Drama Queens - Sophia answers your new questions!

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Sophia gets candid about her new memoir, the stories she was scared to tell and the unexpected freedom of finally laying them bare. Plus, she reveals details about her next rom-com, including the mystery love interest and why the nostalgia factor might make you very happy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Bell, connection is everything. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Well, hello and welcome back to Work in Progress, friends. We are here with a check-in. Our inbox has been filling up with questions since our last Q&A. And when the team and I were looking at them, we realized we better do one of these soon,

or this list is going to be so many pages long. We're never going to get through it. And I say that just to say, thank you all. Thank you so much for your engagement and your... curiosity and for sending in questions and thoughts because it's really inspiring to me. You know, you make me think about a lot. And it's kind of cool that we get to do this together. So anyway, I'm not going to get too emo about it. Not that you would be surprised. Let's dive in. Love this question. Let's manifest your next rom-com. What's the story? Where does it take place? Who are we kissing?

Okay, so I already have my next rom-com lined up. I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say about it yet, because, you know, when things haven't been announced, it's tricky. I don't think this will be too specific because it's quite a large country. It's filming in Canada. You know, a nation of which I am a dual citizen. Love that for me. Love that for my Canadian family.

I shan't say on the East or West Coast, I can't yet say whom I love interest is, although if you like nostalgia, I think you will be happy. Is there kissing? I mean, obviously, because it's a rom-com. What I will say is thanks to a recent guest who's a longtime friend of the pod, our dear Ben McKenzie, he just came back on to talk about his documentary, which is funny and inspiring and gives you so much information that you need. in the world today. And if you listened to that episode,

we did talk about the fact that we need to do a rom-com together. And the internet did go a little crazy for it, the idea of Brooke and Ryan doing a film, excited people. So given, it's tough, actually, because One Tree Hill obviously shot in Wilmington and the OC was in the O.C. I don't know, though. We're both East Coasters now.

So for me, I kind of feel like we have to go to a new beach, but it should be at the beach, because again, honor our characters. Maybe we do like a cozy coastal rom-com, like a Cape Cod sort of story. I'm talking about this in real time. I clearly don't have an idea fleshed out. But that's what I think. I envision a lot of nubby sweaters. Think like Jack Nichols.

and Diane Keaton and as good as it gets, but, you know, in your 40s and cute. Yeah, that's where I'm starting. That's what I think. And we've already agreed. So, Ben, I've set a location for us. And I'm volleying the ball to you. You get to come up with the next idea. Thanks, Kara.

Kayla, who and what was your biggest inspiration for writing? And I will tell you mine. Well, good question. this is crazy to be holding, to be able to look at. It's really surreal. I can't believe it's about to be in the world. I think it was learning that gentleness with self. You know, for a long time, people told me to write a book.

People would say, oh, you should write a book. People would joke, girl, you could write a book about this. Like all these things would always come back to a book. And my sweet book agent, Kate, chased me for almost a decade, sending me my own writing, you know, that would be published or an essay I would write an op-ed, something from Instagram, you know, yearly reflections, whatever. And I was like, girl, it's out there. Who cares?

What am I going to write a book about? I really was dismissive of it, I think, because it was meant to be about me. And then getting to that place where I felt like I finally saw it all. I finally could look at all the writing on the wall. I could see what all these sort of stops in my journey looked like on the map. And I could have only done it at that time. I could have only started to do it in that moment. It was really surreal.

And I think I realized that there are so many comments. conversations that so many of us don't have, that we're not encouraged to have, things we're not encouraged to share, things we keep in ourselves. And then whenever anyone else is going through them, maybe they think they're the only one too. And taking the whole thing apart in order to figure out what was mine and what I wanted to build out of my pieces. I just found myself writing every day during that process. And after about, I don't know, six months of journal entries and writing on the back of napkins and doodling on, you know,

receipts on airplanes, I reached back out to Kate and I said, I think I'm starting the book. And even then, what I thought it was is not what it became. And it is, it's wild. A book really, um, it's a thing, but it's more akin to a person. You know, I don't know how many of your parents are, you know, are close to your parents, but you'll hear parents say, like, you know,

my parents say this, you came out exactly who you are. You know, my mom used to say I was like a little Joan of Arc. And people just are who they are. Your book, a book, knows what it wants to be. and it is something that when you think you can see it, you know, you think you have the idea, oh, this could be an outline. It comes out of you and it takes shape in ways you can't quite believe.

