Isabela Merced Is Pushing Herself to New Limits

When Isabela Merced arrives at the West Hollywood studio where her Who What Wear shoot is taking place on a sunny day in March, she takes the time to introduce herself to every single person on set. "Hi, I'm Isabela," she says kindly, bouncing from one end of the room to the other and making sure to shake hands with each of the near 20 people waiting for her. It's a small but thoughtful gesture that immediately endears me to the actor. We happen to be catching Merced on a rare day off from simultaneously filming two major Warner Brothers projects, Superman and The Last of Us, and the fact that she's not void of energy at this point is mind-boggling. As she shuffles into her fitting complete with a colorful rack full of looks from Miu Miu, Chanel, Gucci, and more, I can tell we are in for a great day. I was not wrong.

The following week, I meet Merced again, this time via Zoom. She greets me with that same warm, inviting energy as last time, and we quickly settle in to talk about, among other things, Turtles All the Way Down, her new film that lands on Max today.

Turtles All the Way Down is the anticipated screen adaptation of John Green's New York Times best-selling novel of the same name. The story centers on Aza Holmes (Merced), a 16-year-old living with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety. With the help of her fearless best friend Daisy (Cree Cicchino), Aza attempts to solve the mystery surrounding the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett and is reunited with Pickett's son and her old friend Davis (Felix Mallard). Along the way, Aza must work through grief, spiraling thoughts that limit her everyday life, a friendship on the rocks, and growing romantic feelings for Davis.

"There really is no way to prepare people for the movie verbally," Merced says after I tell her the journey I went on watching the film. "There are just so many elements to it." This is to be expected with any John Green material. The author behind such works as Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars is known for his emotionally charged young-adult storytelling. When I ask Merced if she was a fan of Green's work before appearing in another of his screen adaptations—2019's Let It Snow—she quickly responds, "Yeah, I'd say so!" Green's educational YouTube channel Crash Course, which he created alongside his older brother Hank, was a prevalent part of Merced's youth. She also tells me The Fault in Our Stars was a big part of her Tumblr account back in the day: "The 'Okay? Okay.' [part] really had me in a choke hold." Merced distinctly remembers where she was and how she felt reading the book and just being in awe. She was maybe 11 or 12 at the time.

"I think John has a wonderful way of lifting your spirits and making you hopeful and feeling like a romantic and then taking it all away from you, but in a way that makes you feel like everything's still going to be okay in the end," she says. "I posted the trailer [of Turtles All the Way Down] yesterday, and my caption was, 'This movie will break your heart and then fix it back up again,' and I feel that's what he's best at. Not only that—he's so good at a woman's inner dialogue, not just a woman but a young woman. I'm just in awe of his ability to tap into the human mind. … He says humans are his favorite animal. He loves humans and believes in humans and wants to understand them. As I get older, I get it."

Turtles was in, to use Hollywood speak, "development hell" for five years before it finally went into production. Merced was somewhat attached early on, having submitted two separate audition tapes spread apart in 2018. The following year, Hannah Marks was announced to direct, but when Disney acquired and subsequently closed Fox 2000, the project was put on hold indefinitely until it was later acquired by New Line Cinema with streaming rights on Max. When it came time to cast again, Marks already knew who her Aza was, and she called Merced right away.

Aza had been swirling around in Merced's head for years, and she had the cheat code of a well-written script in front of her, but it was actually an interview she did with Green for YouTube that helped inform her performance most. During their conversation, Merced asked Green who he had in mind for the character when he wrote it, and he first said he didn't know. When she followed up by asking if Aza was essentially him with a wig on, he agreed with a big laugh. Speaking about Turtles All the Way Down, Green has said the story is quite personal, as it was the first time he dealt more directly with his own struggles with anxiety and OCD since childhood.

"I don't consider myself to be a method actor in any way, but I think because John was around and because I saw so much of him in Aza, I imagined the same sort of pattern of speaking and mannerisms," Merced tells me. "I guess I subconsciously picked up and parodied his behavior."

Turtles deals with an array of themes—like grief, friendship, and love—but at the forefront of the story is mental health. Aza lives with severe OCD and anxiety and spends much of her time questioning whether she's even real. She also has an intense fear of bacteria, particularly C. diff, which sends her into crippling "though spirals" and causes her to compulsively reopen a finger wound that she must immediately clean and rebandage several times a day.

