Why Lisa Nova From Brand New Cherry Flavor Looks So Familiar

Netflix's horror drama limited series "Brand New Cherry Flavor" is a Lynchian fever dream set in early '90s Los Angeles. It's about an aspiring filmmaker getting supernatural revenge on a Hollywood producer who wronged her, though she might be making a deal with the devil. The series from creators Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion is based on a 1996 novel by Todd Grimson.

Here's Netflix's official description (via The Wrap): "Lisa N. Nova comes to LA dead set on directing her first movie. But when she trusts the wrong person and gets stabbed in the back, everything goes sideways and a dream project turns into a nightmare. This particular nightmare has zombies, hit men, supernatural kittens, and a mysterious tattoo artist who likes to put curses on people. And Lisa's going to have to figure out some secrets from her own past in order to get out alive."

Lisa Nova is played by a rising star who should be a familiar face to horror and dystopian action fans (although her most famous role is motion-capture, so she doesn't look quite like herself). She's Rosa Salazar, a fan-favorite live-action and voice actress. Here are some of the places you've seen her before.

One of Rosa Salazar's earliest on-screen appearances was in the first season of "American Horror Story," retroactively known as "Murder House." She appeared in four episodes of the show as Maria, a nurse who was killed along with her friend Gladys (Celia Finklestein) in the Murder House in 1968 by a serial killer named R. Franklin (Jamie Harris), who was loosely based on the real-life killer Richard Speck, according to an interview creator Ryan Murphy gave to Entertainment Weekly. In 2011, new killers tried to reenact the 1968 murders with Vivien (Connie Britton) and Violet Harman (Taissa Farmiga). Later, Maria returned as a ghost to help Dr. Montgomery (Matt Ross) deliver Vivien's twins.

It was a small role, but it foreshadowed some of what was to come in Salazar's career. She started out with a small role in a horror limited series, and now she's starring in a similar series of her own.

In 2015, Rosa Salazar played tattooed, shaved-head Dauntless warrior Lynn in "The Divergent Series: Insurgent," the second film of the dystopian sci-fi trilogy. Lynn met series main characters Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Tobias (Theo James) when they were at Candor faction's headquarters, and was knocked out when Candor was attacked. Later, she and the other Dauntless invaded the Erudite faction headquarters to rescue Tris and Tobias from Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet).

Salazar told HeyUGuys that working on the movie was a dream come true for her. "As a kid, I wanted to be an action star and jump off stuff, and, like, be cool and be a superhero, and I got to do that in this movie," she said. Little did she know she was only at the start of her career as a superhero. She was destined for stuff that was even bigger.

She didn't return for "Allegiant," the third film in the ill-fated "Divergent" franchise.

Rosa Salazar had more dystopian YA success with the "Maze Runner" franchise. She appeared in the second and third films of the trilogy, "The Scorch Trials" and "The Death Cure," as Brenda. Brenda, along with her comrade Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito), was the leader of a group of survivors who helped Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) fight the evil WCKD organization. In "The Scorch Trials," she got infected with the virus and was cured with a special enzyme. In "The Death Cure," she and her new friend Gally (Will Poulter) helped bring down WCKD once and for all.

She had a memorable scene in "The Scorch Trials" where Brenda and Thomas kissed after unknowingly ingesting hallucinogens. Salazar told Screen Rant that director Wes Ball would give her a funny note while filming the scene: act "more high."

She also said that she was apprehensive about taking on another dystopian franchise role so soon after "Divergent," but she was persuaded to do it after getting drinks with Dylan O'Brien. "I was like, 'oh my god, this guy is amazing. He's so full of energy and is hilarious and cares about this franchise from the bottom of his heart," Salazar said.

Rosa Salazar's biggest role to date was as the title character in the James Cameron-penned 2019 action hit "Alita: Battle Angel." Alita is a cyborg -– she has a human brain in a mostly mechanical body -– and she begins the film with no memory of who she is after being discovered in a scrapyard by Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) hundreds of years after she was last awake. She goes on a journey to find out her real identity and what her true purpose is.

Salazar's performance was done through motion capture, and Alita's appearance is a digitally enhanced rendering of her real body — Salazar's eyes are big, but they're not that big.

"Alita: Battle Angel" may or may not get a sequel, but if it happens, Salazar would love to star in it. "I would play Alita 'til my last breath, I would, and thanks to the performance capture technology, I probably could," she said in 2019, via Gizmodo. Unfortunately, the movie was made at Fox before the Disney merger, and it might not be a priority at the new mega-company. "The whole Disney/Fox acquisition is so involved, this isn't the right time to call Alan Horn and be like, 'Hey, bro, I know you got a lotta stuff going on, but like what about Alita 2?'" she joked.