Which do you find more rewarding and difficult, comedy or drama?

Comedy and comedy.  I think it’s really difficult to make someone laugh because people have very different comedic sensibilities.  Timing is necessary in comedy.  In drama, you can get away, I think, with being a great actor and surrounded by great actors and having good writing.  But in comedy you have to listen and you have to perform with a certain rhythm, because if you don’t, it’s like playing a wrong note in the orchestra and you can hear the off key and it will fall flat and you won’t get that instant response.  I think comedy is much more rewarding because it’s a very specific skill that can be learned by anybody.  I think that raw talent is necessary for drama but I think with comedy, it’s something that you can learn.  I love performing in front of live audiences and hearing what they get a kick out of, there’s nothing like it.  Comedy is so much more rewarding.

You’ve done a bunch of films and also have some upcoming films, which do you prefer doing, television or film?

I’d like to do both.  The other thing I love about comedy is the schedule.  You work six months out of the year and have one week off per month.  You don’t work such long hours and you have energy to do studio and idie films.  In dramas they work hard.  They work for ten months out of the year, twelve-hour days, and when they have their two months off the last thing a lot of dramatic actors want to do is do a film.  I’m living the dream right now.  I’m working six months out of the year and I get to do films on my time off.  I would love to continue in the sitcom drama and then explore my dramatic muscles and build completely different characters on the big screen.  I’d like to keep doing what I’m doing.


Are there any films that you have coming out that you’d like to discuss?

Sure.  I have a film coming out called D-War, short for Dragon Wars.  It’s a sixty million dollar budget movie that took four years to make because of the special effects.  It’s essentially a Braveheart with dragons and I got to be superimposed in the mouth of a dragon, which is probably one of the coolest things ever.  That’s going to be a great film for twelve-year-old boys because it’s essentially like a video game. 

Then on a more serious note, I have a movie coming out called Graduation, which I am especially proud of because the role wasn’t written for a Latina and they didn’t change my name to Rosita Cochita Lolita Garcia.  I was cast as this punky, green-haired, Middle America, sarcastic, dry, girl in high school.  That movie is about four kids who rob a bank on graduation day.  I’m especially proud of getting to play a dry, sarcastic, green-haired, punky character because those are adjectives that you usually don’t associate with a Latina.  I mean we’re really not that dry.  We’re pretty unapologetic and feisty and colorful and we make our presence known. So it was really great to be in a movie that’s similar to a John Hughes Breakfast Club type of movie.  They put me through the ringer.  I had to back eight times because they clearly didn’t envision a Latina as a Middle America punk girl. 

Two other ones I have coming out are a horror movie being distributed by Magic Johnson and then I did a festival film with a deaf actor.  I play the wife of a deaf actor and I am a terrible, terrible character.  I am cold, I don’t want to learn sign language, and I’m a very ungrateful wife.  That was really fun to play, to the point where after takes I would have to hug the actor who in real life was deaf and apologize in my small knowledge of sign language, for being such a jerk in the scene.  It’s so cool to be paid to explore these other sides of you that you don’t usually get to explore.


I heard you are in a pilot called Action News, is there any truth to that?

It’s true.  It’s with Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton and Fred Willard.  At first they didn’t even want to see me because the role was for a weather girl and they wrote the role with a buxom, blonde, pageant girl in mind.  I go in and very seriously they say, “That was very funny.”  And I said, “You look so serious.”  And they said, “Well that’s how we are when we write.”  I ended up doing a studio test and it was between me and five other beautiful brown and blonde haired, light eyed, Caucasian actresses and I just got a kick out of it.  I just did not pander and I tried to ground the comedy as much as possible.  I went in and I nailed it.

They wanted me to speak with an accent and I said, “Well what if she speaks two languages without an accent?”  So I said a line in Spanish and they were very receptive to that.  I thought it was important to maintain the integrity of who I am and I am Latin, I speak Spanish fluently but I speak like I speak.  I was really lucky to have confidence to really portray a Hispanic character that is named Montana Stevens, the weather girl, without an accent and without being the typical Latin girl.  Fox bought the idea and Kelsey signed off of me and I feel very blessed to be working with a director who has won five Emmys and producers who have won Emmys.  I don’t think they had me in mind at all when they wrote the role but I feel like I have a big responsibility to not get fired.


Does this mean you will be replacing your role on George Lopez next year with Action News?

I don’t know.  We’ll see how it all turns out.  I’ve been around enough to know that someone’s head is always on the chopping block, so first things first, whatever project I have at hand I make sure to work hard and put my best work forward.  I seriously have to keep this job and then we’ll see what happens with George.  Our ratings are really great – we’re the number one ABC comedy on Wednesday nights.  I really don’t know what’s going to happen.  I would have never gotten this opportunity on Action News if it weren’t for George and I called and told him that.  I’m just taking it day by day and I’ll make decisions when I have to.