For Merced, Aza's unwanted and intrusive thoughts weren't foreign. She studied psychology for two years, where she learned about specific mental health disorders and how cycles of obsessions and compulsions affect people of different ages and walks of life. Merced herself also suffers from anxiety, which she has been open about. "At one point, I did think I had OCD because I had these intense feelings and habits associated with it," she tells me. "They are very specific and weird, but my therapist explained to me those things can be triggered by anxiety, so they are not necessarily OCD. It's separate. It's something attached to my anxiety." The 22-year-old knows OCD looks different for everyone and that Aza's experience is only just one example of it. She's excited to see a big step forward in the mental health disorder being represented in media and hopes people with OCD will watch the film and feel heard and seen.

Up next, Merced will return to the big screen this August battling otherworldly lifeforms alongside Cailee Spaeny in Alien: Romulus, which she describes as a true horror film and director Fede Álvarez's love letter to the popular Alien franchise.

As if 2024 wasn't already a big year for the actor, who also starred in Madame Web, her casting as Hawkgirl in James Gunn's Superman and Dina in season two of The Last of Us certainly solidified the fact that Merced is one to watch. She's currently filming both projects at the same time, traveling back and forth between Georgia for Superman and British Columbia for The Last of Us, which is made possible by the fact that both are under the Warner Brothers umbrella. I try to comprehend the mental and physical gymnastics of jumping from playing a superhero to a freewheeling spirit trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, but even Merced isn't totally sure how she pulls it off. "I don't know where my ability to compartmentalize and draw energy from a reserve [comes from] because I'm only 5 '2"," she says with a laugh. "I don't know where this energy comes from. Maybe it's because I'm 22."

The process has been eye-opening for Merced. She's being pushed to work harder than she ever has in her life, and with that, she's learning what she can handle and, more importantly, what she can't. "I am pushing myself to limits I never knew I had," she says. "I think it's really cool to find out what I'm capable of through this process."

For those wondering if Merced has plans to make more music in the future (she released her debut EP The Better Half of Me in 2020), the answer is hopefully… eventually. With her current schedule, there's simply no time for it, but she hints at having some stuff she has saved that she's excited to release one day.

Before we hop off Zoom, I have to ask about working with the sister styling duo Chloe and Chenelle Delgadillo, whose client list also includes Olivia Rodrigo and Rosalía. It's a new pairing for Merced and is already paying dividends with a series of noteworthy press looks, including a Diesel denim-on-denim 'fit. "You know, I really like to play dress-up," she says of her predilection for trying out different looks. She credits Chloe and Chenelle for being really great at that kind of versatility. It's also the first time she's worked with stylists who are women and the first time she's been able to build a really solid personal relationship with a stylist, which she says has made a world of difference.

The stylish sisters have been introducing Merced to new designers and even influencing her to make big wardrobe investments of her own, despite the fact that the sight of a designer price tag usually makes Merced want to throw up. At heart, she's still a girl from Cleveland trying to navigate a new life of glitzy red carpets and fashion photo shoots. She laughs at the idea of explaining to her childhood friends that sometimes jewelry comes with its own bodyguard. "They would be so confused. I'm still confused by it," she says. "I hope in the future I still am able to distinguish what's an obscene amount of money to be spending on something that you'll eventually be giving away."

Aware of how quickly fashion trends come and go, Merced has become a big fan of thrifting. She talks about recently raiding her mom's closet and the big haul that came out of that. At that moment, a flip switched for the actor. Now, anytime she purchases something, she must ask herself, "Would my future daughter want to wear this?"

It's this mindfulness that endears me to Merced yet again. As I close out my conversation with her, I'm certain of two things: She's as genuine as they come, and hers is a star that will continue to shine bright.

Turtles All the Way Down is now streaming on Max.

Photographer: Emman Montalvan

Stylist and Editorial Director: Lauren Eggertsen

Hairstylist: Ricky Fraser

Makeup Artist: Janice Daoud

Manicurist: Merrick Fisher

Creative Director: Amy Armani

Director of Video: Samuel Schultz

DP: Samuel Miron

AC: Marques Mallare

Producer: Luciana De La Fe

Associate Video Producer: Kellie Scott

Video Editor: Collin Hughart

Designer: Joanna Bauer