Sofia Carson is obviously no stranger to writing and creating music; she’s been doing it for years. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t scared out of her mind to help write original songs for the entire soundtrack of “Purple Hearts.”
“I mean, I was terrified. My mom can attest to that, I called her crying multiple times,”Carson laughed. “It was like, who thought that I could do this? Who trusted me to do this? I’ve never written a soundtrack before!”
Netflix’s movie, which is streaming now, follows Cassie (Nicholas Galitzine), and Luke (Nicholas Galitzine), a couple who agree to a military contract marriage, despite initially hating one another. She’s a budding music artist, and he’s headed off to his first tour as a marine. The thing is, Cassie’s a Type 1 diabetic who doesn’t have health insurance, and Luke is a recovering addict who owes his former dealer a LotMoney. By getting married, Cassie gets Luke’s military insurance benefits, and Luke gets an extra stipend each month to help cover expenses while he’s deployed. So, though they can’t stand each other, the two strike a deal to help each other out.
Why can’t they stand each other? Cassie is a liberal woman and Luke is a conservative man. Luke initially judges Cassie for even considering the possibility of a fake marriage. They have very different world views and totally different ways of handling problems. Luke is meticulous and organized, while Cassie is free and unassisted. Although this causes tension in the story, Carson used their divergent views to create the songs Cassie would sing.
“I had been living with this person with this young woman for four years — with her story, with her thoughts, her fears, with their love story — in my heart,” Carson explained. “And so I think in the process of writing the music, it helped me to become Cassie that much more.”
Carson has dubbed Cassie her “greatest challenge as an actor,”It is important to note that Cassie needed to fully understand herself to truly find Cassie. “surrender”To the character. “And it was one of the most beautiful experiences that I’ve had as an actor,”She adds.
You can check out ’s full interview with Sofia Carson below. It has been slightly edited to increase clarity and length.
Sofia, I think the universe really enjoys when we talk because I was driving home from a friend’s last night, and the very last song on the radio before I pulled into my driveway was “Sweet Caroline.”
It’s impossible! This is just awesome.
Yes! Tell me how it was placed in the film. That was your cover choice.
You know, it was — being behind the scenes of the music process and the soundtrack was so exciting. I was surrounded by the most amazing team. Netflix trusted me to choose my writing partner. Justin Tranter received the script and fell in love with Cassie with the message she stood for. We jumped on this adventure together. We wrote our own songs, but we also had the opportunity to cover two other great songs. We knew that Cassie would be seen for the first time on the cover.
However, we wanted to kind of begin her evolution because when we meet her she isn’t singing the original songs just yet. It takes her time to be honest and open with the world. She also had to be able to sing at a military bar, so we set the stage. And “Sweet Caroline”It was perfect. Everybody wants to sing along whenever it plays. It’s kind of celebratory, and we did a version that was kind of sexy and kind of rock and roll and very Cassie. It was one of our most memorable scenes, singing it and shooting it. “Sweet Caroline.”
Because I wanted the vocal to be unique and distinctive, we worked hard on it. I believe it came to life in a positive way.
It worked! It was a long journey. “Purple Hearts.” It’s been a long time coming, and is now finally going to the world. Are you still processing? Which emotional state are your in now?
I don’t know if I’ve fully processed. It’s such an interesting world that we live in, as artists, because like you said, this has been years in the making. For me, it’s been five years. For one of our producers Les, it’s been 10 years since he first heard on the radio the story of military contract marriages that inspired this story. I’ve poured my heart and soul into this film. And I’ve been involved in it in a way that I never had before as an artist. And so it’s surreal. Because all the moments and the scenes and the songs that I have dreamt of for five years are shot, they’re edited, they’re in the movie, and now we get to kind of release our baby into the world.
The premiere was two nights ago. My mom said that she saw me almost floating and described how it felt to her. And Liz and I kept saying — Liz, my director and my partner everything in this — that she kind of felt like she was here, but she wasn’t. It kind of all feels a little bit out of body, I think, so I don’t know when it’s going to, you know, hit us that it’s happening.
Well, what I love about Cassie is she’s, I would argue, if not The most, one of the most mature roles you’ve had to date.
You can be sure.
She’s very fleshed out as a person. Tell me about playing that aspect, because she’s so different than anything you’ve done.
Cassie was my biggest challenge as an actor, and I am so proud of her. Liz, who was a tireless fighter for truthfulness and honesty in all aspects of this film, is a blessing to me. It is our acting performances that are the heart of the film. We would not stop until I felt the words in my mouth as mine. And that’s kind of what happened. Cassie was my honor to live with. [and]She was my inspiration for four years, and then she became my physical body.
And we worked so hard to make sure that Cassie was so unique, and so specific, and so different from Sofia and my mannerisms — the way that I walked, the way that I spoke, the way that I carried myself on stage. I spent months researching every aspect of Cassie’s life. This included her immigration history, San Diego immigrant experience, Type 1 diabetes, as well as the military, military culture, and Oceanside. I kept track of her entire history, starting with her first memory and ending with the day she met me.
It felt as if I had somehow lived in her shoes and seen the whole world through her eyes. Because I was so afraid, I felt able to dive deep into her skin. Because her story needed to be told in such vulnerability, I wanted to give it justice. Cassie’s fearlessness, I believe, reminds me of the need to be fearless. I just had to let go and accept this role.
Which part was most difficult for her?
You know, we’re very different. I think we’re very similar in a lot of ways, like her passion for justice is very similar to mine, her love of music, of course. But Cassie is like — she’s messy, you know? She’s unpredictable, she’s tough, she’s unafraid to say exactly what she thinks when she thinks that regardless of the consequences. And Liz really tried to kind of shake — because I’m more polished, and more put together, I think through things much more. Cassie, however, is quite the opposite. She’s like the antithesis of me.
