Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Leverage: Redemption season 2
Nobody knows the real name of Sophie Devereaux, the grifter of the white hat criminal team in Leverage and Leverage: Redemption and there's a good reason why. Leverage follows Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton), a former insurance fraud investigator, and his team of criminals fighting against injustices. Leverage: Redemption picks up years later, without Hutton and after Nate's death, shifting focus to Gina Bellman's Sophie. Every member of the team takes on different identities as part of their cons, but none more than Sophie, who has made a career out of pretending to be other people.
It's clear early on that Sophie Devereaux is not Sophie's real name. When mastermind Nate Ford returns from prison in Leverage season 3, there's a running gag that Sophie has told the rest of the team her real name, frustrating Nate as they all refuse to tell him what it is. In the season 5 and series finale, "The Long Goodbye Job," Nate proposes to Sophie and calls her Lara, ostensibly revealing he's figured out her real name. However, Sophie says later, "You do know that Lara is not my real name, don't you?" Given her profession, anonymity is an important consideration for Sophie. However, from a purely practical standpoint, there's a reason why Leverage never addressed this mystery – in case the show continued beyond the original finale.
Even Sophie's Actress Doesn't Know Her Name
When Leverage was canceled a few days before the series finale, Bellman posted on Twitter that Sophie's real name is Lara, thinking "The Long Goodbye Job" wouldn't air. John Rogers, Leverage showrunner, and co-writer of Catwoman and Marry Me, replied to the Tweet, "you know, we ARE still going to air the episode, dear." Bellman responded, "Oooops[.]" However, Bellman was proven wrong when the episode aired and she as Sophie said Lara is not her real name. So even Bellman doesn't know what Sophie's real name is.
Why Lara Isn't Sophie's Real Name
"The Long Goodbye Job" was produced as a possible series finale. In the DVD commentary, Rogers revealed that Lara was originally intended to be Sophie's real name, but they added Sophie and Nate's exchange about it being fake in case the show got another season. They didn't want to box themselves into suddenly calling Sophie by a different name. Even though Leverage was canceled, this ended up being the right decision, as the Leverage: Redemption series aired on Amazon 9 years later and Sophie is still Sophie.
Sophie's real name hasn't come up again in Leverage: Redemption, though more of her backstory was revealed in season 2, episode 2, "The One Man's Trash Job" when Sophie encounters an old partner in crime. He alludes to Sophie's many false identities when he asks what name she's going by. Leverage: Redemption may never reveal Sophie's real name, but at this point, Sophie herself seems to consider Sophie Devereaux to be her "real" name. It's the name she's gone by for 14 years and even though half of the team she works with in Leverage: Redemption supposedly learned her real name in Leverage season 3, they still call her Sophie.
Episodes of Leverage: Redemption air Wednesdays on Amazon