Who Is Ciara Bravo? The Cherry Star Landed Her Breakout Role in an Unexpected Way

When Ciara was nine, she and her mother were approached by an agent at the Alexandria County Fair. According to Ciara, the agent said he loved her "look" and thought she should get into acting or modelling. "That was the first time I ever really thought that acting was a possibility," she told Celebuzz in August 2014. "I loved it and I got so excited about it! I went in to his office and I went in to a talent expo in Dallas and I met my managers and my agents. I've been auditioning in the summers and a few weeks during the school year and I haven't looked back since! Best decision I've ever made."

Ciara never had any formal acting training, and no one in her family is from the entertainment industry. Instead — like Ally in A Star Is Born — Ciara's family owns and operates Executive Transportation, a black car and limousine rental company started by Ciara's grandfather. "It was great!" she told V Magazine when asked about her experience growing up. "For family gatherings, everyone would pull up in their black Cadillacs. We looked like a mob convention!"

Believe it or not, Ciara never met the Russo brothers in person before booking her biggest role yet in Cherry. Instead, she made a self-tape audition with the help of a friend and sent it off on a whim, never believing she would actually get the role. "I saw the breakdown and the names attached and I was like, 'Oh, this is so out of my league. There's no way I'm getting this project,'" she explained to The Playlist in February 2021. "But I fell head over heels in love with the sides. And knew I wanted to put my all into it."

After sending off the audition tape, Ciara did her best to put it out of her mind, "just to protect [her] own sanity." Then she got a call from her agent. As she told The Playlist, "He was like, 'I don't know if you had some sort of intuition or like what was going on, but you just booked Cherry opposite Tom Holland.' And I was truly left speechless. I thought he had called the wrong number."