Disney Star Sofia Wylie on Her Aussie Comedy "Back of the Net", Playing a Marvel Hero and the Future of "Andi Mack"

Sofia Wylie is living out her childhood dreams. Yours too, probably.

The 15-year-old plays Buffy Driscoll on Disney’s acclaimed and beloved Andi Mack. She’s voicing Riri Williams (aka Iron Man’s protégé, Ironheart) in the show Marvel Rising. She’s a part of High School Musical: The Musical, which will debut later this year on the Disney+ streaming service. And of this week, she’s a movie star too, thanks to her leading role in Aussie comedy Back of the Net.

"Everything I’m doing right now was a dream and now it’s my reality, which is the craziest thing," she tells Student Edge.

In Back of the Net, she plays Cory Bailey, an American exchange student and unathletic science whiz who accidentally winds up enrolled in a Sydney soccer program. (Don’t worry too much about the machinations required for this mix-up. Just focus on the premise: a klutz going to soccer camp.)

Despite training as a dancer when she was a child in Arizona, and playing a basketballer in Andi Mack, soccer was fairly foreign to Sofia.

"I had actually done one little season of soccer, probably when I was five years old, with the kindergarten team," she says.

"It was definitely something I had to relearn; just going from the basics and understanding where to put your foot next to the ball and how to not injure yourself. Thankfully my character is very uncoordinated, so most of the activity I was doing was falling and fumbling, which was a whole thing in itself: finding a way to fall on your butt without actually falling."

Similarly, she was unfamiliar with much of the aerodynamic and scientific know-how Cory demonstrates to eventually perfect her soccer game.

"Most of the things that Cory was talking about I really had no clue what she was saying," she laughs.

Where she saw similarities with Cory, however, was in the feeling of "not belonging".

"I think everybody feels that internal fear of being the outsider and not fitting in," she says.

"[Cory learns] she doesn’t have to just be one categorised person; that she can be so many things and do whatever she wants if she likes it and puts her mind to it."

Despite being in tenth grade, Sofia’s experience is different from most 15-year-olds, balancing her acting work during the day with home-schooling at night.

"It’s very hard, because I have to be my own teacher with all my responsibilities," she says.

"I have to know that after a long day on set, instead of going home and sleeping or going out and eating with my friends, I have to go home and do hours of school, because that’s just what I’ve committed to and that’s the way I want to live my life.

"That’s just the sacrifice I need to make."

The upside? Travelling to Australia to film Back of the Net; an experience she loved, with one exception.

"I definitely thought I was just gonna walk out of the airplane and there’s gonna be kangaroos and koalas everywhere, roaming about," she laughed.

Another upside? Becoming part of the Marvel-verse as an honest-to-goodness superhero in the animated Marvel Rising: Heart of Iron.

"Being able to be a superhero myself is such a surreal thing, and also being part of a show like Marvel Rising that has so much diversity and equality and messages of friendship and love and inclusion is so important," she says.

"It’s the path I hope to always be on; spreading messages of love and positivity and equality, and that’s definitely what Marvel Rising stands for."

Unfortunately, when it comes to Andi Mack, the ground-breaking show that featured the first gay main character on Disney Channel, the future is a little cloudy.

"I don’t know if we’re gonna have another season," she says, to the anguished screams of fans everywhere.

"If we don’t, I’m just so thankful that I was able to be on that show, and all the messages we were able to spread.

"But there are always new beginnings, and I’m excited for what’s to come."

Back of the Net arrives in Australian cinemas 11 April.

Header Image: Umbrella Entertainment