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YOng Chavez

Yong Chavez

ABS-CBN News North America

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1777622228289Your_Friends_Neighbors_Photo_010501.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Lena Hall in &#x27;Your Friends &amp; Neighbors.&#x27; Apple TV</div>Lena Hall spent our conversation moving between worlds with striking ease. On the computer screen, she was a picture of good vibes in a bright green top. The “Your Friends &amp; Neighbors” star was laughing one moment and tracing family history the next, talking about emotional fragility in a television character before pivoting to an upcoming album of pure “bops.” Rather than feeling abrupt, the shifts painted the portrait of a multi-talented artist constantly challenging herself.Before we discussed “Your Friends &amp; Neighbors,” we talked about a name.She was born Celina Consuela Gabriella Carvajal, a name she recited with delight because of its history. Her Filipino roots remain a source of pride, fascination, and unfinished questions. She spoke of relatives tied to Philippine entertainment, including Monang Carvajal, a movie actress known for horror films, and veteran actress Alma Concepcion, whom Hall later connected with on Instagram after suspecting they were family. There was laughter in the telling, along with something more searching.“I’ve never been to the Philippines,” she said, “I’m dying to go, and I’m dying to do a deep dive on that side of my family.” Although she has spoken about her Swedish-Filipino father before, this is her first-ever interview with a Filipino journalist from a Filipino outlet.For Hall, ancestry seems to exist in fragments that she is looking forward to connecting. She knows stories of immigration, of relatives who came to San Francisco, of names that changed and branches that scattered. She also knows that parts of the record go dark. On one side of her family, histories can be traced back with precision. On her dad’s Filipino side, she said, “there’s a blockage” in the availability of information. It is a familiar feeling for many descendants of diaspora, for whom lineage can feel deeply present but also somehow incomplete.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1777622132648Your_Friends__Neighbors_010207.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Lena Hall with John Hamm in &#x27;Your Friends &amp; Neighbors.&#x27; Apple TV</div>She spoke about that heritage with affection and humor, especially when the subject turned to music. Hall credited her Filipino family line for much of the artistry in her blood and joked that despite winning a Tony Award, she still would not be the best singer in a karaoke room in Manila. “Being Filipino, that&#x27;s where all the talent comes from. I&#x27;m a singer, and people are like, &#x27;Oh, of course, you&#x27;re Filipino. That makes sense,’” she laughed.Even her professional identity reflects a layered inheritance. Hall explained that generations ago, an ancestor changed the family name from Garcia to Carvajal as a stage name. Learning that history reshaped how she thought about changing her own name from Celina Carvajal to Lena Hall. She was Celina Carvajal when she booked “Sex and the City” and “All My Children” as a young actress. That sense of identity as something evolving runs through her career. Hall’s performances have often carried intensity and edge, yet she speaks with the curiosity of someone still excitedly discovering what she wants to express. She won a Tony Award for 2014’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” a role that demanded stamina, vulnerability, and fearlessness. Even now, she says she is less interested in status than in challenge.“Everything that I do, I want to find something that’s really going to push me to the edge of my limits,” she said.<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1777622073608Your_Friends_Neighbors_Photo_010106.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Lena Hall with John Hamm in &#x27;Your Friends &amp; Neighbors.&#x27; Apple TVThat appetite for growth helps explain her turn in “Your Friends &amp; Neighbors,” where she plays Ali Cooper, an artist living with bipolar disorder and navigating a complicated bond with her brother, played by Jon Hamm. Hall discussed the role with care, conscious of how easily mental illness can be flattened into cliché.</div>“It’s very sensitive,” she said. “I need to make sure that I’m not playing a caricature of mental illness.” She wanted Ali to register first as a person with the same desires, frustrations, and everyday struggles as anyone else.That same sensitivity shapes the sibling relationship at the center of the show. Hall, herself a younger sister, immediately recognized the rhythms between Ali and her brother: protectiveness, irritation, dependence, devotion. In the new season, those feelings grow more complicated as Ali pushes for independence while her brother’s love becomes increasingly restrictive.“Ali, this season, is really trying to find her independence,” Hall said. “He’s really trying to protect her from herself and the world, but at the same time, he’s also limiting her from growing and going off on her own.”It is one of the show’s most resonant ideas: the possibility that love can shelter and suffocate in the same gesture.Music gives Hall another avenue into Ali’s inner life. Whenever the character sings, the show reveals a different emotional register. The actress-singer said Ali’s musical sensibility is far from her own. “There’s more of an innocence within her singing,” Hall said. “It’s very connected emotionally to what she’s saying and what’s going on in her life.”<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1777622197371Your_Friends_Neighbors_Photo_010403.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/>Lena Hall in &#x27;Your Friends &amp; Neighbors.&#x27; Apple TV Off-screen, Hall is embracing a similar swing in her own music. She recently released “Lullabies for the End of the World,” an album she described as dark and internal. Now she is heading somewhere brighter, toward confidence and movement. Her next project, she said, is called “It’s a Bop.”</div>“It’s just gonna be all bops,” she said, smiling widely. “To run to, to smile, to walk down the street, feeling confident.”That pivot feels emblematic of Hall herself. She can speak candidly about identity and mental health, then light up at the thought of making songs that energize strangers on the sidewalk. Some performers cultivate consistency above all else, and Hall seems more interested in expanding and holding both gravity and joy in the same hand.But other than that, she has a side quest: finding her relatives in the Philippines. We ended our interview with a shoutout to the relatives she would like to meet one day.“Hi, everybody in the Philippines. My name is Lena Hall, and I&#x27;m very excited to explore my Filipino roots. They&#x27;re deep. And if anybody knows my family, you know, reach out on Instagram. I really want to find out. I&#x27;m so excited, and maybe one day, I can come to the Philippines and try to keep up with you guys at karaoke. I know you guys will sing me under the table.&quot;

In this interview, the Tony-winning performer opens up about portraying mental health with care in “Your Friends &amp; Neighbors,” chasing artistic risk, and reconnecting with her Filipino roots — one family story, and maybe one karaoke session, at a time.

In this interview, the Tony-winning performer opens up about portraying mental health with care in “Your Friends & Neighbors,” chasing artistic risk, and reconnecting with her Filipino roots — one family story, and maybe one karaoke session, at a time.

Here in Hollywood: Tony winner Lena Hall is looking for her Filipino relatives

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Here in Hollywood: Tony winner Lena Hall is looking for her Filipino relatives

Yong Chavez,

ABS-CBN News North America

Published May 01, 2026 04:53 PM PHT

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Lena Hall

Yong Chavez

Here in Hollywood

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