Liza Soberano says 'call me Hope' was misunderstood: 'I still want to be known as Liza’

Liza Soberano said that she's surprised that people call her "Hope" in public instead of her stage name.

"It's actually very surprising to me because now, when I go out, people call me Hope. I've been to concerts and stuff and people would scream ‘Hope! Hope!’ I love my name and everything, but now I was like, 'Oh my god, I was so misunderstood,'" Liza said in a recent interview with Esquire.

She added that people even comment on her Instagram account asking her why her name is still Liza.

"Like, this is not what I want. I still want to be known as Liza," the actress set the record straight.

The My Ex and Whys star explained how she felt her name Hope was "one of the biggest things that got misconstrued" since her controversial vlog in late February, where she discussed how she truly felt about her career in general. In the YouTube video dubbed "This is Me," she said: "I know this was for my own good. It was to protect me and my career. But it was a career I had no say in. A career that in many ways wasn't mine. I didn't even choose the name Liza. It was chosen for me."

“When I brought that up in my vlog, I was like, the name Liza wasn't a name that I chose for myself. I wasn't saying that I didn't like it. I was just stating a fact. A lot of people don't know that I didn't choose that name," she clarified.

The local star also cited her video advertisement with a digital payments company as a possible reason behind the confusion. In the commercial, Liza said, "Please, call me..." at which point the video cut to a title card that read "HOPE" before then transitioning to "HOPE presents LIZA."

“I feel like that kind of doubled down on that narrative," she said, "but that's not what I meant."

"We were trying to be kind of meta with it—when I'm an actress, when you know I'm a public figure, I'm Liza. And then there’s when I'm just being me or when I'm working on personal stuff or even like when I'm producing, directing, because I'm not the star. So, I was kind of trying to show people that there are two sides of me: there's Liza and there's Hope," she continued.

On feeling 'outcasted' after controversy

Liza has polarized Filipinos with her recent career moves after signing with James Reid's record label Careless last year. These included netizens and the likes of Ogie Diaz and other Kapamilya executives who felt "betrayed" by her "ungrateful" words regarding her screen name, limited genres, love team setup, and recurring directors, among others

The actress opened up about that "very stressful time" recently when she received monthlong negative attention, which forced her to leave the Philippines.

"Honestly, I didn't imagine that things would turn out the way it did at the time, and honestly, that period was a very stressful time for me because I felt very misunderstood," Liza said in the same interview.

This led her to retreat abroad to find herself: "And so, all I did then was I got away from the country. I came back here to the US to spend time with my family, and just kind of reconnect with myself."

Liza sought to align herself with her purpose, mission, career, and her life in general.

"I felt in a way, more or less, like, I didn't belong anywhere. I felt like I was being outcasted," the Alone/Together star confessed.

While admitting that she was "sad" about the way things turned out, the former Kapamilya star found "Hope" in her experience.

"But like, it's also a learning lesson, you know, everything that happened, happened for a reason and there was some bad but there was also some good and I'm just going to take everything that I learned from that and kind of become better," Liza concluded.

Liza has been fulfilling work commitments in the Philippines and the United States since last year. She previously revealed she’s looking to make waves in the international scene as an actress. Her first Hollywood movie project titled Lisa Frankenstein was announced in August 2022.