Sofia Pernas

From Fez to California Sets

Sofia Pernas was born in Fez in 1989, but her identity is a puzzle of Moroccan and Galician pieces. At age five she landed in the United States without knowing that speaking several languages would become her best professional tool in an industry obsessed with labels.

No one expected an Orange County model to speak four languages fluently.

Before moving into acting, she worked as a model and trained for a career in journalism. But chance put her in front of a talent agent, and that changed her priorities. In 2011 she shot Age of the Dragons alongside Danny Glover, and it was her first real taste of the pace of professional filming.

It was a purely pragmatic decision.

In 2015 she joined the cast of The Young and the Restless as Marisa Sierras. Soap operas in the United States are survival schools where actors must memorize thirty pages of script a day. Pernas kept up that pace for almost a year before looking for projects with fewer episodes but a bigger technical budget.

The jump to prime time

Her big break outside the soap opera circuit came with The Brave in 2017. She played Hannah Rivera and showed that her look fit action-ops roles. The series lasted only one season on NBC, but it got casting directors to see her as more than a face for romantic dramas.

In 2019 she signed on to star in Blood & Treasure on CBS. The role of Lexi Vaziri required her to travel halfway around the world and perform risky stunts she preferred to do herself, as long as the production company's insurance allowed it.

But the industry is fickle when it comes to renewals.

The series suffered delays due to the global health crisis, and the second season didn't premiere until 2022 on a different platform. During that gap, Pernas had to deal with the typical waiting periods of Hollywood, where an exclusivity contract can stall any progress for months.

Contracts and Script Crossovers

Her personal relationship with Justin Hartley became entangled with her professional life in 2024. She joined the series Tracker as Billie Matalon, and the ratings for that episode were among the highest of the first season. It was a marketing move that worked on screen thanks to the couple's real-life chemistry.

Pernas sees the business as a puzzle of pieces that have to fit together at exactly the right moment.

In 2024, the production of the second season of Tracker confirmed her return to explore her character's past. Filming was scheduled under strict confidentiality clauses to prevent leaks about the main plot's story arc. Her contract stipulated twelve-hour days on location in British Columbia.