(upbeat music)
- Beetlejuice was one of Broadway's first casualties
of the pandemic shut down.
That musical will not be returning,
but we know one of its brightest stars will be.
Right Paul?
- That's right Tamsen.
At just 19 years old,
Sophia Anne Caruso's already had an awesome career.
And now she's about to star in a movie
alongside two of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
Charlize Theron and Kerry Washington just signed on
to join Sophia in the upcoming Netflix film
"The School for Good and Evil."
It's adopted from the fantasy YA novel of the same name.
(upbeat music)
We're especially excited about this interview
since it's one of our first in-person conversations
since the Broadway shutdown one year ago.
So here we are, we're in the Catskill mountains.
We've actually both been spending
a lot of time up here during quarantine
- Since the pandemic began,
we did some socially distanced,
all the way from the back of the yard waves.
Kind of keep up, just see each other.
- A lot of people sort of shut down during the pandemic
and then other people have been able to find creativity
and sort of focus on things
and what's it been like for you sort of emotionally
and creatively to go through this time?
- There's a certain pressure to be creating
and doing something now because it's like
we all have all this time to do things, you know
we should be, you know, creating and producing our work.
I've been creating a decent amount of work luckily
in definitely a difficult environment
and culture to be doing stuff in.
(funky music)
I just dropped a song and it's doing really well.
Spotify put me on one of their playlists
and Apple music put me on one of their playlists.
Spotify actually, they have like an indie,
new indie playlist.
And they put me at the top of that.
It was really exciting.
I got the email that I was put on this playlist.
And I look, I clicked the link
and I was like right at the top.
It was really cool.
And yeah, I've got lots of more music coming down.
(singing)
- You've had an interesting career.
You have a lot of offbeat roles.
Let's talk a little bit about Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice has a crazy fan following.
What was it like to find yourself
in the middle of something with such a passionate fan base?
- It's a crazy fan base.
It's insane.
I didn't have a TikTok until,
you know midway through the pandemic.
So I didn't understand what was going on in that world.
I was hearing all about it, but I had no idea.
So to be able to go on there half way back
and be like, oh my gosh, these people are so crazy
about the show is just really cool.
And even on Instagram and the rest of the socials, you know
people were really loving it.
And still are, people will talk
about the album all the time
and people are getting excited for it to you know
someday go back Broadway, which is just super cool.
And even at the stage door
like the fans are just crazy and super passionate.
And I love that.
And I love meeting people.
- What are you sort of most proud of when you look back
on what you achieved, sort of coming out of it?
- I think the thing I'm most proud of
is the work that I've put into it
because when you are doing eight shows a week
and you're onstage for 85
or more percent of the show, it's a lot of work.
And I applaud every Broadway performer,
ensemble members, everybody,
cause it's hard work to do that eight shows a week
especially all the leading ladies.
I just, I really admire all of them.
- You are filming a big movie for Netflix.
How do you land a movie gig during a pandemic?
- When I left Beetlejuice
I was leaving to go do TV and film,
so this is like one of those things, you know
and what happened was I had just left
and then two weeks later, Broadway shut down.
School for Good and Evil was something that I kind of had
in the works for awhile.
It tells the story of two girls who are best friends.
One of them is sort of a princess
and the other one is sort of the outcast, very Lydia-like
the other one is actually, but I'm not playing that role.
I'm playing the sort of princessy one
but this is so much larger than life
and I think that's part of why I love it.
(upbeat music)