(Photo credit: Sony Music Vision)
When Lisa took a step away from Blackpink to focus on her solo career, it was an opportunity to show more diverse sides of herself.
“When I was in Korea, I had only worked with one producer for many years,” Lisa says in Always Lalisa, a new documentary chronicling her year as a solo artist.
“But, for the first time, I had to find producers and songwriters on my own outside Korea. I was kind of out of my comfort zone.”
Lisa’s drive to explore new sides to her artistry was what drew director Sue Kim to take on the role of capturing the Blackpink star’s story.
“I understood what a year away from K-pop meant,” said Kim over Zoom, two weeks after the world premiere of Always Lalisa at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“For me, that meant Lisa was about to have a year where she was going to be given more freedom to express herself, more freedom to experiment creatively and maybe define an artistic path forward that could be different from who she was in Blackpink.”
Always Lalisa releases worldwide in theatres and IMAX on October 12. The documentary follows Lisa as she records her debut album Alter Ego, pursues her first acting role in The White Lotus, and prepares for a big performance at 2025’s Coachella Festival.
It also digs deeper into Lisa’s life in Thailand, showing the 29-year-old hanging out with childhood friends and her close relationship with her parents. Lisa also gets vulnerable, opening up about Nok, the late dance teacher who helped shape her into the artist she is today.
Kim says she was first approached to direct a film about Lisa by Sony Music Vision. While the director says she is “not the biggest K-pop aficionado”, jumping into telling this story was familiar territory for her. In 2024, Kim had already worked on the Apple+TV docuseries K-Pop Idols. She had also followed Blackpink’s trajectory over the years into becoming the world’s biggest girl group.
“I’ve always loved how strong they show up as women, especially in K-pop,” Kim said. “They really kind of solidified that girl crush, strong women, empowered aesthetic which I really liked. And so, I knew Lisa was a really beloved member of Blackpink.”
(Photo credit: Sony Music Vision)
Kim says they first met backstage two years ago on the set of Hot Ones, where Lisa was being her “bubbly, cute, charming self” while eating spicy chicken wings.
“I was very struck at first by how down to earth she really was,” Kim said of Lisa. “There’s this really genuine sweet Thai girl inside her that hasn’t changed despite all the success.”
But at the same time, Kim says Lisa didn’t really understand why anyone would find her journey interesting and was initially hesitant about becoming a documentary subject.
“I told her I don’t know what your story is going to be. I don’t create a preconceived story. You never have to act. I’m just going to cover your life observationally, and things are going to kind of bubble to the surface.”
From there, Lisa agreed.
“I think she understood I wasn’t trying to create a narrative for her. I wanted her truest self to come forward and tell us what that story was.”
While Always Lalisa documents many of Lisa’s achievements and highlights her starpower, it also doesn’t attempt to sanitize the singer’s image. She opens up about her dating life, discussing the stigma K-pop idols face for making relationships public.
“I didn’t want my dating to be the thing to hurt Blackpink’s popularity. So if a relationship was going to be a big problem, I would just end it,” Lisa says in the film. “But when I turned 25, 26, I realized it’s not normal to hide dating. This is not normal to live your life.”
(Photo credit: @lalalalisa_m/Instagram)
Lisa also addresses the leaked YG trainee videos that came out days ahead of her Coachella performance. In those clips, she is seen performing rap covers with the n-word. News of the leaks quickly spread online, drawing lots of criticism towards Lisa. In the film, Lisa says she was a teenager in a foreign country who didn’t initially understand the word is hurtful to many.
“I feel bad why I did that,” she said. “Now I got [educated] on that. Now, I know better. I did wrong.”
In order to get Lisa to open up about the YG leaks, Kim says it was all about building trust with her. She included Lisa in the decision-making of telling her story throughout the filmmaking process, and would often check in with the singer if they were discussing topics she might get flak for.
“I really feel like you should talk about what you are going through,” Kim remembers telling Lisa the day the YG Leaks became public.
“Anybody put in your situation would be having a really hard time with this emotionally and psychologically. But at least if you talk to us about what you’re thinking and feeling, we can feel that with you.”
Lisa agreed, and immediately jumped on a couch and proceeded to talk for an hour as if she were laying on a therapist’s couch.
“We were only able to accomplish that between the two of us because we built baby steps towards it, always checking in. And if she’s not feeling good, she could always talk to me about it.”
(Photo credit: @lalalalisa_m/Instagram)
In Toronto, Lisa was nervous to reveal this vulnerable side of her in front of a theatre of 2,600 fans.
“I feel naked, you guys just saw everything!” Lisa said during a post-film Q&A, thanking fans for watching the film with her.
“I think Lisa has this wonderful quality about her, where she kind of accepts things as they are really easily. She really doesn’t overthink,” Kim said.
Over the course of filming, Kim says she saw Lisa grow as an artist and become more confident to own the stage by herself.
“I really saw her in the beginning of filming as someone that had a lot of indecision about where to go, what to do,” she said.
“I saw someone a little bit afraid to take up space, and by the end of the film, she has fully taken up all the space. She claimed the stage as hers.”
Perhaps the scene that most showcases Lisa at her most carefree is the time she is seen bowling with her friends. Kim says this is her favourite part of the documentary.
“It was the most carefree and unencumbered I had seen her throughout the entire year of filming. She’s finally able to see friends, have bowling nights and be silly,” Kim said.
“That crystallized the point of this film and the point of her journey. She was really getting to expand herself into the person and the life that she wanted.”
Always Lalisa comes out in theatres and IMAX worldwide on October 12.
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