school hallway, they were already getting to know each other, but Taffy still hadn’t decided on whether she wanted to be with him or not. She was feeling a little guilty because she knew her stepsister liked Michael Trent just as much. But once all the chaos started happening with Lisa and Taffy’s mom went missing, that’s when things started to develop more with Michael Trent. When Lisa caught them in the bedroom, I think that was the first time that they were going to do anything on that level. So she caught them right on time.
In the school hallway scene, Michael said, “I’ll see you later,” and in hindsight, I think he was speaking in code to Taffy. She then asked Lisa to cover for her after school, and that’s what led to Lisa noticing the hickey on Taffy’s neck the following morning. So they must’ve “tested the waters” before the big bedroom scene.
Yes, I’m glad you caught that!
[The next three questions/answers contain graphic spoilers.]
Well, as you just mentioned, all of this boils over when Lisa catches Taffy and Michael in bed together, and that’s when The Creature (Cole Sprouse) crashes the party with a hatchet, resulting in a hilariously twisted scene that sends Michael’s bodily appendage flying. How bizarre was that day for you?
Honestly, it was pretty crazy for me because I consider myself somewhat conservative. I’ve never really dealt with matters of the private parts or anything. (Laughs.) So it was crazy for me, but I had a lot of fun. It felt kind of liberating to be honest. We shot that scene in our third week of filming, and it was chaotic because it was the first time that Kathryn, Cole, Henry and I were on the same set together. So it was honestly such a riot, and I feel like Zelda had a hard time filming us because we were always laughing and talking in between takes. But that’s what made the scene so fun, and we all just genuinely enjoyed being around each other.
Now, Zelda told me that it was originally R-rated and that there was a “very large, beautifully made” prosthetic in the mix.
(Laughs.)
Were you amazed that she still pulled off that scene for a PG-13 rating?
Yeah, for sure. I was like, “How on Earth is she going to make a scene with a flying penis PG-13?” I also didn’t know that she shot just the shadow of the penis flying across the room, so I thought that was very creative of her to film it in that way. But I still wish we could have shown the actual prosthetic.
It looks like you had more blood on you in the behind-the-scenes photos, so I wonder if they had to pull back some of it in post-production to get a PG-13.
They did! There was so much blood on me when The Creature initially chops off Michael’s penis, and I think the producers or the studio were like, “Oh, this won’t pass for PG-13, so we’re going to have to CGI some of the blood off.”
Taffy looked quite unsettled when she saw “beloved wife” engraved on Lisa’s gravestone. Did the script expand on what she was thinking there?
It actually didn’t. So I’m also curious to know what that was all about, especially the last scene when The Creature was reading a poem [Percy Bysshe Shelley’s To Mary] to Lisa. Obviously, the “beloved wife” engraving was from The Creature, but I don’t know where the story continues from there.
Perhaps she was doing the math that Lisa and The Creature were more romantically involved than she first thought.
Yeah, and I also asked Zelda if Taffy thinks that Lisa might still be alive, but she just shrugged.
Do Taffy and her stepdad blame The Creature for all these deaths? Or do they also think that Lisa was complicit in them? By bringing flowers to her grave, it suggests that maybe they don’t blame her as much.
I’ve never had this conversation with Zelda or Diablo, but just from filming and reading the script, I think that Taffy genuinely thinks that Lisa had something to do with it and that she may have been the one who murdered Janet and everyone else. But Taffy also thinks that Lisa was unwell and that she wasn’t in her right mind when she was making these decisions. So she has some sympathy for her.
What was the biggest adjustment you had to make on an American set? Was the process different in any meaningful way?
Yeah, there are a lot of differences compared to productions in the Philippines. The biggest thing that I noticed was the actual sets that they built [in New Orleans]. Here in the Philippines, we like to do a lot of live locations. So it was fun to see a very ‘80s-looking house get built from scratch and come to life.
I would also say the language used on set is different compared to what we’re used to here in the Philippines. So it took some time for me to adjust and even understand what they meant by some of the words. For example, they say “sides” instead of lines, and so I didn’t understand what they meant by reading sides. I kept on asking people what it meant, and finally, Kathryn was like, “Oh, it’s your dialogue. It’s what you need to read for each specific scene.” So I was like, “Okay, that makes sense.” But it’s a good thing that Zelda was very conscious of me being a newcomer. She carefully guided me throughout the whole process and made sure I felt comfortable.
So what’s the plan going forward? Do you intend to keep going back and forth between the States and the Philippines?
The general plan right now is to stay in the States for at least a good year and get a feel for how things are going for me and my career. But I will be traveling back and forth to Asia just because I have a lot of brand-related commitments that I need to attend to. So the majority of my acting career will be focused on the States, and all of my modeling and endorsements will come from Asia.
[The following final question/answer again contains graphic spoilers.]
Lastly, what day best sums up Lisa Frankenstein for you? What day will you recall first many decades from now?
Honestly, it was the day when Michael Trent got his … (Laughs.)
Yeah, it’s tough to beat a flying prosthetic penis.
(Laughs.) It really is! And it was such a beautiful one, too. The image of that prosthetic is cemented in my head, and that was the most fun I’ve ever had on a set. It was just so memorable because the scene itself was very tricky to film, but we didn’t really mind it because we had so much fun filming it. That was the climax of the film, and Zelda, even though I’m sure she was really pressured, was very chill about it. So I’ll remember that day till the day I die.
***
Lisa Frankenstein is now playing in movie theaters nationwide.
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