actor ‖ writer ‖ producer
bio
Sophia stars in the upcoming video game PROJECT VESPERI, for which she performed motion capture and voiceover work. She recently received a "Best Acting Duo" award at the Dark Comedy Film Festival alongside Mike Jaworski for her role in DOLLYVILLE. Her acting training includes voice, movement, stage combat, rigorous scene study, and audition workshops. To round off her classical instruction, she auditioned for and completed a two-month intensive Acting Shakespeare program at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Since coming to Hollywood, Sophia has written five features, three pilots, two TV specs, and several short films (slate available upon request). Her scripts have ranked as: Finalists at the Sundance Feature Film Lab; Semifinalists at Filmmatic Inroads Fellowship, WeScreenplay Diverse Voices, Screencraft Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Filmmatic Short Screenplay Awards, and Screencraft Short Screenplay Competition; in the top 10% of the Academy Nicholl Fellowship; top 10% and Red List on Coverfly; Quarterfinalists in the Shore Scripts TV Pilot Contest and Screencraft Film Fund; and Official Selections at the Nostos Screenwriting Retreat and Silicon Beach Film Festival.
Together with her husband, Joey De La Cruz, Sophia formed SHAKABOOM, a film and television production house. They have several projects underway and seek to connect with like-minded dreamers who wish to provoke, entrance, and uplift the world through stories.
Sophia works in film and television as an actor, screenwriter, & producer based out of LA and London. In her free time, she hikes, dabbles in languages, cooks, and hangs at Irish folk music sessions.
e d u c a t i o n
h a r v a r d u n i v e r s i t y | ThM
y a l e u n i v e r s i t y | MAR
d a r t m o u t h c o l l e g e | BA
After growing up bouncing between New Haven, Connecticut and Lahore, Pakistan, Sophia attended Dartmouth College, where she studied Creative Writing in Scotland, Classics in Italy, and Theatre in England. Her short stories and poetry appeared in the college’s literary magazine, and she was the Featured Poet of the winter issue during her senior year. In conjunction with the Darfur Action Group, she directed an original staged reading of testimonials from Darfur as part of a campus-wide fundraising and divestment initiative. She received generous grants to conduct research at Oxford and attend a conference in Durham, England towards a senior honors thesis in which she translated Euripides’ Hecuba from Ancient Greek and analyzed its original context, its performance history, its transcendent themes, and their impact upon the art of translation.
Sophia received fellowships to research the Sociopolitical Dimensions of Contemporary Theater in Beijing and spent 6 months living in China, where she published a piece in Mandarin redefining the cultural term 'powerful woman.' But the charged atmosphere in the US post-9/11 had inspired her to investigate religion, violence, and politics, so she went on to study Comparative Religious Ethics and Human Rights at Yale and Harvard, earning two master’s degrees and completing a thesis on Cosmopolitanism, Just War Theory, and Humanitarian Intervention with a case study on Darfur. She spent the next several years at Harvard, working with the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy on its Human Trafficking Initiative and Theater & Human Rights Program while freelancing for various nonprofits, think tanks, and journals.
a c a d e m i c
a w a r d s & g r a n t s
Alfred K. Priest Fellowship
Awarded to selected Dartmouth alums pursuing graduate study at Harvard.
Dartmouth General Fellowship
Granted to conduct research on the sociopolitical dimension of theater in China and to continue the study of Mandarin at Beijing Normal University.
Paul L. ’83 and Neil T. McGorrian Fellowship
Awarded annually to one member of Dartmouth's graduating class, this grant serves the same function as the Dartmouth General Fellowship.
Ministerial Scholarship
Granted during senior year at Dartmouth College based on an interest in Divinity School and religious work.
Richter Undergraduate Research Grant &
Dickey Center for International Understanding Grant
Awarded to perform Senior Honors Thesis research at the Oxford Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama and to attend a conference on Greek tragedy at Durham University.
Edwin Black Judd Class of 1911 Scholarship
Received an endowed scholarship for all four years at Dartmouth, awarded to one student per year from Connecticut.
National Society of Collegiate Scholars
Inducted freshman year for academic achievement.