In ‘Always Lalisa,’ K-pop superstar Lisa comes of age and embarks on a new career in acting

TORONTO (AP) — Even people unfamiliar with the K-pop superstar Lisa, of the group Blackpink, have probably experienced her global sway.

In the spring of 2024, the Thai singer and rapper was photographed with a strange little plush monster hanging from her handbag, grinning with serrated teeth. That was all it took for the Labubu craze to be born.

“I’m sorry!” Lisa says. “But I can’t help it. It’s really cute. We’re kids!”

It’s the morning after the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of “Always Lalisa,” a Sony Music Vision documentary opening for a limited engagement in theaters Oct. 12 before streaming on YouTube Premium.

Director Sue Kim follows Lisa, whose real name is Lalisa Manobal, through a pivotal year as she launches her first solo album, 2025’s “Alter Ego,” forms her own management company, plays Coachella, sings at the Oscars and makes her acting debut in “The White Lotus.”

The film also portrays a surreal evolution for Lisa, who was already in her mid-20s and one of the most famous faces in the world as the film begins. After years of strict management of her image under the South Korean label YG Entertainment that governed everything from her driving to her dating, it shows Lisa relishing a newfound independence.

“I learned so much on my own. I tried things that I never had a chance to try. It was challenging, but I’m just so proud of myself,” says Lisa, now 29. “Finding my voice, yes, and finding confidence. I’ve been with Blackpink for almost 10 years. Then I wanted to do my own solo project, but I wasn’t confident and I didn’t know where to start.”

Lisa seems typically bubbly and bright during an AP interview — “I have my chips and my matcha latte. I’m good” — but she's still shaking off some of the nerves of debuting the documentary. It’s easily the most intimate look yet into her life — her parents appear in it — and the full-life exposure is new for her. “It’s embarrassing when I see the footage when I was little and dancing,” she says, laughing and shaking her head.

Kim, a veteran documentarian and Detroit native raised by Korean immigrants, has spent enough time in the K-pop world to understand it. She produced the Apple TV series “K-pop Idols,” which documented the rigorous training of K-pop hopefuls. But Kim, who also directed 2024’s “The Last of the Sea Women,” has an outsider’s perspective on some of K-pop's unique pressures.

“For us, it’s sort of inconceivable that you’d be mad at an entertainer for having a romantic relationship or driving,” Kim says. “Don’t you want them to get places?”

Filming Lisa, she thought, would be a chance to show “a delayed coming of age.”

“I knew that we’d see her testing her boundaries, figuring out who she is, figuring out where she wants to take her life and her career, and also kind of figuring out what works for her as a human,” says Kim. “I loved the idea that we would be able to witness that with her as she was experiencing it.”

At just 13, Lisa became the first non-Korean trainee at YG, beating out thousands of hopefuls. She spent her next years singing, dancing and learning Korean while abiding by the restrictions: No dating, no drinking, no driver’s license. Since Blackpink's debut in 2016, the girl group quartet has accounted for more than 20 million records sold worldwide and more than 40 billion streams.

“I’m grateful for everything. I trained for five years. It’s like a boarding school. You go into school, sleep in a dorm with girls who have the same dream as you, and it’s fun,” Lisa says.

“Always Lalisa” chronicles some of Lisa’s growing pains. Uncertain how to present herself as a solo artist, she decides to showcase numerous identities on “Alter Ego,” to mixed reviews. Pitchfork called it “the generic embodiment of a pop star.” Global fame has also meant intense security: When Lisa wore a black-lace bodysuit to the 2025 Met Gala, online critics claimed incorrectly that Rosa Parks’ face was on her tights.

But in person, Lisa tends to win people over. Her Coachella set was mostly celebrated, as was her performance last month at the MTV VMAs. As a solo act, she’s thrived.

“If I want to do something, I just do it,” she says. “I don’t have to ask for permission or anything. If I have an idea, we make it happen. It’s fun to do whatever you want to do. Like, no limits.”

That’s also increasingly meant acting. For the Thailand-set third season of Mike White's HBO series “The White Lotus,” Lisa played Mook, the resort staffer whose flirty scenes with a security guard (Tayme Thapthimthong) reverberate across the plot and themes.

“I’ve been dancing and singing since I was little. But I feel like acting is something new to me,” Lisa says. “It’s just crazy that I got the role. I have to thank Mike White that he saw something in me. I’m so blessed to be in that show.”

White, the series creator, was likewise skeptical at first. In the documentary, he says he initially rejected the idea of a K-pop star as stunt casting. But then he met her.