To become Cassie, Liz had a lot to do with me. Physically, it was a great transformation, as I had already been transformed. [tattoos]That was the coolest thing I did. Her clothes, her style. I was very involved in picking them to ensure they were rock and roll, an ode the 70s, very tomboyish, but not too feminine. All of this helped bring her to life.
And then of course, the core of it was her world view, which had to be so different from Nick’s, and so different from Luke’s and that came from, I think, the research that I did in the deep dive that I made into Cassie. But I had to give up. And it was one of the most beautiful experiences that I’ve had as an actor.
When her song starts to go viral and her lyrics really take off, it’s one of the similarities that really stands out. As I was watching it, I couldn’t help but wonder if that is just like past Sofia, when YourThe music industry really began to take off and became a major force in the world. Did this inform the moment?
That’s present Sofia as well! It is definitely cool to draw on your experiences as an actor. But yeah, I think you’re right, past Sofia, because for instance, the firstCassie feels the same emotions as Cassie when I hear my song on radio. It is truly, really beautiful to see it through her eyes.
The commentary on the healthcare system and the reasons for this marriage is one of my favorite things about the story. Ask me about the conversations that took place behind closed doors. How pessimistic did you want to be versus — you know, is it pessimism? Or is it real?
Realism was the goal we set out to achieve, and I agree. And I’m glad that we succeeded in that. Liz and I felt it was very important to be specific with type one diabetes. Because diabetes is so underrepresented in media and film, I am proud of our leading character being a type 1 diabetic. In order to become Cassie, I studied what it meant to be a type-one diabetic, the community, and what day-to-day life was like.
So I spoke with multiple doctors and one young lady, Laura, who runs a social media site called Not Your Type. She spoke to me in depth, and we had multiple calls about, truly, the injustices within the system and, just, it’s heartbreaking. And that’s what we tried to tell. We tried to tell her story and the story of countless type one diabetics who, quite literally Andi, they can’t afford insulin, and without insulin, they die. It’s a simple as that. And the insurance doesn’t cover the insulin that they need, and so they’re forced to do these things in desperation like a contract military marriage because they need to live. I hope our story is told with the realisticism and gravity it requires.
I want to understand the realness of Cassie’s relationship with Luke. You’ve got a very liberal woman who is now in a contract marriage with a conservative man. He calls her a lib and she calls him a snowflake. She calls him on it all the time. She doesn’t like it at any point. “Well, he says terrible things, but he’s pretty, I can see what he’s saying.”
Oh, no. No. We wanted these two people to be as different as possible in order to make their world views very clear. It was important that they could see each other as more than politics and red and white. It was a lot of fun.
We spent most of our time making this relationship as real and fulfilling as possible. There were many times of conflict, but also moments of humor and realness. And there was always a sense of sexiness and flirtiness that was tied in with their different world views. But it’s such a beautiful story, and such a powerful story. We just surrendered to Cassie, Luke.
It’s not possible for her to be fundamentally transformed as a person. She doesn’t necessarily “come around”To what he says.
No, and neither is he, because that’s not realistic, either. They’re not changed, they just lead with compassion for the first time. They see one another beyond their differences and realize that maybe, perhapsWe have more to connect us than we do to divide us.
Was it a bummer to be able to sing along with Nicholas? We knew he had a voice so we saw. “Cinderella.”
Nicholas and me talked about it! It would have been so cool, it wouldn’t have made sense in the story. But who knows? One day.
Before we wrap up, let me say that I am interested in songwriting. I’m always interested in the technical aspects of it, in the sense of like, you’re writing the songs through the lens of a character. So when you approach songwriting as Sofia, you’re approaching it one way, I imagine. And when you’re songwriting for Cassie, it has to be different. So, how do you sort of find that line?
I’m not exaggerating, I was terrified. That’s what my mom can attest to. She called me multiple times, crying. It was almost like I believed that I could do it. Who believed that I could do this? I’ve never written a soundtrack before! Andi had a similar experience, and it was amazing! You see, Sofia is a singer and songwriter. I have to go into Cassie’s heart to sing or speak my truths. And I had been living with this person with this young woman for four years — with her story, with her thoughts, her fears, with their love story — in my heart. It was in writing the music that I felt Cassie more.
In order to bring these songs to life, I took inspiration from Cassie as well as Luke. It was an amazing experience. Believe it or not, we wrote the entire soundtrack in just one week. One week. “Hate the Way”This was our first song. “Hate the Way,”A few weeks prior, I had begun writing the lyrics. Because that is what Cassie and Luke felt, I had the majority of the lyrics on my smartphone. She didn’t want to love him. But she couldn’t help it because her heart was no longer hers, it was his.
It was our first song and set the tone for Cassie. And you know, she’s indie. She’s rock. I’ve never done something like that before. Recording was done “Hate the Way”Justin looked like: “You’ve never sung like that before. I think we found Cassie’s voice.”It was thrilling.
Then, we wrote “Blue Side of the Sky,”It sets the tone, I believe, for Cassie and our story. That tattoo is on her forearm. The lyrics say “I’ll never touch the blue side of the sky”Because she has spent her entire life fighting. Fighting for justice within an unjust system for — whether it’s immigration, healthcare, for her dreams — and no matter how close it is, she can never touch the sky. We wrote. “I Didn’t Know”Which was magical to bring into life and was our most difficult one to write. “Come Back Home.”We may have written three versions of this song. The last was, I believe, the easiest. It was the one that won our hearts.
“Purple Hearts”Netflix now has it streaming.