'I am special. l am very special.”

Thirteen-year-old Sophie Turner is special because she has succeeded – she has confronted some deeply challenging personal issues and blossomed on the national stage despite them.

She has Tourette Syndrome, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). She is also autistic.

'I spent four years to get RGN (registered general nurse) after my name,” says Mum Sarah. 'Sophie went to a doctor and comes out with all those letters.”

Sophie strikes a very theatrical, arms-extended pose as she makes her 'I am special” pronouncement to an audience of one. This reporter.

But despite the cruel blows that life delivered her and make her days difficult, Sophie is now performing to a much bigger audience – probably tens of thousands of kids on national television, on a segment of TVNZ's iconic kids' show ‘What Now' on Sunday morning. She is very special and there's a smile that's almost too big for that impish little face.

'I am Izzy in ‘Mysteryville' – bossy and sarcastic,” says Sophie from Welcome Bay. 'In a good friend kind of way.” And no, the bossy, sarcastic bit didn't come naturally.

‘Mysteryville is a 10-episode by 10-minute segment within ‘What Now'. Think ‘Scooby-Doo', the American animated cartoon about a bunch of teenagers and their Great Dane solving strange and funny mysteries. But without Scooby-Doo.

‘Mysteryville – three barely teenage sleuths out sleuthing, solving strange and sinister things, weird and wonderful mysteries every Sunday morning for 10 weeks.

'When I perform, when I sing or act or dance, my Tourettes goes away. I keep it in.”

Keeping it in is another way of saying she controls her tics. The vocal tics. 'You know, the shouting, the random words that pop out.” And the physical tics. 'Like this.” She slips seamlessly into performance mode to demonstrate the fitful, sudden repetitive body movements that also define Tourettes.

Sophie refuses to be defined by her Tourettes and her OCD. She lives with her diagnoses but separated from them. They don't run her life.

'It doesn't bother me having Tourettes” says Sophie, the little-screen Sunday morning star. ”But it does bother me that other people have a problem with my Tourettes.” There may be more understanding once a TV documentary on Tourettes is broadcast. Sophie stars in that too.

She's also been in the local Tauranga Musical Theatre production ‘The Very Best of Broadway'. Today she's wearing her black ‘Aladdin' t-shirt – a trophy from her appearance in that show. She will be in the ‘Mary Poppins' ensemble and is part of the theatre's development programme.

'When I got the TV role I didn't believe my Mum. I made her show me the email.

'I suppose that's because I auditioned for the excitement. I certainly wanted the role but I wasn't going to let it worry me if I didn't.”

But she likes entertaining people. She likes being centre-stage. 'I am going to say yes to that.” But this self-assured 13-year-old wants to make it very clear that she is not ‘cocky' and she is not a ‘show-off.'

'But when you are on stage you have to have self-confidence …and it helps to have a little bit of fear.”

And all this against a backdrop of bullying. That's one of the main reasons why she is home-schooled.

'I got bullied at school. Word about my problems would travel and kids would want to test it. They would run up to me and say a trigger word, or copy me, or touch me – anything to aggravate me and get a reaction. Even at lunchtime they would whisper about me.”

Now those same ‘bullies' are probably enviously watching Sophie Turner up there on national telly every Sunday morning, getting paid for being Izzy in ‘Mysteryville' and hopefully headed to a career of acting, dancing and singing. Now perhaps they might understand that what makes Sophie different shouldn't really matter.

For this young lady of letters, ADHD, OCD, ODD and the like, singing is her calming time. ”Singing is a good strategy for me. Sometimes I will be singing and people will say ‘stop that singing, you have been singing that song for ages'. And I won't know I have been doing it.”

Sarah says Sophie has a lot of repetitive behaviours. 'She can contain some of it, keep it in, she can minimise the effect while we are out. But it builds and explodes when we get home. But she is also assisted by medication.”

While Mum's talking Sophie's doodling. It's an intricate pattern. She's probably keeping it in. 'It helps me focus. I have a need to scribble something down and I have been getting a lot of that recently.”

Try to reconcile all those issues with the vivacious, irrepressible little dynamo that is the 'sarcastic and bossy” Izzy on What Now's Mysteryville, Sunday morning on TV2 at 8am.

Next week The Weekend Sun meets Sophie's Mysteryville co-star, 13-year-old Braden Smith, also from Tauranga. 'We've known each other from babies. He scarred me,” laughs Sophie. 'He stole my bike once. So I bit him on the neck and he bit my finger.”

This biter is now a 13-year-old with a TV show and an agent. 'Super proud,” says Tanya Horo of TMH Management. 'Not just as her agent but her as Sophie. She doesn't let anything get in the way and with a heart of gold, she's bound to achieve.”