Isabela Merced’s Anxiety Informed Her Turtles All the Way Down Performance

Now streaming on Max, Turtles All the Way Down is a coming-of-age drama starring Isabela Merced that tackles anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the film, Merced portrays Aza, a 17-year-old who struggles with thought spirals. Merced’s impassioned performance impresses and it comes from a personal place as the actress also suffers from anxiety.

“I myself suffer from anxiety, and my brain works faster than my mouth. So, I just really related to her in that sense. I’d say, really, the only difference between her and I is that I am an extrovert. I would label myself as an extrovert, and she’s quite the introvert. I would say that’s it,” explained Merced to ComingSoon.

Besides her own anxiety, Isabela Merced’s performance was also informed by the script and original book, which she was hesitant to read at first.

“I think what’s really powerful about her, just Hannah Marks and John Green’s depiction of OCD and anxiety in this movie, is that they don’t make it seem so foreign. They really just immediately — you’re in her head and her psyche, and you really see in the way it’s shot, it kind of suggests it without telling you. It doesn’t overly inform you about it. So when I read the script, it was just there on the paper, and I read the script before I read the book. I was a little hesitant about reading the book because I didn’t want it to inform me too much. I like to be a little bit na?ve to certain aspects of movies that I’m a part of because I think it helps, but then I did read the book, and that was just an amazing cheat sheet.”

What is Turtles All the Way Down about?

“The film follows the story of 17-year-old protagonist, Aza Holmes (Isabela Merced). It’s not easy being Aza, but she’s trying … trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, and a good student, all while navigating an endless barrage of invasive, obsessive thoughts that she cannot control. When she reconnects with Davis (Felix Mallard), her childhood crush, Aza is confronted with fundamental questions about her potential for love, happiness, friendship and hope,” reads the synopsis.

The Turtles All the Way Down is directed by Hannah Marks from a screenplay co-written by Love, Simon scribes Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker. The film also stars Cree, Felix Mallard, Maliq Johnson, Poorna Jagannathan, Judy Reyes, J. Smith-Cameron and more. It is executive produced by Green, Richard Brener, Bart Lipton, Laura Quicksilver and Rosianna Halse Rojas.

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