Isabela Moner: Career Study

We review the career of Hollywood rising star Isabela Moner, whose talents a young American-Peruvian actress and a eighteen-year-old pop-star cements her as a very successful young women

Isabela Moner in 'Sicario 2: Day of Soldado' (CREDIT: Lionsgate)

by Jack Linsdell

For most of us (I imagine) at 18 we're thinking about getting a car or looking for a relationship of some kind, not planning a big launch of our own singing career and chatting to our agent about which big movies want our acting talents next. Well...for one eighteen-year-old Hollywood rising star, the transition into adolescence is happening with the latter. Yes, I'm talking about Isabela Moner. Before I jump right in and explore her (very short but VERY successful) career so far, it's worth noting the news Isabela Moner dropped this week. She's (for personal reasons) changed her stage name to Isabela Merced as she launches her own solo singing career with the release of her first single next week, but I believe she'll still be known as Moner in her acting work. If I'm wrong Isabela then my apologises. But, anyway, without further ado...

Moner was born in Cleveland, Ohio to an American father and a Peruvian mother, although Spanish was her first language and this made learning English and getting accepted in college quite a challenge for her. Still, at the age of 15 she was accepted, although I doubt she actually had much time for studying! Her Peruvian routes have always remained precious to Moner, whose singing career has been heavily influenced by the Spanish culture, including most songs on her upcoming debut album being sung in part Spanish. And, her film career has thus far reflected her ethnicity too, with roles in Sicario 2 and Instant Family coming her way due to very few young, female actresses of Peruvian descent being around. But, there's clearly a market and demand for characters of part Peruvian/Spanish decent, so Moner will be in business for a while. 

Most young actors/actresses start off by dreaming of becoming much like the icons they watched on the big screen growing up. Moner is no different, stating in interviews how she always wanted to become an actress, specifically inspired by the movies starring Judy Garland and Shirley Temple. Well...unlike most of them who wait years for that big break, Moner's career took off very quickly. At the age of six, she was starring in her local Community theatre. By the age of ten, came her Broadway debut in a production of Evita. Jumping to 2015, and Moner released her (mostly self-produced) album Stopping Time which featured many covers and some new tracks of her own, and is well worth a listen to on YouTube (HINT: she's got an amazing voice). At the same time came a starring role on Nickelodeon's hit TV series 100 Things To Do Before High School, which lasted two years, and started her career-instigating partnership with the TV network which is largely responsible for getting her where she is today. Between 2015-2017, Moner appeared on many of the channel's TV series and original movies, but perhaps the most notable role was voicing the character of Kate in the Dora Explorer spin-off Dora and Friends: Into the City. 

Then, in 2016 Moner received her "big break" when Michael Bay cast her in the latest (and probably final) Transformers movie Transformers: The Last Knight. Although the movie was one of weakest in the series (yes, the series wasn't "great" anyway until last year's Bumblebee spinoff), Moner was by far the highlight. It's worth watching the lame and exhausting,149-minute action blockbuster just for her, which is the only reason why I did. She's got this immense energy to her personality, which she brings to every character she plays and this really does give "tired" movies like The Last Knight an energy and life they wouldn't otherwise have. Moner's youthful, energetic wide-eyes are constantly telling us everything we need to know about her character, cementing her place as an expressionist actor in the specialist group I've created along with Hailee Steinfeld and Chloe Grace Moretz among others. She's a true talent and natural actor, whose performance is in the details of her face, body and tone of voice, emoting so much and telling us a whole story in the smallest of gestures/looks. It's this natural ability to just "become" a character that puts this expressionist group on a different level to others in the industry, and Moner has cemented herself as a core member at the young age of 18. 

So, Transformers: The Last Knight launched Moner into the public eye and showed her talents to Hollywood, who soon came calling. The following year, she was cast in Lionsgate's (terrific) sequel to 2015's Sicario with Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado playing Izzy (the daughter to the head of a Mexican drug cartel). She was one of the many elements that makes this action-thriller sequel a much better movie than the original, as her performance and character nail the "strong but vulnerable" representation of female characters on-screen with her character physically bad-ass yet emotionally-compromised. It's by far her darkest movie so far, and considering her background in high-school-set TV comedies, it's impressive that she could so easily and successfully transition into an adult-rated, dark action-thriller. 

That same year, she reunited with her The Last Knight co-star Mark Wahlberg when she starred as one of three foster children playing Lizzy in Sean Anders' Instant Family. This movie is nothing short of sublime, combining immense topicality and morality (of foster care and feeling like an unloved outsider) with hilarious comedy and compelling emotional arcs. Everyone is on top form here, but Moner really does steal the show as a "wild" and confrontational teenager whose harsh life as a foster kid has left her sceptical of all who "pretend" to love her. Although, she finds humility and emotion in her character, and sells all the looks that help to tell the story in the such fantastic way it is. Without her, Instant Family would have been "excellent" but not "one of the best family, comedy-dramas ever". Oh, and she wrote and sung the films end credit song I'll Stay which has to be one of the best "written for a movie" songs of all time. 

That brings us to this summer, and another key role for Moner in Dora and the Lost City of Gold playing the titular character Dora The Explorer. It's no surprise Moner was chosen for the lead role in this kid-adventure movie as it was a Nickelodeon co-production. Or, maybe it was because Last Knight director Michael Bay's production company was involved with it too. Or, perhaps it was because Mark Wahlberg's son was cast in the movie and he got her the role. Either way, Moner was back to her roots, playing the typical "for kids" comedy role, and getting the chance to play the titular role in a movie that made over $113 million worldwide is never a bad thing for anyone's career. I still haven't seen this one yet, but the reviews were very good, especially praising Moner's performance, and emphasising it was more of a high-school comedy-drama than a kids adventure movie. 

Up next for Moner I hear you ask? Well...she's conquering the streaming world too with a key role in Netflix's upcoming Christmas comedy Let It Snow streaming on the platform on November 8th. Combine that with her new singing career launch and Moner is one busy eighteen-year-old, whose certainly more successful at that age than most of us will by the time we leave this earth. Anyway, if Moner's career teaches us anything it's that the more energy you put into your work, the better the result. Oh, and it's not what you know. It's who you know.