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LISA
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LISA Credits ‘Always Lalisa’ Director Sue Kim For Bringing Her Story to the Screen: ‘ This Wouldn't Happen If We Didn’t Have Her’
The global K-pop star is at the centre of a new documentary, Always Lalisa, out now in cinemas worldwide. LISA tells Billboard Canada she hopes it can "inspire some of the young girls out there that have the same dream as me."
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In Always Lalisa, fans see a new side of global K-pop superstar LISA.
Since joining BLACKPINK over a decade ago, she quickly became one of the biggest K-pop stars, skyrocketing into mainstream fame along with fellow members Jisoo, Rosé and Jennie. While the group reached superstardom as a quartet, they decided to take a hiatus in late 2023.
The break led to some members fully launching their solo careers, including LISA. That’s the focus of Always Lalisa, a new documentary directed by Sue Kim. It follows the Thai singer as she starts her own label imprint, releases her debut studio album, stars in the third season of The White Lotus and prepares for her first-ever solo Coachella performance.
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It’s a lot for anyone to handle, let alone an artist of LISA’s stature — but in Always Lalisa, the singer looks back on her entire career with vulnerability and openness.
“I started to feel like it was about time to tell the world a little about my story. I felt like it could inspire some of the young girls out there that have the same dream as me,” she told Billboard Canada following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September.
From LISA’s early aspirations to be a dance teacher and her secret relationship to dealing with consistent negative comments and early controversy around rapping a slur, she addresses it all in the documentary. The singer says Kim helped her be open during production.
“She's amazing. I mean, this would not happen if we didn't have her,” she reveals. It helped that the American director and producer knew about the elaborate K-pop world, from her work on AppleTV+ series K-Pop Idols.
“Part of what was so compelling about [LISA’s] story is that this was her year away from the K-pop world,” Kim explains to Billboard Canada, detailing how careful she was when filming. “As you saw in the film, she gets a lot of hate. It could be taken as fodder for the haters, and I never wanted her to feel like that was anything that I would be willing to do.”
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She shares that her approach to filmmaking, which included making LISA feel as comfortable as possible. “I was often telling her that it’s okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to be honest, it's okay to be raw. That's what people want to see,” Kim says. “At the same time, I wanted her to feel that my goal was never to make her feel misunderstood.”
LISA confirms that she felt Kim’s protective nature, which she jokingly credits to the fact that “we're girls, she just got it.”
She continues: “Sue always made sure that I felt comfortable filming. She always asked me: ‘Are you okay with us filming right now? If you're not okay, just tell me, and we’ll leave, no worries.' Sometimes I forgot that they were filming me because it's like a cup of water or something like that. [It just shows] how much they really care about me and my space.”
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Always Lalisa is in theatres globally now.
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