{"id":155993,"date":"2025-08-18T15:11:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T15:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/155993\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T15:11:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T15:11:20","slug":"superman-star-isabela-merced-is-owning-her-power-onscreen-and-irl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/155993\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Superman’ star Isabela Merced is owning her power onscreen \u2014 and IRL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last year, Isabela Merced was living a double life. By day, she was running around the set of \u201cThe Last of Us<\/a>\u201d in Vancouver \u2014 dodging Infected, WLF soldiers and Seraphites alongside co-star Bella Ramsey<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Then, after wrapping what was sometimes a 15-hour workday, she\u2019d be on a flight 4,500 miles away to Atlanta \u2014 doing costume fittings and fight training to become Hawkgirl in James Gunn\u2019s \u201cSuperman.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know I could do that,\u201d she tells De Los. \u201cI proved to myself that I\u2019m capable of more than I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Peruvian American actress has the kind of career that any young actor would aspire to: She made her Broadway debut at 10 years old in \u201cEvita,\u201d earned critical acclaim acting opposite Benicio del Toro in \u201cSicario: Day of the Soldado\u201d at 17 and starred in the live-action film adaptation of the massively successful \u201cDora the Explorer<\/a>\u201d franchise when she was just 18.<\/p>\n

In the last year alone, she\u2019s grown into a certified action star, making waves in huge franchise entries like \u201cAlien: Romulus,\u201d \u201cThe Last of Us\u201d Season 2 and \u201cSuperman.\u201d At 24 years old, her filmography of formidable heroines, scrappy spitfires and multifaceted young women in major blockbusters has put her on a path that\u2019s been largely inaccessible to so many of the Latino actors who came before her. It\u2019s why she also has her sights set on producing, hoping to provide more opportunities for her community in front of and behind the camera.<\/p>\n

Yet this month, she\u2019s turning her focus away from the screen and toward her other creative calling: music. <\/p>\n

In 2020 she released her debut EP, \u201cThe Better Half of Me,\u201d which showcased her bilingual prowess through soulful Latin pop tracks, written and produced alongside her brother, Gyovanni Moner, during quarantine. Now, she\u2019s revisiting the project in a collaboration with the Grammy Award-winning Peruvian artist Tony Succar.<\/a> Their new single \u201cApocalipsis,\u201d released Friday, transforms Merced\u2019s 2020 song of the same name<\/a> from a slow jam to a modernized salsa groove fit for a Miami nightclub.<\/p>\n

With \u201cSuperman\u201d now out on digital platforms, Merced spoke with De Los about donning Hawkgirl\u2019s helmet, working with Succar on \u201cApocalipsis,\u201d and what\u2019s coming up next.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

It seems like everything is kept pretty under wraps for these massive superhero movies. How much did you know going into your \u201cSuperman\u201d audition? <\/b>
Initially, I had no idea who I was auditioning for because everything had secret names. I think mine said \u201cCyclone\u201d in the script. I didn\u2019t actually find out who I was until the day of the camera test with the [Justice Gang].<\/p>\n

Oh, wow. How did they tell you?<\/b>
They didn\u2019t want to make it obvious that they were about to tell me, so it was all really mysterious. I\u2019d been doing all the fittings, and the fight training, and then I got pulled into James [Gunn\u2019s] trailer with the producers and everyone, and they were like \u201cDo you want to be Hawkgirl?\u201d As soon as I found out, I was really, really excited because I was like \u201cOh thank God, it\u2019s someone I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was your connection to Hawkgirl before this? <\/b>
I grew up watching [the \u201cJustice League\u201d animated series] and the character is canonically Latina, so I loved that. Her history is really complicated, and it gets even crazier when you get into the comics, but I was a huge fan of her in the show, and I drew a lot on my memories of Maria [Canals-Barrera\u2019s] version of her. I mean, they\u2019re two different characters, but they\u2019re still of the same spirit because they share memories of their past lives.<\/p>\n

What made you most excited about this version of the character? Did you connect with her at all?<\/b>
She\u2019s the only young woman in this group of guys, in an industry that\u2019s mostly headed up by men, and in a movie that\u2019s mostly led by men. It was a really cool opportunity to exercise a different way of being in that kind of environment. She\u2019s kind of the unfiltered and disconnected, doesn\u2019t-care-how-she\u2019s-perceived version of me, and that was really cathartic to play.<\/p>\n

