Isa Briones

Briones began her acting career as a child in 2008. She appeared in television commercials and played supporting roles in feature films including Takers and Lonely Boy.[7] For a television pilot in 2010, she played one of three children of a single mother moonlighting as a drug kingpin in Beverly Hills.[8]

In 2019, Briones was cast in Star Trek: Picard,[9] playing two sets of synthetic twins: Dahj and Soji, and Jana and Sutra.[10] Briones sent tapes of herself to audition for the web television series while she was playing multiple roles on stage in Hamilton, and learned during her final callback that she would portray twins in the series.[11] Briones identified most closely with Soji who, after Romulan attacks, learns she is an android created from a neuron recovered from Data:[12] "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."[13] Sutra presented both a different direction for Briones, who chose a similar look to Data,[14] and the challenge of acting opposite herself as Soji.[15]

Briones has performed in numerous stage musicals since childhood. She played Susan in Miracle on 34th Street, in which Megan Briones appeared as her mother.[16] 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.[17]

Briones joined her father when he moved back to New York in January 2018.[17] 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. During the course of its run, she played both Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds,[18] and understudied for the role of Eliza Hamilton.[6] She toured with the company until March 2019,[19] and was cast in Star Trek: Picard in April.[9]

After production wrapped in Los Angeles on the series' first season, Briones returned to the stage. She appeared in AJ Rafael's Crazy Talented Asians, and #Hash(tag) America by Anthony Fedorov and Raye Zaragoza.[20] In May 2020, Briones and the cast of Crazy Talented Asians began producing a monthly online performance series.[21]

Briones has recorded several video duets with fellow Filipino-American performer AJ Rafael.[22] Their version of "Rewrite the Stars" from The Greatest Showman was released as a single.

For the Star Trek: Picard season one finale, "Et In Arcadia Ego, Part 2", Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" was set to play during Data's final scene as a bookend to his performance in Star Trek: Nemesis. Composer Jeff Russo wrote a new arrangement for the episode, and series co-creator Alex Kurtzman suggested they ask Briones to perform the vocals. Briones said, "it's so right that this is the song" playing at the end of Data's journey.[23] Her rendition was released as a single in 2020.[24]

Reviewing Next to Normal in 2016, Cary Ginell of BroadwayWorld wrote, "Briones gives a disquietingly effective, achingly nuanced portrayal" of her character, Natalie.[25] 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."[26]

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."[27] Cincinnati CityBeat's Rick Pender wrote, "Briones brings a sultry alto to her second role as Maria Reynolds," Hamilton's mistress.[28]

In his review of Star Trek: Picard, Entertainment Weekly's Darren Franich called the plot developments "shock tactics" and her character "vacant".[29] 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".[30] Keith DeCandido from Tor.com said her performance improved with each episode; "her confused post-activation Soji is her best work".[31]

• Spelling, Ian (2020). "Star Trek: Picard: Double Trouble". Star Trek: The Official Magazine. Vol. 1 no. 75. Titan Magazines. ISSN 1357-3888. Cited as Spelling 2020.
• Spelling, Ian; Stobie, Jay (2020). Jones, Nick (ed.). Star Trek: Picard – Official Collector's Edition. Titan Magazines. ISBN 9781787732438. Cited as Spelling, Jay & Jones 2020.
• Terrace, Vincent (2014). Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786486410. Cited as Terrace 2014.