“Mike White and I had the same takeaway,” Kim says. “She is so improbably this pure, sweet person that exists in this rarefied world that can be so harsh and scary to be yourself. There’s something so innocent about her, and it’s who she really is. I know so many fans of her feel so protective of her: ‘Protect Lisa at all costs!’ I kind of get it. I feel that way about her, too.”

Lisa stars next in a “Notting Hill”-inspired romantic comedy for Netflix, penned by Katie Silberman (“Set it Up”). Also for Netflix, she co-stars in the upcoming South Korean action thriller “Tygo,” by director Lee Sang-yong. “I’m super open to everything,” she says.

“I love ‘Notting Hill,' I love,” Lisa adds. “I’m not that picky. I can watch animation. I love a Disney movie. Horror movies, I’m not a big fan of. Because I’m a kid.”

Lisa poses for a portrait to promote "Always Lalisa," during the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Toronto. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Lisa poses for a portrait to promote "Always Lalisa," during the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, in Toronto. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Curtis Flowers, a Black man who spent more than 22 years in prison and was on death row in Mississippi before the U.S. Supreme Court threw out his conviction and death sentence, has died. He was 56.

Flowers' family confirmed that he died Wednesday at his home in Mississippi, attorney Rob McDuff told The Associated Press Thursday.

No cause of death was given, said McDuff, who was part of Flowers' legal team.

Flowers was 26 when he was arrested several months after the July 1996 shooting deaths of four people inside a Winona, Mississippi, furniture store.

At the time, prosecutors described him as a disgruntled former employee who sought revenge against the store’s owner because she fired him and withheld most of his pay to cover the cost of merchandise he damaged. Nearly $300 was found missing after the killings.

Flowers was tried in the killings six times. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the high court's 7-2 decision in 2019 that the removal of Black prospective jurors deprived Flowers of a fair trial.

During the sixth trial in 2010, Flowers was sentenced to death. There were 11 white jurors and one Black juror who considered the case after District Attorney Doug Evans struck five Black prospective jurors.

Flowers remained in prison for six months after the Supreme Court ruling because he was still under indictment. He finally was released in December 2019 after a judge set bond.

Mississippi dropped charges against Flowers in September 2020.

“Today, I am finally free from the injustice that left me locked in a box for nearly twenty three years,” Flowers said in a statement. “I’ve been asked if I ever thought this day would come. I have been blessed with a family that never gave up on me and with them by my side, I knew it would.”

The legal team that represented Flowers for more than two decades said Thursday in a statement that each member feels “privileged to have called him a client.”

“Later, in the years after his release and exoneration, we felt equally honored to call him a friend,” the legal team said. “No matter where he was — on death row, at home on his parents’ porch with his feet up, singing in church, or fishing in a local pond — Curtis shared his light.”

The trials stretched back more than 20 years. The records showed Evans’ “relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals,” with the goal of an all-white jury, Kavanaugh wrote.

In the earlier trials, three convictions were tossed out, including one when the prosecutor improperly excluded African Americans from the jury. In the second trial, the judge chided Evans for striking a juror based on race. Two other trials ended when jurors couldn’t reach unanimous verdicts.

Kavanaugh noted that Evans had removed 41 of the 42 prospective Black jurors over the six trials.

Flowers filed a lawsuit in 2021 against Evans and three investigators who worked with the district attorney. The suit claimed Evans and the investigators engaged in misconduct, including “pressuring witnesses to fabricate claims about seeing Mr. Flowers in particular locations on the day of the murders” and ignoring other possible suspects.

Earlier that year, a judge ordered the state of Mississippi to pay Flowers $500,000 for wrongful imprisonment — the maximum under a state law that allows up to $50,000 a year for 10 years.

Evans retired in 2023 after more than 30 years as district attorney. His jury selection tactics had been scrutinized for years.

Flowers' name is “etched into U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence — about what it means to fight for a fair trial free from racial bias in the selection of jurors,” Flowers' legal team said. “And also for that, but for so many other reasons, his name is etched into our memories, too — professional and personal. We will miss him.”

Williams is a member of AP's Race & Ethnicity team. He reported from Detroit.

FILE - Curtis Flowers, flanked by sister Priscilla Ward, right, exits the Winston Choctaw Regional Correctional Facility in Louisville, Miss., on Monday, Dec. 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

FILE - Defendant Curtis Flowers, center, stands with his attorneys Henderson Hill, left, and Rob McDuff at his bail hearing in Winona, Miss., Monday, Dec. 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

FILE - Curtis Flowers speaks with reporters as he exits the Winston-Choctaw Regional Correctional Facility in Louisville, Miss., Monday, Dec. 16, 2019. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)