Sometimes, moms really do know best. That’s true not only for Sofia Carson’s character in the upcoming film The Life List, but also in real life.

Shortly after Purple Hearts came out in 2022, Carson (Carry-On, My Oxford Year) was in a meeting and received an email with the subject line “The Life List.” The actress and producer knew it was a script, but she didn’t have time to read it just then. A few minutes later, she got a text from her mom that said, “Stop whatever you’re doing and read this script.” She’s sure glad she did.

Carson soon poured herself into The Life List’s Alex Rose, a young woman who doesn’t know how to get out of the rut she’s stuck in. And the only person who can push her to become who she’s meant to be is the one she just lost — her mother, Elizabeth, played by Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights, Zero Day). She posthumously sends her daughter on a quest to complete the bucket list Alex made when she was 13 years old; as an incentive, she’ll receive a pre-recorded DVD from her mother for each item she ticks off. The task seems daunting to Alex, but her mom knows it will bring her back to herself. 

“Sofia chased the movie,” recalled producer Liza Chasin (The Lost City, Stillwater). “She read the script and immediately had a passion for it.” Once Carson was three pages in, she texted her agents to see if they could set up a meeting with director and writer Adam Brooks (Definitely, Maybe; Imposters) as soon as possible. They met the next morning. “It was like two old souls that knew each other in a past life melting into each other,” Carson said.

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When she was preparing to meet with Brooks, Carson jotted down some notes she wanted to share. “I said, ‘Alex Rose is all of us. I think we’ve all found ourselves at some point in our life asleep — alive, but not living. Alex reawakens us to life again. She takes us on the journey that is life itself — to hurt, to lose, to laugh, to cry, to forgive, to heal, to smile, and to love again.’ ”

Carson left that phone call crossing her fingers that she’d had an impact on the director. The next morning, she was able to check “getting cast as Alex” off her life list. That was almost three years ago.

Below, Carson walks Tudum through her deep connection to the film’s portrayal of love, loss, family, and (re)connecting to the deepest parts of yourself.

Connecting to Alex

Before The Life List, Brooks hadn’t met Carson. “I watched Purple Hearts and loved her performance,” he said. But Carson in real life is very different from Alex Rose, whose life is falling apart. “There was something at the core of the character that she hooked into. It had to do with family and with the bond [between] a daughter and her mother. It was deeply personal to her.”

Carson’s poise and maturity made producer Chasin see her as a “force to be reckoned with” after their first meeting, so much so that she wondered if she could play someone like Alex, who’s so lost. “She’s broken. Her hair is messy. She doesn’t have the right makeup on half the time,” Chasin said. “She probably doesn’t wear stiletto heels, or she’d fall.” But Carson was hungry for the opportunity to bring her to life. “And man oh man. I mean that girl does the work.”

Carson admits that Alex is so different from who you’d think “Sofia Carson” is. “And yet we were so deeply connected,” she said. When reading the script, what gripped her more than anything was the feeling that we’ve all been Alex Rose at some point. “I, myself, felt that I had once been a little lost in my life,” Carson added. “I found her inside my heart, and I just really knew that I could be her and that I would be so honored to be her. That I would just cherish her and protect her as much as possible.”

Mother-Daughter Bonding with Connie Britton

As Chasin put it, “Connie is America’s mom.” So it’s no wonder that the Friday Night Lights actress was drawn to Elizabeth’s integrity as a mother to Alex. “I [could see] she’s doing fine, but I [also] know what she has the potential to be,” Britton said. “It helped me to understand that I was speaking to something that I recognize in Alex that maybe nobody else ever could.”

Though they didn’t share many scenes, Brooks saw Britton and Carson find their rhythm quickly and naturally. “It was moving to see it happen. The intimacy of it,” the director said. “And somehow they instantly created that bond between mother and daughter, that thing you’re jealous of if you don’t have it with one of your own parents.” Britton considered it a testament to Carson that “she was just so available and passionate about the project and wanted to have that connection between us, and I just love that,” she said. “She’s such an openhearted person but also a really openhearted actress.”

Carson is grateful to Brooks for his thoughtfulness in filming the scene in which Alex watches the first DVD that her mother left for her. Often, when shooting a scene in which one actor is over the phone or on video, they’re not actually present on set, and the actor has to pretend that they are. So Carson had no idea that she’d actually be able to see Britton on her screen. “So much of what you see in the scene was the real and honest reaction [of] me seeing Elizabeth Rose speaking to [Alex] for the first time since she lost her mom, which was really beautiful and emotional,” Carson said.

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Comparing Herself to Alex

Alex’s passion for teaching is the essence of who she is in The Life List. “That’s why it killed her so much and hurt her so much when she failed,” Carson explained. That mentality is akin to how Carson approaches her career. “What I do — and my love and my passion for art, and for films, and music — is so much more than what I do. It’s who I am,” said Carson. 

“That’s why everything about it is so scary. My mom always says, ‘Everything you want is on the other side of fear.’ And that felt so true to what Alex was facing at that moment. I think Alex Rose awakens us all to life, on different levels, however we need to be awoken.”

Carson also embraced Alex’s ability to be a “beautiful mess” and relinquish control. “I decided going into this role that I was going to let go of any other way that I had ever prepared for a role before, which involved a lot of overpreparation,” said Carson. When she confided in Brooks about her approach — “I just kind of want to be her” — they both cried. “He said, ‘I think that’s the perfect way to do it.’ That surrender was really therapeutic for me.”

Finding the Right Chemistry

Whether it’s her older brothers (played by Dario Ladani Sanchez and Federico Rodriguez) or romantic suitors, no one in The Life List is an outright antagonist in Alex’s journey back to herself. “I didn’t want there to be any bad guys, but it was also important that everyone had their flaws,” Brooks said. “The task of grounding Alex’s relationships with her brothers, with her mom and dad, and with the different boyfriends was very important. I feel like the movie works because everyone is oh so human.”

Carson’s character meets Garrett (Sebastian de Souza) on a train, and they’re instantly attracted to each other. But, he turns out to be just not the right guy for her. “Adam humanizes everyone so much. In a way, there really isn’t a villain ever,” Carson said. “That was so important to us about Sebastian’s character as well, because usually in these kinds of films, there’s always one romance that seems obviously better than the other. … At some point in this film, you could very well see Alex with Garrett.”

But the Rose family’s young lawyer, Bradley Ackerman (Kyle Allen), emerges as an unwavering confidant for Alex, which surprises both of them. He even becomes the man who answers all four questions in Elizabeth’s true-love test; Elizabeth admits (in one of her DVDs) that it was a challenge even for her to find someone who could do that. “Kyle and I kind of immediately had this goofy chemistry, which worked well, because Alex and Brad’s relationship is that kind of silly friendship that blossoms into love,” Carson said. “And it’s a beautiful kind of love, because they do start out as friends and then [become] best friends.”

Embodying The Life List

Making The Life List was one of the most fulfilling experiences of Carson’s life, she told Netflix. “I am forever honored and grateful that both Adam and Liza believed in me to be their Alex Rose. And to be directed by Adam, it was a joy. My mom described watching us work as like watching a ballet. … It was like we were both dancing in sync every minute of every day, and it was so beautiful.”

Stream The Life List now, only on Netflix.