And I'm so glad to be writing it from this perspective because if I'd done this before, A, I wouldn't have been ready and B, I don't think I would have felt comfortable to ask so many questions since I'm choosing to answer so many in it. And I spoke to my girlfriend Elaine, Elaine Welter Roth. I'm sure lots of you follow her too. She's amazing, amazing editor, amazing author. And she was like, oh, honey, your book,

a book will hijack you. It's going to take you on the journey. It's meant to take you on. And I was like, ah, I didn't know if I was just alone in that. I didn't know if, you know, maybe it felt so hard for me because I have, nerves about, you know, the whole thing, but also about what it means for someone who's been perceived by the public for so long to rewrite some of the narrative with their own truth and

their own experiences. And it can be really hard. You know, it's one thing to get famous from a book you write. It's another thing to be some version of famous, whatever. whatever that gross word means and then write a book. But here we are and I'm excited. And yeah, it's been this really crazy journey. And now I sort of feel like my book is someone I know. I feel that way about a couple of characters I've played too. They really feel like people I know.

And it's surreal to add another one to the list. So it's coming October 27th. I can't believe it. Linda. Oh, well, I started answering Linda's question already. Are there any stories in your upcoming memoir that you're anxious about sharing? Yes, so many of them. So many of them.

And it's been a really interesting experience because, as I mentioned, I don't have the good fortune of being a person. who's writing a book that might inspire people and then do very well and then become the thing I am known for, my work in its relative ways, bigger, small, has been known. Myself, me, as a person and a woman, as an actor, and a political volunteer and all these things, I am in ways big or small, known. To say things or to clarify things or to share things comes with a different weight, I guess, because versions of those things are known. And unfortunately, because versions of my life are known, it meant that there were things I didn't want to write about

at all that would be impossible not to write about because they would just be these big gaping holes and everyone has already partially filled them with what's known in the world. So it's a really surreal thing, guys. It's really weird. I will say it was also really healing. You know, I love the news for good or bad. I mean, I love it as much as I love good comment. I love good and I'm a trained journalist. And there were sections of this book I wrote as though I were reporting them for a major newspaper, for the New York Times, you know, for the Guardian. Details and timestamps and receipts and emails and text messages and things. And I needed that.

I didn't even know I needed that to get all those things out of me because they've lived in me and they live in my devices and in my. drawers and in my journals and I know I have them. And then there were huge swaths of those things, huge sections that I figuratively and literally burned. I wrote them because the writing was actually part of my process. And then I removed them and I did away with them in all but the least possible detail for public consumption because those things were for me and the second round

the how do I reflect from 30,000 feet on what the lesson was here shorter versions feel more like there for everyone and that too was kind of a a learning it was part of that journey to become becoming more myself, becoming more yourself that we're all on. It was a real period of discovery and it was hard and freeing.

And even knowing how much I haven't put in, I'm still scared of some of the things I have. But I think at the end of the day, especially for women to be able to say this is what happened to me. And these are the things I hope we all can take from any version of this that's happened to any of us. I think it's important. But yeah, oof. Let me tell you something.

This shit is not for the faint of heart. Marie, when you recorded your audio book, did you get choked up or pissed off at any parts? Did it hit differently speaking it aloud? Oh, girl. Yep. I was gasping through sobs by the end of the dedication. So that was a fun place to start.

Yeah, there are these sections that just they take my breath away and they make me cry. They are just the most tender things. And, you know, sometimes I'd get choked up and have to stop and cry through it and then start again talking about someone I love or loved. And there were sections where I cried just as hard talking about why I think space is magical. And yeah, there were things that, you know, to read again, they light you up in a way. But I think what's interesting and what I'm really grateful for for the process is you kind of get lit up. from the version of you that the thing happened to.

And you know you've done your work when the present version of yourself can have a separate experience and go like, yeah, that really wasn't cool. And also we're in a completely different place now. And to hold both and to not minimize but also not be swallowed by the stuff that pisses you off

I think is probably why I get so choked up about the stuff that feels so beautiful and what feels magical because I am so, after this process, I feel sort of the most emotionally in tune. Like, I have every emotion available to me again because nothing's, you know, nothing's been hidden or reduced for anyone else's convenience in me.

And that's a freedom that I didn't know I would get from a book and I also didn't know it would give me that much freedom while it absolutely tortured me within an inch of my life on the other days. Patricia, what surprised you most about yourself during the writing process? I think what surprised me most

was realizing that I had to write every single thing and detail down. Like I could really feel my my specific blend of neurodivergence being like, but then this and then this, and this is the temperature in the room, and this is what the email said,

and this was the next person you called. And like, it's a book. It's not actually a piece of reporting. Nobody wants to read all that. But I needed to get it out in a way where there wasn't a single fact missing because if anything was missing, it kind of also made me itch.