\"Isabela <\/p>\n

Isabela listened to punk music to get in the mindset to play Hawkgirl.<\/p>\n

(Jason Roman)<\/p>\n

Because you also have a music background, I\u2019m curious about whether you use music as a tool to get into character?<\/b>
Oh, yeah, definitely. Every character I play, I make a playlist of songs that remind me of them, and I\u2019ll play them before I go to film. With Hawkgirl it was a lot of punk music that I was discovering, with all these really strong singers. Then there were songs that Bella [Ramsey] and I really loved by Adrianne Lenker that informed our experience a lot as Dina and Ellie [in \u201cThe Last of Us\u201d]. There was some \u201880s music in there too, maybe some early 2000s, but in general, just really soft, sweet, romantic songs.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re releasing a salsa remix of your 2020 single, \u201cApocalipsis,\u201d with Tony Succar. How did that come about?<\/b>
I mean, \u201cremix\u201d almost feels like an understatement because it feels like a completely different song. That\u2019s thanks to Tony, who\u2019s the first Peruvian to win a Grammy. He came to me with this opportunity four years ago, and we recorded the song, but I was signed to a label and we weren\u2019t able to release it. Now that I\u2019m free and independent, and he won his Grammy, he wanted to put it on his EP, and I was like, \u201cHell yeah, let\u2019s do it.\u201d He gave me the freedom to do the video for it, and I\u2019m really happy with how it turned out. I got to dance for it, and I learned all the choreography in an hour and a half. It was crazy, but I\u2019m really excited for people to see it.<\/p>\n

How would you describe your music taste? And how does it connect to the type of music you want to make?<\/b>
It\u2019s hard to pin down. If I\u2019m looking at my most recents, it\u2019s Hermanos Guti\u00e9rrez. But it\u2019s also Dick Gaughan, Big Thief, Los Mirlos, which is a Peruvian band, and the Andrew Oldham Orchestra. There\u2019s no through line there other than good music. I already have a lot going on with acting, so if music could stay something fun and light for me, and not so disciplined, I think that would be nice.<\/p>\n

Is there a musical<\/b> or an idea for a musical that would get you excited about returning to Broadway?<\/b>
Have they done a Selena<\/a> musical? No, I think I would have remembered that. But that would be cool, getting to dance on stage. It would be like a concert-slash-musical theater experience, kind of like what they did with Gloria Estefan\u2019s \u201cOn Your Feet!\u201d If it was made by the right people with respect to her life and her legacy, I think that could be dope. <\/p>\n

But honestly, if I were to do something on Broadway, I would love for it to be an original composition. I\u2019m currently working on one right now. I\u2019m producing it, and also going to be in it. Things are moving along really well, and it\u2019s another project with friends. I think we have to take more bold chances when it comes to Broadway, because everyone\u2019s trying to reach a younger audience \u2014 but I think the most efficient way of doing that is by allowing the younger audience to bring their stories forward and tell them.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve mentioned that you\u2019re getting into producing. What kind of projects do you have in the works right now?<\/b>
I\u2019m producing one movie that\u2019s shooting in September called \u201cPsyche.\u201d I\u2019m really excited about it. We have Latina director, and also the project I\u2019m supposed to do next after that is going to be directed by a Peruvian woman. So there\u2019s some really, really cool s\u2014 that I\u2019ve been trying to do, where I\u2019ll have more creative control and freedom \u2014 but also a lower budget, so, you know, roughing [it] compared to what I\u2019ve been doing the last few years. But I\u2019m excited to get to the root of why I love to do this and feel it fully.<\/p>\n

Your career is so interesting because it\u2019s just getting started, and yet, it\u2019s not the kind of career that many Latino actors have historically been able to achieve so early on. How do you process that?<\/b>
I\u2019m in an interesting position because I think Hollywood is really comfortable picking Latino actors who are sort of white-forward or mixed before they\u2019re willing to cast Indigenous people. And look, I\u2019ll take anything I can get, because, girl, I\u2019m just trying to work in this economy. [Laughs] <\/p>\n

But I think being aware of that is really important because when I go off and do my own projects, and have the power, I can hire people that look more like the people that I grew up with, or that look like my family. But it doesn\u2019t always happen that way. Financing is hard to get, and when you\u2019re trying to bring people on, they want someone who\u2019s already known, and Hollywood just hasn\u2019t given many of those opportunities to people of certain skin colors.<\/p>\n

Because you\u2019ve grown up in this industry, I\u2019m curious what your experience has been like learning to speak up for and advocate for yourself?<\/b>
Something I\u2019ve learned is that there\u2019s always a power struggle going on, whether that\u2019s on a personal level, or on a bigger level, or even socially. I think we\u2019re constantly fighting for power. And because of that, we can become very defensive. So I think the biggest challenge for me wasn\u2019t necessarily what I went through, but how I reacted to it: by choosing to keep an open heart and still love freely and trust in people because of how I was raised. I think we all have a choice to make when we\u2019re harmed, and that\u2019s to either close up and harm others, or to keep going. It sucks, but I won\u2019t let that dictate the way I move through life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, Isabela Merced was living a double life. By day, she was running around the set of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":155994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,19919,2385,90963,18044,2961,22399,13940,224,5337,7088,975,3546,90964,8744,19514,9180,68,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-155993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-character","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-hawkgirl","13":"tag-kind","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-last","16":"tag-last-year","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-lot","20":"tag-music","21":"tag-people","22":"tag-power-onscreen","23":"tag-project","24":"tag-song","25":"tag-superman","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115050413088632961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}