Catalina Sandino Moreno and Julia Doyle in From season 4. Photo: MGM+
The Fromily has been calling for answers since the chilling final moments of season 3 left fans hanging on a proverbial cliff. Now, in From season 4, answers are starting to arrive. One of the biggest moments in the season premiere was the revelation that Sophia, the innocent young woman who arrived with Pastor Jim, is actually a new manifestation of the Man in Yellow.
We had a chance to talk with Julia Doyle, the actress who plays Sophia in From season 4, about her role and how she went about bringing the intriguing new character to life.
Given that the audience learns about Sophia’s true identity at the end of the episode, we had to wonder when Doyle learned about the twist. “It was revealed to be before my callback with the director. I remember in the script it said M-I-W. And at the time I had only watched season one. So I didn’t know what M-I-W meant. I just thought I was changing into a scary creature. I didn’t know it was the creature. Genuinely, it was one of those things that took time to settle. It took time for me to realize and watch fan edits, honestly, and be like, ‘Oh, shit. Wait, this guy’s actually…. Whoa, this is a really good role!”
Some actors immediately start researching their roles by watching the show, but at the same time some don’t like going back and watching previous seasons of a show when they land a role. We wondered which camp Doyle fell into. “I knew that I had to watch everything just based on my character,” she said. “Because even though my character’s new to town, my character’s not new to town so [the other characters] know things. And it’s also quite funny because I still live at home with my family and they all started watching the show. I kid you not, they are constantly rewatching it. So I just have to go downstairs and I can get a refresher.”
When it comes to taking on a role with such a strong mythology, we wondered how she approached developing Sophia. “I had my coach, Bruce, to bounce ideas off of. He gave me the idea of having two perfumes on either wrist. One was this pine, woodsy scent and then the other was called bubbly, or something sweet like that. And it was champagne scented, but more like a sweet, floral scent. I’m obviously not thinking about champagne when I’m doing Sophia, but when I would have to film back to back scenes, I could smell my wrist and get back into the headspace.”
Doyle explained that she talked with From’s creator, John Griffin, about bringing her character to life given that she’s essentially playing two roles. “I heard a backstory,” she said. “I talked to John halfway through filming, so I definitely had background. But I also had to make up a lot of stuff and make some assumptions.”
It’s still early in the season, but when we asked Doyle to tease what’s coming up, she was quick to deliver a reply: “Tears, blood, guts and gore.”
From season 4 airs Sundays on MGM+.
