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If you were to cross paths with Julia Doyle on the streets of downtown Toronto on a sunny afternoon, you probably wouldn’t run away screaming. In fact, you’d likely stop to chat. Doyle has taken to wandering her city with a rather peculiar accessory in hand: a yo-yo.
“I used to walk around with my headphones on, completely cut off from the world. But with the yo-yo, I have my headphones off, and the amount of sweet interactions I’ve had is amazing. I just love talking to people. It rejuvenates me.”
It is a delightfully wholesome image. Yet, to millions of viewers tuning in weekly to MGM+’s mystery-box horror series FROM, Doyle evokes a very different reaction: sheer, bone-chilling dread.
Like many actors, Doyle can trace her ambitions back to a childhood television obsession. Unlike most actors, however, her answer isn’t some classic Hollywood masterpiece. It’s Wizards of Waverly Place. The moment she realized Selena Gomez wasn’t actually Alex Russo—and that pretending to be a wizard could be a real job—something clicked. “I wanted to do the same,” she laughs.
That early craving for “Stepping into worlds I would never have access to otherwise,” eventually led her to local acting classes in Toronto. It’s advice she still champions: “Classes are where you make connections. It helps so much to have other actors by your side.”
Doyle has long been drawn to the strange. She practices contortion. She loves unsettling characters. She describes herself as naturally gravitating toward the weird, the intense, and the creepy. Early in her career, those instincts weren’t always encouraged. She remembers receiving notes from her manager warning her to tone things down.
“Julia, crazy eyes,” she’d hear. “Too much crazy eyes.”
Years later, those same instincts would help her land the role of Sophia in FROM.
As Sophia—the sweet-faced newcomer who is quickly revealed to be the terrifying “Man in Yellow” in disguise—Doyle has spent the latest season of FROM delivering a masterclass in psychological manipulation. Sophia is far more dangerous than she appears. The role demands deception, unpredictability, and a willingness to embrace darkness—qualities Doyle had been eager to explore for years. In fact, one of the choices that helped secure the role wasn’t even written into the audition.
While filming her self-tape, Doyle instinctively extended the scene beyond the final line, adding a chilling moment she believed the character would naturally play through. “It was a scene where I kill my dad. In the actual audition script, it didn’t say that I suffocate him; it just ended on my last line: ‘This is when they tear themselves apart.’ But in my actor brain, I was like, ‘Okay, obviously she’s going to kill him.’ So I took the initiative to mimic choking him at the end and gave this creepy, smiley face.”
Her assumption turned out to be exactly right, and an instant standout. So much so that show creator John Griffin booked her right off her tape without making her read any more scenes. Looking back, she describes the role as a release. “I’ve been wanting to book a character like this for so long,” she says.
Playing a shape-shifting ancient nightmare pretending to be a teenage girl is a massive meta-acting challenge, but Doyle approached it with elegant simplicity. “When I’m playing Sophia, I’m just focused on playing Sophia,” Doyle explains. “And that is exactly the same thing the Man in Yellow is focusing on. He’s not thinking, ‘I am the Man in Yellow playing Sophia.’ He’s thinking, ‘I’m a sweet, innocent little girl right now. Are they believing me?’”
To find her footing, Doyle merged her own reality with her character’s. “I could embrace my actor mindset as Julia. When I would see the camera in my peripheral vision, instead of freaking out, I’d think, ‘Oh yeah, I’m an actor acting as Sophia, I wonder if they’re believing me.’ It was really nice to embrace my own thoughts rather than separating them.”
What makes Sophia particularly unique in the hierarchy of FROM’s monsters is how much access she gives the viewers. “The audience is ‘in on it’ now,” Doyle points out. “The monsters are allowing the audience to know their perspective a bit and act alongside them.”
Fascinatingly, Doyle and Douglas E. Hughes (the actor who plays Man in Yellow) have barely shared a word. “We’ve only met twice in passing,” Doyle laughs. “Once when I was entering the makeup trailer and he was exiting, and another time during a CGI scan for the transformation sequence. Both interactions were under 30 seconds.”
