Interview: It and All Her Fault Star Sophia Lillis Taps Into Data Off-Broadway

For a lot of people, Sophia Lillis will always be young Beverly Marsh from the recent It series—but in the years since that breakout role, she’s built a fascinating résumé, where big Hollywood films like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Asteroid City are mixed with recent off-beat television roles in The Chair Company and All Her Fault.

In Matthew Libby’s Data, now running at the Lucille Lortel Theatre off-Broadway, Lillis plays Riley, a Silicon Valley data analyst who finds herself enmeshed in the life of a fellow programmer who realizes that an algorithm he created long ago could be used in deeply unethical ways. We spoke with her about making the jump to New York theater and what it’s like inhabiting a character who’s still revealing herself in the process.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I know you from your screen stuff like All Her Fault and It. Is this your first play?
I did Heroes of the Fourth Turning two years ago and that was a great experience, but this feels very different. I think it’s because it’s such a new play and they’re constantly changing it as we’re performing it. You really have to stay on your toes. But it’s been wonderful getting to see it evolve and knowing that it’s going to evolve even further as we’re performing it.

What is Data about?
That’s actually one of the hardest things to answer. It’s about this employee at this tech company who created an algorithm and realizes that it is the key to potentially make something that can be a little morally corrupt. And he struggles with what to do to prevent it from becoming a bigger thing. And I’m there, as well! [Laughs] I’m not that employee. I’m just the messenger, so to speak.

What interested you in the part?
What really fascinated me was seeing the struggle that she has, to make choices that she thought was right, and realizing that you can’t have something without having to sacrifice something else. This struggle is something that everyone goes through, and it’s something that, I think, every character that I’ve played has gone through.

I certainly see that in relation to All Her Fault.
I look back on my previous roles and I kind of see a lot of each individual character in Riley, but I struggle with relating it because I don’t think I fully know this character quite yet. Data is such a new play, and this character is evolving, and I feel like I haven’t touched the bottom of the well, so to speak. I’m constantly learning more about her. My version of her now could be so different than it will be at the end of my final day. But everyone has this sort of common ground and connection there.

Having grown up in New York, what is it like to do theater here?
It’s really interesting. It’s this world that I never thought to really break into, even though you’re surrounded by theater. I’ve done stuff in DC, but this is a different world. Generally just working in New York, I’ve never had that experience until this year. I just finished a movie here and now I’m going straight into this. I feel like I’m having one new experience after another. Just being here in New York, especially during the holidays, was really nice.