Tyra Banks reveals Francia Raisa as her costar, more Life-Size 2 plot details

Never say no to learning — especially when Tyra Banks is teaching a lesson in how to drop a major announcement about Life-Size 2.

After hinting Sunday via Twitter that a significant development regarding the long-gestating TV movie sequel was imminent, the supermodel-turned-actress revealed Monday afternoon that the movie, premiering this winter on Freeform, is already filming, and that Francia Raisa is her costar.

“Now filming: LIFE SIZE 2,” the model, businesswoman, and TV host said on Twitter. “It’s time y’all! You’ve waited long enough. Could not find one single woman more perfect to co-star with Eve than the magnificently fierce @franciaraisa.”

Raisa is likely familiar to Freeform audiences; the actress costars on the network’s Black-ish spin-off Grown-ish as Ana. She has also appeared in Netflix’s Dear White People and in the 2009 comedy Fired Up!

In Life-Size 2, Raisa plays Grace Manning, “the confident and funny CEO of Marathon Toys, a huge toy company started by her mother that is most famous for manufacturing the iconic Eve doll,” per a press release. The movie’s synopsis describes Grace as “a hot mess in the middle of her quarter-life crisis” whose “wild-child ways are causing the company’s stock to plummet.” Also joining the cast alongside Raisa and Banks are Gavin Stenhouse as Grace’s love interest, Calum; Shanica Knowles and Hank Chen as Grace’s friends Tahlia and Brendan; and Alison Fernandez as Lex, Grace’s young neighbor.

Banks led the original film, which premiered 18 years ago as part of ABC’s The Wonderful World of Disney, as Eve, a fashion doll that transforms into a human after a grieving girl (Lindsay Lohan) bungles a magic spell intended to revive her dead mother. In April 2017, she announced that Life-Size 2 would make its long-awaited debut on Freeform as a “fun, edgy, modern Christmas movie.” She later revealed that Lohan, whom has taken a step back from major acting roles in recent years, is “very interested in returning” for the second film.

During an exclusive interview with EW in March, Banks — also an executive producer on Life-Size 2 — confirmed she’s recording a contemporary remix of the first movie’s theme song “Be a Star,” which she said will sound “a lot more current” than the bubblegum pop stylings of the original.

“I am going to dust off my retired vocal chords for Life-Size 2,” Banks explained. “I’d love to find a top producer that everybody knows, like a household name, to do the music. And a beautiful sound technician to auto-tune the hell out of my voice… Those words [“be a star”] will be in there some way, but it’ll sound totally new… We’re going for club banger as opposed to nursery school rhyme this time!”