13 reasons why star alisha boe on mental health and beauty
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She found her voice as Jessica Davis on 13 Reasons Why. Now Alisha Boe is using it khổng lồ fight real-life injustice.
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Alisha Boe is sitting, looking comfortable and totally at ease, on an emerald green velvet couch. Usually, for a conversation lượt thích this, I would be seated right next lớn her. We’d probably have met in some low-key — but still trendy, obviously — coffee siêu thị in L.A., which 13 Reasons Why star Boe calls home. A “Lowfit Beats to lớn Study/Relax To” playlist would be churning out ambient music, and a cold brew or two would be on the table. But these aren’t usual times. Boe is sheltering-in-place in a location she asks lớn remain between us, where she is weathering the COVID-19 pandemic with her unnamed boyfriend (they’ve chosen lớn keep his identity under wraps for reasons Boe tells me are personal). It is from here that she will watch fans devour the final 10 episodes of her controversial, but beloved Netflix YA series 13 Reasons Why, whose fourth & final season premiered on Friday, June 5.
The 23-year-old’s voice has a low, serious chất lượng that 13 Reasons Why fans have come to lớn know intimately — no Liberty High student speaks with more gravity than Boe’s Jessica Davis, a once-carefree cheerleader who becomes a firebrand feminist after surviving a rape at a party. Over the course of the relentlessly tragic drama, class president Jessica expounds on rape culture và sexism in a brutally honest, graphic way unlike any other teen character before her. But when we talk — just a handful of days before 13 Reasons’ swan tuy vậy season debuts — that voice is being used to lớn respond to the anti-racist protests that have recently commanded the cultural conversation — and will undoubtedly continue to bởi vì so moving forward.
“For a long time I was really afraid of voicing any opinion. But I think at some point, you’re just tired. You stop caring
“I’m just so tired of being a community of the unheard and pain. It’s personal because I see my father, I see my brother. Those are friends, my family,” Boe says. Boe, whose father is Somali và whose mother is Norwegian, was born in Oslo & moved lớn L.A. As a 7-year-old, when her mom, Vibeke Boe, married an American. Boe was only 19 when she was cast in 13 Reasons Why in 2016; she has a little brother, Asante, who turned 12 the day of our video chat, & will be going to lớn high school in the not too distant future. She becomes visibly emotional realizing he has six more years of schooling ahead. This feeling makes the stakes of Boe’s high-school phối show’s all the more real, something that’s coming into focus even more sharply right now. “It’s even harder lớn have a president who would rather label certain protesters as terrorists rather than a school shooter,” Boe says. “A school shooter, he would never gọi a terrorist.”
The omnipresent threat of school shootings lives in the DNA of 13 Reasons Why, a series built on the many traumas plaguing teenagers today. The toll of sexual assault, suicidal depression, & drug abuse are also the foundation of the show, which began Netflix’s era of teen show dominance. Season 4 expands on 13’s meditation on racism — which eventually leads lớn a protest that law enforcement makes violent. It is in these tumultuous moments that Jessica Davis is at the height of her oratory power. While Boe has now left Jessica behind forever, she’s taken a page out of her character’s playbook & is speaking out on everything from sex positivty lớn anti-racism lớn how to keep it together in quarantine — all while looking back on 13 Reasons Why and planning her next act.
“When I started the first season of 13, I learned so much about women’s rights — & feminism, in general — through Jessica,” Boe says. Boe scored the part of Jessica in her second phase of acting; the first came soon after her childhood move to lớn L.A. And ended as she approached adolescence. Beyond 13, she can most recently be seen in women-led features lượt thích the religious satire Yes, God, Yes with Stranger Things’ Natalia Dyer, and Diane Keaton’s geriatric cheerleading comedy, Poms. Boe admits she’s always had the performing bug, laughing about how she used torecite plays from memory for her parents when she was a kid in Oslo. She doesn’t say it, but it’s safe lớn assume that those early childhood performances didn’t include what she’s best known for now: giving rousing speeches khổng lồ large crowds & literally screaming, “Fuck the patriarchy.”
“To be able lớn stand, literally, in front of 300 people and say these words, is very, very powerful,” Boe says of her most urgent, megaphone-wielding moments. “Because what’s happening is not going khổng lồ just stop because we choose not lớn talk about it … I hope, ultimately, what fans will take away from the show is that they need khổng lồ use their voice, but also take peaceful action.”
It’s clear that fans have taken that message to lớn heart. Boe tells me about the legions of young women who have reached out with messages about how her on-screen work has inspired them lớn speak out in their own lives, whether that means reaching out to loved ones in crisis or calling out injustice. It’s no surprise that Boe has heard from impassioned viewers, as fandom is the engine that powered the multi-season success of 13 Reasons Why. While the adaptation of Jay Asher’s novel of the same name was originally expected khổng lồ air for a single season, it instead became the most Tweeted-about series of 2016, and, in its second season, doubled the viewership of Netflix’s awards show darling The Crown. It’s no coincidence that an overwhelmingly large chunk of that audience is young and identifies as women; they doubtlessly see themselves reflected in the series" unblinkingly honest narratives.
