Ascending as Hawkgirl and behind the scenes

'Superman' actor Isabela Merced spreads her wings in film and pop. She's writing an original musical too.

- BY CAT CARDENAS

ISABELA MERCED has acted in "The Last of Us," "Alien: Romulus" and more. She's producing a movie that will be shot soon.

Last year, Isabela Merced was living a double life. By day, she was running around the set of "The Last of Us" in Vancouver — dodging Infected, WLF soldiers and Seraphites alongside costar Bella Ramsey.

Then, after wrapping what was sometimes a 15-hour workday, she’d be on a flight 4,500 miles away to Atlanta — doing costume fittings and fight training to become Hawkgirl in James Gunn's “Superman.”

"I didn’t know I could do that,” she tells De Los. “I proved to myself that I'm capable of more than I think.”

The Peruvian American actor has the kind of career that any young actor would aspire to: She made her Broadway debut at 10 years old in “Evita,” earned critical acclaim acting opposite Benicio del Toro in “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” at 17 and starred in the live-action film adaptation of the massively successful “Dora the Explorer” franchise when she was just 18.

In the last year alone, she’s grown into a certified action star, making waves in huge franchise entries like “Alien: Romulus,” “The Last of Us” Season 2 and “Superman.” At 24 years old, her filmography of formidable heroines, scrappy spitfires and multifaceted young women in major blockbusters has put her on a path that’s been largely inaccessible to so many of the Latino actors who came before her. It's why she also has her sights set on producing, hoping to provide more opportunities for her community in front of and behind the camera.

Yet this month, she’s turning her focus away from the screen and toward her other creative calling: music.