And then I could look at it and take these massive, things. And I could really drill them down. I mean, I took 78 pages out of something and reduced it to six. Because that was all that was the most important. And there were other things that I would write and then realize, you know, the thing I'm writing, yes, is about this moment. But it also reflects in my life in this way. And then I was able to wrap the second layer around it. I mean, it's really, it's really kind of surreal to give yourself the amount of time and consideration that you've only ever given to your community or your work. It was, it was really interesting.

So yeah, that was really something. I also learned I'm not a person who can just block two hours on my calendar and sit down and write. I have to be in it. I have to be unbothered. I did more than one little retreat with myself just to say like I got to lock myself in a room for four days and be left alone and just really be in it. And then there would be other nights where, you know,

I'd be in the middle of something and then I'd be pulling out my phone, you know, starting a note so I could write something down before I forgot it. It's a surreal thing. to do. It's not like building cabinets or painting a room in your house where you just do it until it's done. It's like, it's this complete dance with your reality and how banal, you know, needing to do the things you need to do in a day is and also how exceptionally strange it is to, you know, emotionally open up your own heart and start pulling out what's inside of it. It's wild.

but I really liked it. And I think the thing that perhaps surprised me most was I got to a point one day where I texted my book agent had been hounding me to write a book for 10 years. And I said, I think you're right. I think I'm a writer. And not like a just an observational, you know, op-ed about the important thing happening right now, writer. I'm a writer, like a writer,

that was pretty cool. Pretty, um, pretty neat experience. So thanks for the question, Patricia. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. The long loading times. The glitchy video calls. That's your house asking for better internet. Switch to Bell Pure Fiber, Canada's most reliable internet awarded by OpenSignal.

From $75 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for more details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Oh, Ben, speaking of writing op-eds about important things happening in the world, Ben says, let's talk midterms. What are you hearing must happen if we want to flip the house? Well, I am pretty pissed about the news that the Supreme Court is going to let this absolute voter interference plan with the post office

continue to move forward, at least for now. It's crazy to me that we have a party that is literally trying to purge everyone they don't like from the voter rolls and reshape the nation in their fan, insurrectionist armies, paper doll shapes and leave the rest of us out of it. It's just not what the country is. It's not what the Constitution says. It's not what a democracy does. It's pretty abhorrent. So one of the things I think is really important for everyone is to understand that you might really run into voter restriction this year. And I need you to have a plan. You can't necessarily trust that your ballot is going to come.

They're trying to cancel them. I want everyone to start checking their voter registration. Maybe we should just check it every Monday, all of us together, like a collective 11 a.m. plan. Or it could be like Thursday when things get slow. We can decide. But I think, you know, make sure you're not getting purged from the roles. Make sure all your documents are in order. Make sure you have a plan to vote early and in person.

Know where you're polling places are. They've closed a lot of those too. We have to show up and vote in droves. And we have to stop voting on these ridiculous sort of fantasy lines. Like, I don't need you to have the biggest brain crush on your senator. I don't need you. I want to have a beer with your congressman. I need us to elect people who care about the law and who care about the country and who understand that the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been stolen out of our economy and wasted on a war nobody asked for and that

Congress never approved and all these other crazy things happening right now. Like that's our money. That's our money. It's not their money. It's our taxpayer money. We invest in the country and we're supposed to get a return on investment, which is why we have roads and water and air that currently we can breathe. And it's why we should have health care because we have the money, because it's our money. So we really got to show up and understand that we have to vote for people. Yes, sometimes we get our dream candidate. I have a few. And sometimes you vote because somebody will continue to advocate and push for the common good, even if you don't agree with them on everything.

That's okay. There's 332 million people of us in this country. I highly doubt we're all going to agree on everything all the time. Note the sarcasm there. We're not. But I really do believe that pushing for progress and for the betterment of society for your neighbors and yourselves

is what we're supposed to do. It's what government is supposed to do. You hear a lot about life. oh government keep it small no government at its best should be almost invisible to you and i think now that the government is falling apart people are realizing how much invisible government all around all around them is the only reason any of us can drive on a road or have a job or have any sort of resource and so i would like us to start pushing for good government that runs efficiently and that supports the services that people need to live in whatever town, city or state they live in.

So we got to get back to that. That's what I think. But the first and most important part is to make sure you have a voting plan, to make sure you are still registered, to make sure five friends are still registered and have a plan. and if you have anybody in your life who voted for the harm we're currently seeing, make sure they know they're allowed to change their minds and you're going to bring them, not like with open arms like your best friend, but you'll bring them back to our team and we can all regroup and rebuild from there. Just a few thoughts about that. These are so great.

I'm only halfway through today's page, guys, which means we're going to have to save the next half of these questions. For the next Q&A, please keep them coming. You're absolutely making our day over here at Work and Progress. For me and the team, we just want to say thank you for being here. We really adore you guys. See you on the next one. This is an IHeart podcast.

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