Instead, Doyle turned to a modern actor’s secret weapon: fan edits. “As soon as I booked the role, I started looking up clips of Doug’s performance. The people making edits literally saved me. I made a folder on my phone to use as quick reference clips of his physical performance before my scenes, just to put my brain back in that moment.”
Doyle’s appreciation for online editing runs deep. She admits she once downloaded CapCut to try and make Harry Styles edits back in her Vine days. “I had it for two days and deleted it because it was so hard. It’s a real art form. People need to put some respect on their names because these editors are the reason so many shows are blowing up now.”
And her biggest fan scrolling through those edits? “Every single time I see a Sophia edit I check the likes and there’s my mom. My mom is my biggest supporter.”
Q: If you, Julia, were dropped into the town of FROM, who are you running to and who are you avoiding?
Julia: I would immediately go to Julie, because she’s my age, and be like, “Girl, what is happening?!” I’d also go to Donna—I love Donna and I feel like I’d be safe with her. As for who I’d avoid? Dale, the guy who ended up in the swimming pool. That is just way too stressful of a vibe to be around.
Q: Do you feel drawn to explore more villain roles in the future? Or is there a genre or type of character you haven’t explored yet but would love to?
Yes, I love horror, spooky things, and I love to play strange people. That’s something I feel like naturally I’m better at. I’ve always kind of been wanting to let that loose a little bit. Happy to do this, but also I definitely want to do more comedy, because I like comedy as well.
Q: What is your all-time favorite, either horror film or monster?
The first thing that comes to mind is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I remember, first of all, that’s just a horror villain that is very unique in its own way, and it was the first time where I was actually horrified, and I couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks, and just telling everyone, “Don’t watch this movie, guys. It’s really messed up”.
Q: How did you get over that hump to become someone who loves playing creepy characters?
When my mom took me to see Coraline in theaters, I sobbed so loudly she had to take me out because I was disrupting the cinema. But then I got completely obsessed with The Walking Dead. To get used to the scares, I started watching Top 10 lists on WatchMojo—like “Top 10 Most Intense Saw Traps.” I was so intrigued by Saw but too scared to watch, so I watched the countdowns first. By the time I actually watched the movies, I already knew everything that happened!
Q: What was the most interesting scene for you to film this season?
Episode six. There is a scene involving glasses, eye glasses, and then broken glass… and there were just so many moving parts. Acting is great, but when there are stunts and technical camera blocking, it gets intense. You have to hit your lighting, not block the lens, grab an item, but make sure you don’t grab it in a way that looks rehearsed or too perfect.
Q: How has the creative community in Canada reacted to your breakout? Are there more projects you can tease on the horizon?
It’s been amazing. I’ve definitely had more casting directors and productions interested in seeing me for auditions, specifically for creepy, intense roles, which is awesome. I can’t tease anything specific yet, but I’d say keep your calendar marked for about a year from now!
Q: If you were a shot in a film, what would that look like?
Two things come to mind. I feel like I should say both of them, because they kind of juxtapose each other in a beautiful way. My first one is Thumbelina coming out of the flower in the beginning of the movie, and she’s like, ‘Hello, Mother,’ or something like that. And then the other one is Alice in Wonderland, when she’s overgrown the house, and she’s in the house, and she’s awkward, and stuff like that. I think both of them together is kind of what I feel.
Q: Do you feel like you’re outgrowing where you are now?
I think that I just have a lot I want to give. I bring up the Thumbelina thing, because I’m constantly realizing that my sensitivity is my superpower. A lot of bravery and courage doesn’t come from moments when you punch someone. It’s a lot braver to say, “Hey, you hurt my feelings. Did you actually mean to say that, or are we having a misunderstanding?”.
There was a moment where I almost set my house on fire. I was in front of the stove, and about to pour a bucket of water on the oil fire, I had this sudden realization: ‘Julia, you are not strong enough to lift this bucket high enough over your head to get the right angle. You are going to drop it” and on top of setting my house on fire, breaking a mop bucket that’d be annoying. I decided to put down the bucket and went outside. The firefighters said I would have been a burn victim. It felt like a ‘nine lives’ moment, where I’m like, “Julia, you’re not in a movie, stop trying to act like the hero. Put down the bucket.”
“And I feel moments like that, my sensitivity is my superpower.”