Boe gives those viewers one final, inspirational moment in the finale of 13 Reasons Why. In Jessica’s commencement speech, she urges her classmates to choose love over hate, reminding them such a decision is “life or death.” As viewers who have seen the finale know, someone extremely close lớn Jessica has recently died by the time she gives this speech. Boe, however, had no idea which character she was actually memorializing on the day of production, which came during the second week of filming season 4. The cast hadn’t even wrapped the first episode yet.
“We had to vì chưng it
The first season of13 Reasons Whybarely conveyed that Jessica would stand in front of her Liberty High classmates as an unstoppable force — or become the obvious femme lead of the drama. In 2018, Boe admitted she’d didn"t think the TV powers-that-be would cast someone who looks like her, a biracial immigrant, as the lead of a series. At the time she was chosen to play Jessica — initially a supporting character in the world of Liberty High — Boe had been limited to playing minor or guest parts in series like Teen Wolf, Ray Donovan, and Casual. In 2012, she even played the role of “Pretty Girl” in a single episode of Parenthood, which coincidentally starred Miles Heizer, who would eventually become one of Boe’s most important 13 Reasons scene partners.
Yet by the final season, Boe’s Jessica became the heart of 13 Reasons Why: a girl who not only survived the trauma of being raped by serial offender Bryce Walker (Justin Prentice), but who also found the strength to confront him in court and reclaim her own sexuality. A run of sexual exploits with on-again, off-again boyfriend Justin (Brandon Flynn), a season-long flirtation with new character Diego (Jan Luis Castellanos), and, most importantly, an empowering masturbation scene are some of Jessica’s most revolutionary moments in the latter seasons of 13 Reasons Why.
“It’s a reminder that we’re not defined by any trauma. We have the power to redefine who we want to be và how we want khổng lồ be,” Boe says of Jessica’s evolution, her hand raising in an arc as she speaks with more và more passion. “It’s also incredibly empowering as a female, because we never get lớn talk about our sexuality & how we have feelings và we want to lớn express them — especially teenagers. Female masturbation is never talked about and it happens so much.”
“I’m aware that a lot of people have an aversion to seeing a young girl or a young girl of color speaking her mind, not being quiet, and taking her sexual power. Some people really hate it & will dismiss it. They will be like, ‘She’s bitchy. She’s a know-it-all,’” Boe continues. “But most of the people who are lượt thích me or identify with me, who find power in it; you should find power nguồn in it. Because you shouldn’t have to quiet yourself down, ever, and you should never have to lớn feel lượt thích you need to say ‘I’m sorry for speaking.’ You should be absolutely fearless in this world.”
In her own life, Boe is already living this maxim. “I’ve always been very sex-positive. If anything,
Talking has become Boe’s lifeline while sheltering-in-place. She initially avoided her phone at the beginning of the pandemic, seeing it as a “stressor.” But then she started FaceTiming her friends and found joy và “reconnection” in a time of mass panic. Then, there is her boyfriend, with whom she’s been secluded since February. “Quarantining with a partner has actually been really great, as long as you have boundaries & clear communication skills,” she says with a wide smile. “It actually allows for you lớn gain more insight on your personalities when there is this specific event happening in the world, like a global pandemic, và the stressors are so high.”
Eventually, Boe will have lớn leave her quarantine location. She’s already musing on what her 13 Reasons Why-free future looks like. From 13 to Poms and Yes, God, Yes, she has played the popular girl in high school. She is more often than not a cheerleader (the extracurriculars of her God character, Nina, are unclear, save for serving as a universally liked leader at a hypocritically horny Catholic retreat).
“I’m hoping to play not-a-teenager next. We’ll see. I’m hoping lớn step into young adulthood cinematically,” Boe says. “I don’t think the next thing I want to vì chưng is be on a TV show again. For the time being, I think I want lớn try something different just to lớn see.”
While Boe says she is interested in doing plays (“That’s how you really earn your actor’s stripes, you know?” she jokes) or indie films, don’t be surprised if you see her back on TV in a very specific genre: the Shondaland masterpiece. Boe name-checks two titans of TGIT days gone by when listing her acting heroes. “I really look up to lớn Kerry Washington & Viola Davis,” she says. “Viola said once in an interview, ‘When I decided to take on this role, it’s because I wanted there khổng lồ be a dark-skinned woman as a lead of a network television show. Because that is important for the next generation of actors.’ I think that’s just incredible.”
Now that 13 Reasons Why has ended, Boe must also reckon with the legacy of her own work as Jessica Davis, the biracial girl who changed one high school forever. Although she initially laughs about the idea of making a “grand proclamation” about her character, soon her voice falls into the serious tones of Jess. “I just hope viewers ultimately take away that you really never have lớn be alone,” Boe says. “You never have to lớn go through anything alone. To reach out và speak out is always the best option.”
