Ozark’s Sofia Hublitz on Being Charlotte Byrde, and Being Herself

It’s a simple question posed by Ozark’s Charlotte Byrde, played by newcomer Sofia Hublitz

“What’s really going on, mom?”

who stars alongside her fictional parents Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney), brother Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), and neighbor Ruth (Julia Garner)

early on in the first season of the Netflix original series.

Viewers of the crime drama, which recently released the last seven episodes of its fourth and final season after becoming one of the most popular shows in the U.S.,

know that very question would unfurl a seemingly never-ending answer: her white-collar parents were “laundering money for a Mexican drug cartel. I shit you not,” as her mother so eloquently divulges.

The line immediately hints at Charlotte’s grounded, mature nature as she accepts her fate of moving from Chicago to Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks—high school ego and tinglings of a young woman in tow.

First airing in 2017, the debut season of Ozark sets the eldest Byrde sibling at the tender age of 15—with Hublitz herself just a few years older in real life.

Five years later (with breaks in filming due to the Covid-19 pandemic) and Hublitz’s character’s growth mirrors her own coming-of-age experience—money laundering, FBI investigations, and cartels excluded.

“I spent my later adolescent years on a movie set. And when you’re having difficult times in your life,

you have to learn not to bring that to work,” the breakout actress explains ahead of the finale’s part-two release.

Whereas their similarities show up through age, being exposed to life-changing experiences, and general teen angst, their differences come through in personality.

“I hope people see and can relate to this portrait of maturity that Charlotte’s been through over the years,” she adds. “Because I feel that with myself.”

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