Ciara Bravo’s life is nothing like the movie A Star Is Born. Well, almost nothing. For one, she is on the cusp of stardom, thanks to a forthcoming lead role in the timely opioid drama Cherry, opposite Tom Holland. Also worth noting is the fact that her family back home, like in the movie, runs a limo service. Though the service-industry profession signifies Ally’s 20-feet-from-fame status, for Bravo, it was a point of pride. “It was great!” she says. “For family gatherings, everyone would pull up in their black Cadillacs. We looked like a mob convention!” If her family’s limo biz was something of a curiosity, so was Bravo’s acting career. Early on, a role in a Natasha Bedingfield music video led to a day of awkward classroom reckoning. “It was the first thing that I had ever done,” Bravo recalls. “When I went back to school, my teacher had found [the video] online. She played it on a big screen for my whole English class, and paused it on my face!”

As the lead in Cherry, sure to be one of this year’s most trenchant romances, Bravo’s child-actor phase is officially behind her. By now, she’s learned to embrace the growing pains—awkward moments and all. “When I [auditioned], I thought, There is absolutely no way I am booking this,” she says of the film, which follows an army medic-turned-bank robber. “I put my heart and soul into it, and moved on. So when I got a text a couple weeks later, like, ‘Are you available to talk…?’ I thought my agent was about to fire me!”