Isabella Pappas

Isabella Noemi Pappas (born 21 August 2002) is an Olivier Award nominated British-Italian actress based in London. She began her career on the London stage, earning Laurence Olivier and WhatsOnStage Award nominations. On television, she is known for her roles in the ITV series Finding Alice (2021) and the Disney Channel series The Villains of Valley View (2022–present).

Early life
Pappas was born in northern Italy and spent her early childhood on a farm. Her father is a pilot, and her mother is an American autism specialist. She also has French and Greek heritage. Pappas attended an international school and lived in Japan for two years for her mother's work.

The family settled in Chiswick, West London when Pappas was 11. She attended Sylvia Young Theatre School and later Arts Educational School (ArtsEd) for sixth form, studying Drama and English Literature. She also took classes at the British Theatre Academy and participated in Michael Xavier's MX Masterclass.

Career
Upon moving to the city at 11 years old, Pappas made her London stage debut in the 2014 production of The Nether at the Royal Court Theatre in the role of Iris, which she shared with Zoe Brough. The production moved to the Duke of York's Theatre on the West End in 2015. Pappas, Brough, Adler, and Hibbins were jointly nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards for their performances.

Pappas then starred as the titular Annie! on the show's 2015 tour around the UK. She made her television debut as Sarah Waingrow in the 2016 ITV crime drama miniseries Paranoid. She played Nina in the Stockwell Playhouse production of In the Heights in 2017. This was followed in 2018 by roles in 13 at Porthcurno's Minack Theatre, the Theatre Royal Stratford East's Terror at The Sweetshop, and Bring It On: The Musical at Southwark Playhouse.

For her performance as Cassidy Kramer-Lafayette in the 2019 run of the play Appropriate at the Donmar Warehouse, Pappas was nominated for the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Play. She returned to television with guest appearances in the CBBC musical Almost Never in 2019 and the Channel 4 comedy-drama Home in 2020.

Pappas landed her first main television role as Charlotte Walsh, the daughter of Keeley Hawes' titular character, in the 2021 ITV comedy-drama Finding Alice.

She was then cast in a Disney pilot (working titles included Amy from Amarillo and Meet the Mayhems), which became The Villains of Valley View and premiered in 2022 on Disney Channel and Disney+.

In 2023, Pappas was cast as Joyce Maldonado (later Byers) in the Stranger Things prequel stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which will premiere on 17 November 2023 at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Pappas also played the first victim of Jimmy Savile in an episode of the BBC One miniseries The Reckoning. She has a role in the upcoming film Beach Boys.