That creative authority hasn’t come without challenges. For all its popularity, Purple Hearts faced backlash from some viewers for its perceived anti-Arab and pro-military viewpoint. Carson defended the film at the time, but admits now that “it was an incredibly important learning experience” for her as an actor-producer. “When you release films that cause a lot of discourse, I think that’s only a good thing. It makes people think and brings up important conversations,” she says. “Our intention was only to showcase this extraordinary young Hispanic woman, the daughter of immigrants who has worked endlessly hard her whole life to survive, and how these two people from different parts of the political spectrum could perhaps communicate with love and kindness. That was always the goal. Most people understood; some people didn’t. And that’s okay. That’s a part of filmmaking. And it’s important to learn and to continue to grow as an artist.”
Carson was a college student majoring in communications and minoring in international relations at UCLA when she auditioned for Descendants, besting then Disney royalty like Zendaya for the role of Evie. “It was, without exaggeration, a fairy tale. Evie changed my life forever,” says Carson. “I remember leaving set on our very last day of the first Descendants film. I was in the car with Wendy Japhet, who was our producer, and I was really sad, because I’m the kind of person who never wants to leave a set. I love being on a movie set, and this being my first one, it was that much more magical. And she said something that today resonates with me so deeply: ‘That’s the beauty of our job, Sofia. That’s the beauty of making movies. It’s going to live on forever.’”
Carson feels the gravity of that statement now more than ever. “Once fame enters your life, you’re kind of shifted forever. I was 21 when I walked onto the set of Descendants,” she says. “I had lived a very normal life. I had had a normal childhood, a normal upbringing. Fame didn’t enter my life when I was a child. So I have witnessed what a different experience that is.”
Cameron Boyce, Sofia Carson, Mitchell Hope, Dove Cameron, and Booboo Stewart in Descendants 3.David Bukach/Getty Images
Carson is grateful to Disney for giving her a professional springboard, and for introducing her to the friends she made by starring in the franchise. Especially Cameron Boyce, the Descendants star who died at age 20 in 2019 due to complications of epilepsy. “He became a brother to me and to my sister. Him and his family took us in like family when we knew nothing about this industry,” says Carson. “He will forever and ever and ever be one of the most extraordinary people that has ever entered my life.”
But Carson also felt pressure to conform to the pop-star path favored by some of her Disney contemporaries, like Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo. She released her debut album in 2022 and is still working on new music—putting emphasis on songs that are “meaningful to me, rather than focusing on, I don’t know, releasing the music that’s cool at the moment or will stream well,” she says.
Carson’s parallel career has given her opportunities to sing with everyone from Andrea Bocelli to Jimin from BTS, as well as the chance to perform onstage at the 2023 Academy Awards. A few years before that event, she says, “one of the most important record executives in this industry held my waist a little too tightly and whispered in my ear that until I started singing more about sex, started wearing less clothing, and [started] cursing more, I would never make it.”
Doing the opposite of that—at the Oscars, no less—“was the most extraordinarily validating experience,” Carson says. “I get emotional just thinking about it. That day will forever be one of my favorite days.”
Between Netflix and her more than 20 million Instagram followers, a lot of eyes are on Carson. But they’re only shown what she wants them to see. “I made it a priority very early on to separate my private life from my public life. So I’ve never discussed my personal life, ever—whether it’s in social media, with the press,” she says. “I think that has led to being able to live a very normal—” Carson stops herself. “Mostly normal existence. It’s shifting a bit, but so far I can live a pretty normal life.”
Separation of church and state is also key to Carson’s success at Netflix. She regularly reviews the data on her films with the streamer’s top brass. “We have our 28-day call, our 90-day call to see how films traveled, which countries gravitated toward them more, and how many people are rewatching them over and over,” says Carson. “It’s extraordinary to have access to all of that, but I guess that’s the balance between being an artist and being a producer. To be an artist, you kind of have to separate yourself from so much of that to be able to do your job well. But then to be a producer, all of this is crucial information.”
Who is the audience for a Sofia Carson film, and what are they looking for? “I could give you the statistical answers to that, but I never approach a project in that way,” she says. She will note that her reach traverses age—“The people who come up to me for a photo, they will range from someone who’s 10 to someone who’s a mother”—and gender, with Carry-On and Purple Hearts netting sizable shares of both male and female viewers. “I always choose my projects based on making sure that it is true to who I am and to the stories that I want to tell,” Carson says. “We also live in a world where there’s such darkness, so releasing something that can provide light or escapism has been crucial in my career.”
Sofia Carson and Taron Egerton as Ethan Kopek in Carry-On.Courtesy of Netflix
