Isabella Camille Briones is an English-born American actor and singer. She is known to web television viewers as Soji, android 'daughter' of Data, in . Briones began her career as a model in New York City at age three; she has acted in feature films and stage productions starting in 2008. She won the Ovation Award for Featured Actress In a Musical for Next to Normal in 2018 in Los Angeles; afterward, she returned to New York and became the youngest performer in the first touring company of Hamilton, playing multiple roles. Briones was cast in multiple roles in Star Trek: Picard in 2019. In addition to her acting performances, she sang a new arrangement of an Irving Berlin song for the season one finale.
Early life
Isa Briones was born in London, England, to Jon Jon and Megan Briones, and she has a younger brother, Teo. Her family are all musical theatre actors. She is Filipino from her father's side, and Swedish and Irish from her mother. Her parents met in Stuttgart while auditioning for Miss Saigon; her father was closing its West End theatre production when Briones was born. She was ten months old when her family moved from London to New York City, where she began work as a model at age three. In 2006, when Briones was seven, her family moved to Los Angeles. Briones learned acting and singing at home from her parents; she also attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, majoring in both theatre and musical theatre.
Career
Film and television
Briones began her acting career as a child in 2008, appearing in television commercials and playing supporting roles in feature films including Takers and Lonely Boy. For a television pilot in 2010, she played one of three children of a single mother moonlighting as a drug kingpin in Beverly Hills; Cutthroat was not picked up as a series. In 2019, Briones was cast in ', playing two sets of synthetic twins: Dahj and Soji, and Jana and Sutra. Briones sent tapes of herself to audition for Picard while she was playing multiple roles on stage in Hamilton, and learned during her final callback that she would portray twins in the series. Briones identified most closely with Soji who, after Romulan attacks, learns she is an android created from a neuron recovered from Data: "I think that's a very relatable story as a mixed person, deciding that you can be... both Filipino and white, and you can be both synthetic and human, if that's how you feel inside." She trained for a month to perform many of her own stunts. For the season one finale, "", Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" was set to play during Data's final scene as a bookend to his performance in '. Composer Jeff Russo wrote a new arrangement for the episode, and series co-creator Alex Kurtzman suggested that Briones perform the vocals. Briones said, "it's so right that this is the song" playing at the end of Data's journey.
Theatre
Briones has performed in numerous stage musicals since childhood, including the role of Susan in Miracle on 34th Street, in which Megan Briones played her mother. In 2018, Briones earned three distinct Ovation Award nominations for Featured Actress In a Musical from the LA STAGE Alliance; she won for one of two runs as Natalie in Next to Normal, also topping her portrayal of "Perón's mistress" in Evita. Briones joined her father when he moved back to New York in January 2018. She was cast in Hamilton following a seven-month audition process, becoming at age 19 the youngest person to join the first national touring company, in which she played both Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds. Briones toured with the company until March 2019; she was cast in Star Trek: Picard in April. After production wrapped in Los Angeles on the series' first season, Briones returned to the stage, appearing in AJ Rafael's Crazy Talented Asians, and #Hash America by Anthony Fedorov and Raye Zaragoza. In May 2020, Briones and the cast of Crazy Talented Asians began producing a monthly online performance series.
Music
Briones has recorded several video duets with fellow Filipino-American performer AJ Rafael; their version of "Rewrite the Stars" from The Greatest Showman was released as a single. Her rendition of "Blue Skies" from Star Trek: Picard was released as a single in 2020.
Recognition
Awards
Reception
Reviewing Next to Normal in 2016, Cary Ginell of BroadwayWorld wrote, "Briones gives a disquietingly effective, achingly nuanced portrayal" of her character, Natalie. Margaret Gray of the Los Angeles Times called Briones the "breakout star" of the production in May 2017: "Briones played the role before... and she has a lock on it." Her dual performances in Hamilton brought praise from Judith Newmark of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: she "effectively plays Peggy Schuyler as a cupcake and Maria Reynolds as a flambé." Cincinnati CityBeats Rick Pender wrote, "Briones brings a sultry alto to her second role as Maria Reynolds," Hamilton's mistress. In his review of Star Trek: Picard, Entertainment Weeklys Darren Franich called the plot developments "shock tactics" and her character "vacant". Scott Collura of IGN wrote that Soji is effectively a plot device, but Briones "gives it her all week after week, reacting best she can to Soji’s changing status quo". Keith DeCandido from Tor.com said her performance improved with each episode; "her confused post-activation Soji is her best work".
Personal life
As of 2020, Briones lives in Los Angeles. She has begun making music with her brother Teo. Briones joined her Star Trek: Picard castmates including Jonathan Frakes, Jeri Ryan and Brent Spiner in a video message of hope to viewers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020. Comic-Con@Home, the virtual event replacing San Diego Comic-Con, announced its Star Trek Universe Virtual Panel on July 23, including Briones.
