The movie that inspired Isabela Merced to become an actor: “I could do this too”
Isabela Merced is one of those rare child actors who has been able to break out of the Nickelodeon mould into heavyweight Hollywood roles.
From earning her big break in Nickelodeon’s 100 Things to Do Before High School to walking the red carpet for the new Superman, the now 24-year-old actor has firmly cemented herself in the Marvel universe.
Like many aspiring actors, Merced was inspired by Old Hollywood, the ‘golden era’ of American film that brought us the likes of Shirley Temple, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, and Grace Kelly. The American Peruvian actor’s first memories of this gilded age are through recollections of visiting her local video rental store to pick out a new DVD to watch on a Friday evening, a treasured past time young people will never understand today, with every film now available at the touch of a button.
But it was this intentional act of picking a film from the shelves of new releases and old classics that led Merced to the magical world of The Wizard of Oz, and her subsequent love of one of Hollywood’s first major child actors, Judy Garland. Watching Garland play the sweet but bold Dorothy in the 1939 classic made Merced realise she too could pursue a career in acting from a young age.
The spellbinding realm of the Land of Oz has long intoxicated children and adults. When its lush colours, juxtaposed against the black and white dreariness of Kansas, burst onto the TVs of audiences in the 1940s, they brought a world of vibrant colour to many families for the first time.
Judy Garland was only 16 when she played the role of Dorothy, and the film went on to launch her career. But the film’s success was not without its difficulties for the young and impressionable actor – Garland’s life on set was much less sweet and innocent than the Land of Oz, with the actor enduring long hours on set, regularly being given sleeping pills, and put on a strict diet to lose weight. Garland’s later life was plagued by drug use, which allegedly began as early as nine, when her mother gave her pills for rest and energy to pursue her acting career. In later life, Garland remembered her mother as “the real Wicked Witch of the West”.
Hollywood has changed a lot since then, luckily for Merced, whose own experience as a child actor was very different. Merced’s own mother was cautious about the world of Hollywood, but eventually agreed to allow Merced to pursue acting, with the actor making her career on Broadway before transitioning towards film. The actor actually auditioned for a community theatre production of The Wizard of Oz at nine years old, originally auditioning to play Dorothy, but was humbled when she ended up getting the role of a Munchkin, one of the Land of Oz’s local inhabitants.
Seeing young women on screen like Judy Garland and the young Shirley Temple drove Merced’s own confidence in her acting, and The Last of Us and Superman actor has also recently branched out to music, perhaps another influence from the late Judy Garland, whose career was built on her unique singing voice.
