Isabela Merced takes to the sky as Hawkgirl in the new Superman movie, soaring around the buildings of Downtown Cleveland — aka, Metropolis. The major 2025 superhero movie was filmed in the city last summer and arrives on July 11.
Merced grew up in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood, and her earliest acting roles were at the local Beck Center for the Arts, Olmsted Falls Performing Arts and Fairmount Performing Arts Academy.
Since those early days, she’s flown far, with recent major roles in films like Turtles All The Way Down, Madame Web and Alien: Romulus, along with a starring role as Dina in The Last of Us’s second season.
We caught up with Merced ahead of Superman’s release.
Cleveland Magazine: What was it like to film Superman in Cleveland, your hometown?
Isabela Merced: I grew up on the West Side, and I was raised by a firefighter dad and a nurse mom who worked at the Cleveland Clinic. She went to school there. I have two brothers, and I started acting because of the musical theater community in Cleveland, Ohio. I started off at the Beck Center, Olmsted Falls Performing Arts, even FPAC [Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory], which was a program created by this man named Fred Sternfeld, who actually was the first one to really believe in me and say something to my mom; like, ‘Oh, I think she could go to New York and really pursue this,’ because I really wanted to be on Broadway. I wanted to be on stage. TV and film weren’t something I was considering. But what I really loved about Cleveland was that it nurtured that creativity and the art side. Like, there's a huge art community in Cleveland, and it is so amazing that I constantly meet other people from Cleveland when I'm out here in LA and New York. There's something in the water.
CM: Lake Erie water.
IM: Yeah, it's the Lake Erie water. It's, like, just polluted enough to really corrupt the mind to creativity.
CM: Do you have any stories or memories from filming the biggest movie of the year, Downtown? Any moments that really stand out to you?
IM: Yes, I mean, it was so full circle. It was incredible. I got to see my childhood doctor, Dr. Ernie, [my friend’s mom] Mrs. Leon, and it was just so incredible. Getting to be home again as well, seeing how it changed over the years, it's been changing really rapidly. A lot of the places where it wasn't safe to be are now somewhat gentrified, and it's really cool to see just the city grow. Even that Public Square area, it's just changed so significantly. And so have I. So it's interesting to see the city grow as well.
I remember those significant changes started happening after the Cavs won, and everybody was suddenly interested in Cleveland. If I could have somewhat even half of the impact that, like, LeBron James has had on the city, it'd be really cool, and I would feel really proud. Like, even going back and doing theater at some point would be great, maybe teaching some people about my experiences and whatnot.
I remember when I was growing up, I would go to East Coast Custard all the time. My dad was really into pastrami, which is, like, a huge Cleveland staple because of the Polish community. I went to school there, I went to school a bunch of places. When I was back there, I just got to see a bunch of old friends and visit a lot of those old places I used to go to growing up. I saw a bunch of my friends who I went to prom with and homecoming with, who went to Saint Ignatius, St. Ed's and stuff. It was really awesome.
CM: I’ve gotta ask, where does your dad like to get pastrami from?
IM: You know, he would always go to these hole-in-the-walls. He also loves Aladdin's. Oh my God, we loved Aladdin's growing up. That's like, great Mediterranean food, just so yummy. We love the hummus there.
I’d go to Edgewater all the time. Edgewater has changed a lot, too. They made it super, super nice now. I used to run cross-country along there.
CM: I’d love to hear a little bit more about the theater roles that you were taking on — and I’ve read about your family’s experience with a house fire. Could you talk a little bit about those early experiences and how they shaped your life?
IM: Yeah. It was an electrical fire. I grew up on the West Side. It was a summer night, already really hot, and my dad was working that night at the fire station, and I remember that night. All of us were basically asleep, except for my mom. And coincidentally, my mom was actually watching The Sound of Music, which is one of our favorite movies, and she was up really late. She didn't know why she was up so late, but she was up. She couldn't sleep. She ended up watching this movie, and because of that, she saw the light of the fire in her room, where my older brother was sleeping. He wasn't much older at the time; like, him sleeping in her room wasn't that weird. She saw the fire; she thought he turned on a light in the room because it was so bright, and then when she started seeing it flickering, and she called out his name, he wasn't answering. She went in to go check on him, and the head of the bed was on fire. It started in the walls.
She pulled him out really quickly, and he ended up being okay, thankfully. But, yeah, she was really panicking, she dragged him out of the bed, and then went to go get us, and I remember just waking up to my brother, because I think my mom was probably grabbing a bunch of stuff at the time to take out of the house. And he was like, ‘There's a fire. We gotta go.’ And I was like, half-awake, thinking, ‘Oh, what is going on?’ And my brother, my little brother, at the time, was sleeping in my separate room that I had, he would always sleep there. It was so cute. We're very close. And he was really, really young at the time. I don't think he remembers, but I remember going downstairs — how the smoke was over us. It was so weird; it almost didn't smell like anything, because we were so low to the ground. It was like a clear line between where the smoke was and where it wasn't.
It was just so weird seeing my house like that, and then being rushed out. It all happened so fast. We waited in the car for the firefighters to get there. My dad, being on call. Like, I can't imagine hearing your own address being announced on the speakers and having to go take care of that, and not knowing how everyone is must have been really scary. So they put the fire out. Luckily, it was a brick house, so we didn't have to move out; we figured maybe we could save the interior. And that was a significant night for us.
