In the Netflix original movie, Feel The Beat, 27-year-old Sofia Carson plays April Dibrina: an ambitious Broadway dancer who finds herself off course and back home after a less than stellar audition in front of an industry powerweight. As a performer herself, it felt like parts of Sofia’s own journey ran parallel with her character’s.
“April’s story felt like I was telling my own story,” Sofia told Teen Vogue. “I understand so vividly her passion for what she does, it’s what drives me every single day. I fell in love with dance when I was three and it was my window into falling in love with music and performing and acting.”
At first glance, April is a no-nonsense, single-minded type who wants nothing more than to take center stage in New York City. But as she reconciles with her small town past, she’s confronted with what she’s given up for her dreams. Feel The Beat takes on the traditional trope of fallen star-moves-back-home and, with Sofia’s input on set, flipped it so it’s about something bigger than success.
Part of what is striking about April’s story is how it mirrors the real tales of working artists today. It’s a path that Sofia herself has walked, for better and worse. “It's so easy to fall into the pressure of wanting to get better, of wanting to be something else, and pushing ourselves beyond our limits, and perhaps sometimes forgetting the little girl that first fell in love with [the arts] to begin with,” Sofia says.
April, like so many performers, walks that thin line between personal and perfection. On one hand, it’s a combination of talent, impression, and luck that lands these coveted spots. On the other hand, it’s an old tale that artists must suffer for their craft, as April struggled to let in her own family to her pain. Feel The Beat peels back that facade, showing just how necessary vulnerability is for artists.
“It's balancing your drive to want to do better without losing yourself in the process, and it is a challenge. As artists, our job is to tell real and authentic and passionate stories that come from our hearts and we can't do that if we’re caught up in perfection. All the authenticity just disappears,” says Sofia.
Prior to landing her role as Evie on Disney Channel’s The Descendants, Sofia was balancing life as a student at UCLA and still making time to audition. In a podcast interview, Sofia said she went to an upwards of 200 auditions before getting the roles that would later define her career. While it may sound tedious to the outside world, Sofia says she didn’t see those earlier calls as rejection and instead as acting practice and a process that made her a stronger actress.
When asked how she trained her mindset to stay focused, even in the face of the unknown, Sofia said, “I do think something as simple as holding on to hope and — as cheesy as it sounds — never losing hope in yourself and never not believing in yourself.
She elaborated, “The audition process is naturally a process that comes with more closed doors and more no’s than it does yes’s and opportunities. In all artist’s lives, that's just how it goes. And you see that in April’s story, you see that in the pain of rejection and the pain of coming so close to your dream and in an instant, losing it with something out of your control.”
“We sacrifice so much of ourselves for our art, but at the end of the day what April learned — and what's become more and more true for me — is that there is nothing without family. [It’s] such a beautiful part of her story: We can never let go of our home and never lose who we are and our families because life becomes unimportant without them,” Sofia says.
In many ways, April’s story is not just April’s story. It’s about all the girls under her wing, owning their own unique beat in a world that hasn’t always been welcoming to ‘different’. Feel The Beat doesn’t make inclusivity a side accessory, but instead makes it central to the story as these young dancers conquer hurdles like ableism, classism, and body image. Even the name of the movie, Feel The Beat, is homage to the movie’s deaf dancer, Zuku (played by Shaylee Mansfield), as she feels the vibrations from the music in her performance.
It’s a beautiful sentiment that even though April is rightfully her own main character — in this story and her own — she plays another equally important role as a mentor to these children. It’s a nod to the idea that sometimes the biggest role we can play is a supporting one, especially when it’s to people who never got the same opportunities as the ones April has been given.
This year has been a master course in life skidding out of control. Between the COVID-19 pandemic and the global movement for Black humanity, society has been forced to reconcile what it means to be part of a collective, and how to take responsibility and action. Artists are being called to not just be ambassadors for their characters, but active participants in pushing change. It’s this passion that drives Sofia to take on the projects she does, whether they be in film, television, or music.
Despite having a mega-platform of 15.7 million followers on Instagram, Sofia is also recognizing the importance of stepping back to listen and learn. Like many other stars during this time, she’s taken to amplifying the voices of activists — many of whom are younger than Sofia herself. As a longtime UNICEF ambassador, Sofia understands the power of empowering young people. “I am inspired by this generation by how bravely and courageously and fearlessly they use their voices. It is only my duty as an artist with a platform to [share their] messages of hope,” says Sofia.
As we near November, Sofia is committed to making a difference where it matters: in our democracy: “It's our duty as citizens of the world to speak up and use our voices. And not only use them, but to take our voices to the polls,” she says.
Like all talented multi-dimensional artists, Sofia understands it’s not how many movies she stars in, or how many albums she records that defines her career. It’s a different type of success — one that April herself learns in the end — and it’s measured by impact.
