In Up Next, Teen Vogue talks to up-and-coming talent about their journey to fame and the influences that have informed their extraordinary work.
Name: Isabela Moner
Age: 18
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio
Big break: Made her debut on Broadway in the revival of Evita at age 10.
What’s new: Starring in Dora and the Lost City of Gold as none other than the plucky hero Dora.
To perfect her performance as Dora, the titular hero from Paramount’s new film Dora and the Lost City of Gold and yes, that Dora, originally from the beloved Nickelodeon animated series, actor Isabela Moner wanted to explore the depths of the character’s psyche. That’s because translating the 2-D youngster, who made her debut in August 2000, into a live-action iteration was about much more than donning the iconic purple backpack and breaking the fourth wall to encourage Spanish with audience viewers. Isabela wanted to know what makes Dora tick. What’s she like when she’s angry, how she acts when she’s sad.
“Dora’s like a little kid — instead of getting really upset about something, she’s confused as to why she’s upset rather than knowing exactly why,” Isabela tells Teen Vogue. “Putting her into this [high school] environment was really fun.”
The 18-year-old actor brings it all together flawlessly, charismatically towing the line between the sweet genuineness essential to portraying a children’s cartoon brought to life and the sense of humor needed to pull off the role of a teen who goes from living in the jungle with her pet monkey, Boots, to surviving high school in Los Angeles. Dora and the Lost City of Gold follows her transition into the real world, eventually landing back in the wilderness after a school field trip gone awry. Dora, her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg), type-A straight-A student Sammy (Madeleine Madden), and bumbling peer Randy (Nicholas Coombe) end up on an adventure to save Dora’s parents (Eva Longoria and Michael Peña) who hit some trouble while in search for a lost Inca civilization. On their journey, they face quicksand, jungle puzzles, hallucination-inducing flowers, and more.
Isabela nailed her final audition for Dora, dressing up as the explorer and doing a take where she talked straight on to the camera. After nabbing the gig, her wardrobe fitting involved more than just one ensemble of the character’s orange shorts and purple T-shirt. There were a number of different shorts of varying lengths and textures; she tried on different shirts, tighter at one point in time, longer and looser at another. Following trying on all these permutations, they finally settled on the combination that we see in the film: cute and paying homage to the cartoon while also being sporty enough to chase after a mischievous fox named Swiper.
As for her own personal style, Isabela is all about the glam and pulls “a lot of inspiration from Peru, also with textures and fabrics and patterns.” She likes to go either all out or on the simple side, but more often than not, she’s pulling out all the stops. A quick glance at her Instagram reveals this: everything from a gorgeous white dress to walk the Dora and the Lost City of Gold green carpet, or stunning in pink metallics. Oh, and she doesn’t mind all the comments calling her baby J. Lo — it’s an honor to be compared to the illustrious Jennifer Lopez. She also loves Rosalía, an artist who she admires for doing something really cool with her fashion sense.
Before playing an aged-up Dora, Isabela had a number of roles that helped build up her massive fan base of over 2.2 million Instagram followers. Isabela made her Broadway debut at just 10 years old in the revival of Evita. She later starred in Nickelodeon’s 100 Things to Do Before High School from 2014–2016 and could be seen on the big screen during 2017 as Izabella in Transformers: The Last Knight. With all the special effects and CGI in the last role, performing with stand-in stuffies for computer-generated monkeys and foxes, Dora was a walk in the park.
The final dance number that plays when the credits roll at the end of Dora and the Lost City of Gold also gave Isabela the opportunity to flex her musical-theater chops. She thrives while singing, dancing, and acting in the closing sequence, turning Dora’s high school into her own stage. Isabela shares that they shot all throughout the night, and at one point when they cut to her with a thousand-watt smile, that was hardly even acting — she was just that incredibly joyful to be doing what she loves.
But Isabela’s talents have sometimes gotten the best of her. Half-Peruvian, Spanish is her first language, and when she was in kindergarten, she wasn’t quite grasping English and grammar, to a point where she was made to feel a bit ashamed by peers about her ability to speak another language. So her mom eventually arranged for her to stay with family and attend school for a short time in Peru, an experience that made Isabela become confident and appreciate her bilingual skills. Now, she’s immensely proud of the language that once made her feel a bit different, a language that she’s been able to incorporate into everything from Evita to Dora.
“It’s hard when you come from a mixed upbringing. It feels like an identity crisis because you can’t fully relate to either side. What people are starting to realize is that there are so many people going through that exact thing — their best bet is to embrace the best of both worlds,” Isabela says. “It’s an honor to represent my heritage in everything I do. It’s what has made me unique. I used to think it was a crutch but now I’d say it’s my superpower. Same with Dora! Her dorkiness became her superpower. She didn’t even know that other people were looking at her differently and she became her own little superhero.”
As for what’s next for Isabela? She has an upcoming Netflix holiday rom-com called Let It Snow, which she describes as a teen or young adult Love Actually. It’s a stacked cast, featuring Isabela, Shameik Moore, and Kiernan Shipka. The multi-hyphenate is also working on music with Republic Records, teasing that it’ll be in both Spanish and English, along with being fairly on the pop side and infused with her Peruvian roots.
It sounds like we’ll be hearing plenty more from Isabela soon.
Credits:
Photographer: Emma Trim (@emmatrim)
Stylist: Michelle Li (@himichelleli)
Makeup: Allan Avendaño (@allanface)
Hair: Chad Wood (@chadwoodhair)
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