But then, I had already had this audition for The Sound of Music at Olmsted Falls Performing Arts Center lined up for the next day. I was like, ‘There's no way I'm going to that.’ But then the neighbors stepped in and they were like, ‘We'll help you get ready. We want you to go do this.’ My friend specifically, Emily and her mom, Melissa, they helped me get ready, they dressed me up, put me in a dress of hers, put little bows in my hair, and sent me on my way the day after the house fire. And I got there late, and like when I walked in, I was like, ‘Hey, sorry, guys, sorry, I'm late. I just had a house fire.’ And then started auditioning, and I got the role. It was Gretel in The Sound of Music.
CM: I'm so sorry you've gone through all of that. You’ve done a lot of acting since those early days in Cleveland, and especially this year, with both Superman and The Last of Us. I’d love to hear about TLOU. You have a really intense role on an intense show, with this fierce fan community. How did you approach the role of Dina?
IM: I became a big fan of the show when it was out. I re-watched it when I found out I had this meeting with Neil and Craig, and then I got into the game because of this meeting that was initiated by Neil [Druckmann] and Craig [Mazin] and Mary Vernieu, the casting director in the U.S. And I became an even bigger fan because of the game. I was far more invested. I was not sure which character I was meeting with them for, and I fully figured I would have to do an audition, and it'd be a whole process, with chemistry reads and whatnot, if they decided to move forward with me. But it ended up being that they had already sort of, I guess, decided, and they just wanted to meet me to make sure I was like a normal person. From there, they told me it was for the role of Dina in the meeting. And I didn't get an offer there in the meeting. I just got sort of, like, a rundown of what they wanted to do with the character. Having just played the game, I was, like, ‘Well, this is a much bigger role than I thought it was going to be initially.’ I was thinking maybe one of the side, minor characters, but Dina is pretty huge in Ellie's story, quite a significant role in her story. So I was surprised they trusted me. I was nervous. I was excited more than anything, and then when I got to set, I recognized all the sets that they were making for the show from the game. It was just really cool getting to be a part of that process. I was very, very shocked and lucky.
CM: Yeah, and almost simultaneously, you were playing Hawkgirl. I understand that you were kind of going between those two experiences, filming at the same time. What was going through your mind when you also got that role for the Superman movie?
IM: That happened, I think, prior to The Last of Us. So The Last Of Us ended up taking second position to that. But, luckily, Warner Bros. is the big boss on top of both of these, so having it be the same studio was really beneficial because they ended up really collaborating and on the scheduling and working together, so it wasn't that inconvenient. I mean, it was really difficult. I was catching a lot of points for Delta on my SkyMiles, because I was traveling so much back and forth and back and forth. I remember sometimes I would travel on the weekends to promote because at the same time, I was promoting Alien, Turtles All The Way Down and Madame Web, throughout the year, because three projects came out in the same year. I was doing so much at once. It was very overwhelming. It was just really cool that I was able to even do that. I had it in me, the energy. The human body amazes me constantly. It's like, just when we think we can't handle any more, if we care enough, we can really accomplish those things.
CM: Absolutely. And just returning to your roots in Cleveland, as someone who started here, what would you say about the city's acting scene?
IM: I treated musical theater like it was a sport, in a way, because I wasn't good at sports. So that was my one community extracurricular activity. I would be very proud of the things that I was doing. I remember I played Annie one time, at Magnificat High School, and everyone from my class actually went to go see me. It was so cute. Everyone was supportive, even those who weren't in musical theater, just because we all get really excited to see Cleveland doing well. It's a very tight-knit community.
I saw a lot of my first concerts there. There's a big dive bar community, so they would have karaoke nights. My dad being a firefighter and, like, his friend being like a karaoke legend, I would just go and sing karaoke for fun with my little friends growing up.
CM: What’s your go-to karaoke song?
IM: At the time, it was Christina Aguilera, “Beautiful.” When I was really, really young, there's pictures of me doing karaoke, and it was always Christina Aguilera. I loved Britney Spears as well. And my dad has a really good taste in music, so I would end up singing whatever songs he would teach me. He was really into punk and rock and blues and stuff. Because of that, I was really into Elvis and The Beatles and Stone Temple Pilots and I had a really wide taste of music. My mom’s Peruvian, so I was also really well-versed in Latin music and whatnot.
But my favorite artist growing up was Elvis Presley, because I first was introduced to his music in the soundtrack of Lilo and Stitch. And I was really, really young, and I was like, ‘Who is that?’ Immediately, my mom ended up buying some of his records for me, and we would listen to them all the time. I loved his music, and I loved him so much that for my 7th or 8th birthday party, I had an Elvis Presley theme, and my brother's friend's dad, Nick Hubka, he ended up impersonating Elvis, because he was known for that around town. My mom got him to come to my birthday party. Mind you, a bunch of 7, 8-year-olds, they don't know who the hell Elvis is. I was the only one who knew. But by the time that party was over, everybody knew who Elvis was.
CM: Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much for catching up with us. Is there anything else you’d want to mention?
IM: I think if I had anything else to say about Cleveland, I would just say it's a great place, a lot of great people. I'm really happy that I grew up there and that I stayed as long as I did, even though I had a dip in and out. I just wouldn't be who I am. I wouldn't be as chill if it weren't for that community and environment that I grew up in. It's really beautiful. I hope it keeps its essence throughout the years, when it's changing with the times. I just think it's a really special place with really, really special people. I hope any Clevelanders that are trying to follow this path that I'm on: Don't get discouraged, because Hollywood is a really big place, but it's a cool place with a lot of really awesome people, if you really take the chance to get to find them.
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