Sofia Black-D'Elia
Sofia Black-D'Elia is an actor, born 1991.
Sofia Black-D'Elia has spent her career being cast as the girl who complicates things. Born in Clifton, New Jersey in 1991, she came up through teen television, playing Tea Marvelli in the American version of Skins and Sage Spence in Gossip Girl, both parts written to disrupt an existing group rather than to be liked by it.
She is unusually good at pitching a performance to the size of the role. As Andrea Cornish in The Night Of she appears in a small fraction of the series and has to be vivid enough that the remaining hours keep referring back to her, and she is. As Frannie Latimer in Your Honor she plays the same trick at a different temperature. Given a lot of screen time she does not overplay it either: Sabrina in The Mick is a rich, bored teenager who could easily be a single joke, and Black-D'Elia keeps finding new places to put the boredom.
Single Drunk Female is the argument for her as a lead. The show requires her to be funny, unlikeable and sympathetic inside the same scene, often the same line, and comedy that runs on self-destruction collapses immediately if the performer flinches. She does not. Around the television she has worked steadily in film: Jessie Pierce in Project Almanac, Emma in Viral, Tirzah in Ben-Hur, Heather in To All the Boys: Always and Forever, Maria in Good Burger 2, and Avery in the adaptation of Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Movies (10)
TV (7)
Where to start with Sofia Black-D'Elia
Give Single Drunk Female the first slot, because it is the only thing here that hands her the whole show. The comedy is built on a character behaving badly for reasons the series takes seriously, and it needs a lead who will not soften herself. She does not.
The Night Of is the prestige credit, and proof of how much she can land with a handful of scenes. The Mick is broad network comedy and she is the sharpest thing in it, while Your Honor uses her for tension rather than jokes. Skins is the early role that got her noticed and remains the most divisive thing on her record. For films, Project Almanac is the enjoyable teen science fiction one and Gossip Girl is where a lot of viewers first clocked her.