Star Trek: Picard Actor On Making Soji Different From Data & Playing Multiple Roles

Summary

• Isa Briones reveals that she had to differentiate between her multiple characters on Star Trek: Picard and was not given detailed directions on how to make each character distinct.
• Briones incorporated Data-like mannerisms for her character Soji, such as his head tilt, and Brent Spiner (who played Data) helped her by demonstrating his mannerisms.
• Briones was instructed not to copy Data but to have the legacy of the character within her, allowing her to create different characters like Dahj and Sutra, who were both distinct from Soji.

Star Trek: Picard seasons 1 and 2 tasked Isa Briones with the challenge of playing multiple roles, and she explains the process of differentiating her characters. Briones was introduced as Dahj, a synthetic whose murder spurred Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) into action in season 1. Picard's mission became to protect Dahj's twin sister, Dr. Soji Asha, from Romulan assassins. Briones then played other synthetics like the golden-skinned villain Sutra and Jana. In Picard season 2, Briones played Kore Soong, the daughter of evil 21st century geneticist Dr. Adam Soong (Brent Spiner), who was revealed to be a clone.
Speaking to Bleeding Cool about her new hit Disney+ and Hulu series Goosebumps, Isa Briones was asked about her multiple Star Trek: Picard roles, and whether the showrunners gave her directions on how to make each character distinct, especially with regard to Soji being Data's (Brent Spiner) android daughter. Read her response below:

It was up to me to create these characters and make them different. I wasn't totally coached through exactly what it should be, but one thing I do know is that for Soji, in the beginning, we made sure to add in Data-like mannerisms like his head tilt was the one thing that we had talked about beforehand. When I met Brent [Spiner], I was talking to him about it, and he was helping me. He would demonstrate what he did. I would watch all of those and try to mimic what he was doing.
Other than that, it was because they made sure they were like, "You're not supposed to be Data. You're not supposed to be copying him in any way, but more having and knowing the legacy of him and having that within you." Having that basis then allowed me to create a bunch of different characters that were all different enough that I also felt like Dahj and Soji were so different. You also don't see a lot of Dahj but assume if you're playing two characters, that makes them so wildly different, but at the end of the day, these characters. Sisters have a lot of similarities, and they also have a lot of differences; you can play the nuance of that, but Sutra was fun to play because she could feel so different from Soji and Dahj.