Isabela Merced premieres the music video of her sexy holiday single 'Cuffing Season' [Exclusive]

This was one of my first sessions with my producer Phil Simmonds. I was in a situation at the time, or I was sort of knowingly falling into a situation with somebody that I knew wasn’t gonna go anywhere. And I was talking to my friend about it and she was like, ‘Well, it’s cuffing season.’ And I was like, ‘You know what? You’re absolutely right. Why am I feeling guilty about this when, when the weather gets cold, we just want somebody to cuddle and bring to Christmas dinners and Friendsgivings? (laughs).'

I think it's becoming more of a prominent thing, you know, that five-month fever that starts in November and ends around Valentine’s Day. I wanted to be self-aware in my writing and admit my human tendency to be a hypocrite in a lyrical format, with cute melodies. 

I pictured myself the whole time singing it at a dive bar as if I were a jazz singer. That was the mental picture I created that allowed me to write this in a short span of time. The music video ended up depicting the vision that I had in my head. 

And I actually ended up playing this song for the person that it was about! I didn’t know what their reaction would be. I just wanted to see what they thought and they actually really liked it (laughs). Either they didn’t know the song was about them or they didn’t care. Sometimes it’s nice to know that you’re trying to find someone to be less lonely with and the other person agrees. 

I wanted to get this out as quickly as possible. My manager texted me like, ‘Hey, do you wanna release a song?’ And I was like, ‘You know what? Yeah.’ I'm a little scared to have this much freedom because I'm no longer with a label. That much freedom scared me, which is funny. So I was like, ‘Yeah, you know what, let's soft launch with a good holiday song,’ because I tend to release songs around the holidays for the past few years.

It took like two days to plan this whole video and we had a much lower budget than I was used to before. My co-director came in so clutch with his team and he was like ‘What do you want?’. And I told him my vision, showed him my inspiration pictures. I consulted with my film friends, because being in the film world, I wanted this to be high quality. I pulled a lot of strings and used a lot of relationships that I've built and cultivated.

I wanted to play with shadows because in black and white it's harder to keep people's interest. We had to be clever with that. So I referenced a lot of film noir to emphasize light and take the viewer’s eye where it needs to go instead of presenting something overstimulating. The simplicity allowed me to stay within budget.

I think my relationship with music has changed and so has my relationship with acting, but it's truly about loving them both and committing to one being more of a job and the other being more of a hobby. Because I don't wanna… I don't wanna keep the cyclical trend of having two jobs, because that's what my parents did. I don't wanna be hustling that hard. I saw how much that stressed them out, and I want to be easier on myself and every day I'm trying. 

For me now, music has turned into something that I want to be fun and not that serious. I didn't study music. I didn't go anywhere professionally to figure it out. I've just been figuring it out and doing it when I feel like it. And it's been really rewarding because, as an actor, you don't get that much creative freedom. And now I got to practice my directing skills as well, and my producing skills with this music video, because I had a vision. I had a team and we all executed it and I'm really proud of it. And for this to be my first solo endeavor is really exciting. I want the world to see it so that they can witness how much I’ve progressed.

I've never… I keep saying I haven’t been a part of something like this, but I’m constantly reminded that “Alien” had a huge fan base and those people really welcomed “Romulus” as their own. They welcomed it into the “Alien” world with open arms. It’s been really cool.

I got to feel some of the energy of the core audience at the Game Awards last night. I was with Naughty Dog [the developers of ‘The Last of Us’ video game] and Shannon Woodward, who played the original Dina [the character that Merced is now playing in the series]. It was very cool to be there when they presented their new game, and the energy was awesome. 

I'm looking forward to expanding my music-making abilities and perhaps releasing more. Another goal I have is probably to just keep my head on straight and handle everything that's coming up with grace.