by samantha davidson
photo by nick sparkman
Keep actress and screenwriter Francesca Noel on your radar. She recently starred alongside David Schwimmer and Ana Ortiz as the misunderstood bad girl Alex Diaz in the Disney+ Anthology Series Goosebumps: The Vanishing. Her scene-stealing performance cements Noel as one to watch. She chatted with us about her love of horror, why representation matters, and what it was like filming the show.
Hi Francesca! Thank you for sitting down with me today. You gave an incredible performance starring in the new season of Goosebumps: The Vanishing on Disney+. I read that you grew up loving the book series by R.L. Stine. Do you have any favorite childhood memories associated with these stories?
Francesca: “Oh my gosh, I mean, I was a huge nerd when I was a little kid and that's kind of continued until this day. I'm sitting here surrounded by my Funko Pops. I would always be sitting in the dark corner of the library, usually with a Goosebumps book. I just love gore and horror. I think it's such an interesting genre because emotions are so heightened. That was always really exciting.”
There are so many sci-fi elements in the show. I particularly loved your performance in the self-driving car scene. How do you get into that space where you’re acting against something you can’t see?
Francesca: “Honestly, acting against something I can't see is not the difficult part. I would say it's the physical toll it takes on your body because we were shooting that for 16 hours. That was a full day that they had booked off in one of these warehouses that we shot in. They covered it wall to wall in green screen, and they had two men on winches on either side of the car. They had stuck an old leaf blower into the car to get the wind going. I was really physically just throwing myself around this car, so that was a lot to put myself through. Alex was a super fulfilling character for me because she taught me that I could do those things and I think when I look at myself in general, I don't see someone who's super tough and strong, and she definitely gave me that mentally but also physically because I started going to the gym. I mean, she goes through a lot, and she's so incredibly resilient, and I found a lot of beauty in that for myself and then also for, you know, little girls who could look up to a character that seems like them. She fights monsters, and she's a little bit of a dick, and she's so fun, and she has a little heart. Alex was a treat for me to play. She was just the best.”
That was a perfect segue because I have some questions for you about Alex. Your character, Alex Diaz, is labeled as a bad girl who is actually misunderstood by people like her mother and the group of friends she ends up with. We see her truly come out of her shell at the end of the season. What can we expect for Alex and her relationships? What do you want for the character? Where do you see her going?
Francesca: “Unfortunately it’s an anthology series [but] what I would love to see for Alex is a lot more vulnerability. I think Alex is so misunderstood, and when I look at her, you know, I see younger me. I think as a woman and as a woman of color, we’re not given a voice, and that is really hard. Alex is an ex-con, and even though she didn't do it, she hangs around people who are not good for her. I love to see that she has so much softness, and she's capable of great things and of love. Getting to play that was super cathartic, and I loved being the voice of this hero of her own story. So Galilea, who plays Frankie, she and I have this great idea of different character poses, and we're both super nerdy, and we're like, ‘Please make an Xbox or a PS5 game.’”
photo by nick sparkman
Maybe if we see everyone commenting, “Give us the video game” that could happen! How was it starring opposite legendary actor David Schwimmer? Did you pick up on any acting tips that helped you with your on-screen presence?
Francesca: “I was a Frasier girl. I never watched Friends. So when I got to set and I met him, I was like, ‘Oh, that's Dave. He's just a guy. He's a guy in a plaid shirt.’ And then the rest of the cast was, ‘Oh my God, that is David Schwimmer,’ and I was like, ‘I mean, that's Ana Ortiz from Ugly Betty.’ That was so cool to me.”
Let’s put that in. What tips did you pick up from her for your onscreen presents?
Francesca: “She was super. I mean, she gave me a lot. She gave me confidence. She taught me how to be cool. She gave me business advice. Being Latina in this industry, there are so few of us who make it to the level that she's made it to. I'm really always looking for someone to mentor me because there's so much that I don't know. She was there immediately, she's so open, and when she's ready to work, she's very present. She shared a lot of vulnerability with me that gave me a lot of strength. She's a real badass, and I love her a lot.”
I love that. You had great chemistry on screen. It was very much like these people have known each other for a long time, so that was great to watch.
Francesca: “I mean, it felt real. We were sharing TikToks with each other and talking about our families, so that was really nice.”
You made waves at Sundance in 2021 and I was wondering how you approached playing such an iconic and historically known character like Juliet in this R#J rendition.
Francesca: “That was huge for me. I had never been in the industry in that capacity before. Leading a feature film is a really huge deal and then, you know, an adaptation like that. I grew up reading Romeo and Juliet. I wanted her to feel real. I wanted to be very vulnerable. When I was crying on screen, it was real snot and we spent hours doing stuff like that. I also am such a fan of brown people in period pieces. People don't really embrace that, and it felt really good to be a part of a project like that. I wish I could do something like that again. I'm a screenwriter, and I write a lot of period pieces, and there’s so many stories that could be told because brown people have existed forever.”
I would love, because you brought up screenwriting, anything that you want to say on that? Anything you're working on?
Francesca: “I mean, as I said before, I'm a huge fan of brown girls leading things and women having emotion on screen. When you're in this industry, you see how many things do not get made, and it's really frustrating. I'm working on my first feature, and I've been a screenwriter now for ten years. This one's a really cool superhero, set in a different country, empowerment, feminism, queer thing, and there's violence and there's beauty. We just got our director, so that's really exciting. Maybe we'll be seeing that within the next few years.”
Note: Some questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
