“Jane could [have been] a black girl, a white girl, an Asian girl,”Gina Rodriguez says of her charming character on the very clever Jane the Virgin, which earned the CW network its first-ever Golden Globe nominations last week, for best TV series, musical or comedy, and best actress in the same category, for Rodriguez. In addition to making awards history, the delightful series breaks down ugly ethnic and gender stereotypes with Rodriguez playing an ambitious young woman who won’t let men or an unplanned pregnancy—(she was accidentally artificially inseminated with her boss’s baby)—get in the way of her values or career plans. “She is positive and uplifting and funny and brave,” the Chicago-raised actress, who aspires to change people’s perception of her culture, says, “and, she gets to be Latina.”
With a surprise hit series on the air, an award nomination under her belt, and bubblegum-pink billboards strung all over Hollywood, this holiday season is shaping up to be infinitely better than the actress’s last—when she broke up with a boyfriend, fell out with a good friend, and found out that Wild Blue, the Fox Navy drama she was attached to at the time, was not being picked up . . . on Christmas Eve. In celebration of this turn in tide, and last night’s mid-season finale, Rodriguez phoned VF Hollywood on Tuesday to talk about the series, her television father, Rogelio, and why she might be secretly, personally, rooting for Jane to reconnect with Michael, her character’s wholesome detective ex.
VF Hollywood: Congratulations on your Golden Globe nominations! How did you celebrate?
Thank you! It’s very, very exciting. It’s almost like, “Who did I fool?” There wasn’t a moment to soak it all up [during the week] so my friends threw me a party on Saturday and it was lovely because it was just so much love in my group of friends. We are just striving to make our dreams come true. It was just so hopeful. And then I went home and took care of my boyfriend because he is sick. [Laughs]
Does he watch the series?
He does, and do you know what is interesting? A lot of people say [Jane the Virgin is] a chick show but you’d be surprised. All of the men I know and men I meet are like, “Oh girl!” See, men, they love the drama! My father is obsessed with the show too. He is a boxing referee. A super-tough man. He boxed the majority of my life. He is the ultimate man’s man . . . super-macho, like I’ve seen him cry once in my life, at my grandmother’s passing. And he is obsessed with the show. He is like, “Just tell me, Gina. Are you going to stay with Rafael [the hotel tycoon with whom Jane is romantically entangled]?”
Is there any part of you that is Team Michael?
It is super-difficult for me because I love both boys very differently. They are very different actors and people but they are both amazing. With Jane though, I don't know anything that is coming yet. The writers don’t tell us. When I first started working, I shot like five or six episodes before Jane left the Michael character and I was so in tune to Brett [Dier, who plays Michael]. We worked so well together and we found this adorable relationship together. So to have a grasp on that as an actor, and then to come in at the table read and find out that Jane is leaving him, I was like, “What?!” I was looking around at the writers like, “Why are we getting rash here, guys? Was it that bad?!” I was like making excuses for Jane.
I feel like that was a justifiable reaction.
It was also my fear of starting to work with a new actor. Obviously I love Justin [Baldoni, who plays Rafael] and he is one of my best friends now on set. But to start doing that all of a sudden, and to have to fall for Rafael really quickly . . . We just had to find our own dynamic and after two or three episodes we found it. As a little spoiler/teaser though, there are a lot of flashbacks and flash forwards and dreams so you’re going to be able to see Jane and Michael together again. Brett and I miss that so we are like, “Yes!,” when we see that we have [relationship flashbacks in the script]. I love the Jane-Rafael [storyline] because it is such a beautiful fantasy for every girl. But for Gina, me, as a human being, I kind of like Jane and Michael together. There is something super-wholesome about them. And I am not even a wholesome chick, by any means.
On a less than wholesome note: What is it like wearing a mermaid costume on a semi-regular basis? (Her character wears the costume occasionally during her job, as a co*cktail waitress.)
I didn’t realize that was going to be so popular. I also didn’t know how sexy you’d feel in a mermaid costume. It was the most uncomfortable thing you can possibly imagine though. Once you fall into the water, it sticks to your body so you have to have people pull it off of your legs, then dry you off, dry your hair off, put you back into the costume and pretend like it never happened. It was, like, an 18-hour night of shooting, at, like, three in the morning freezing in Long Beach. I couldn’t walk in the mermaid suit so someone would carry me around. I felt like such a diva.
