Gina Rodriguez is a true inspiration, leading the way for countless Latinas with big dreams. She is a trailblazer in Hollywood, breaking barriers and reshaping the industry with her remarkable talent. From her groundbreaking performance as Jane Villanueva in the critically acclaimed CW series Jane the Virgin to her upcoming projects, Rodriguez has been a driving force for diversity and representation in entertainment. For that role, Rodriguez earned her first Golden Globe nomination and win. Through her portrayal of other strong and multifaceted Latina characters, she challenges stereotypes while inspiring a new generation of actors and storytellers.
The 39-year-old Puerto Rican actress, born in Chicago, is known for her captivating and hilarious performances. Last year, she embraced her most significant role yet – motherhood. Rodriguez and her husband, Joe LoCicero, said ‘I do’ in May 2019 and welcomed their first child, Charlie, into the world in February 2023. While cherishing every moment of motherhood, Rodriguez is back to the lights, camera, and action of Hollywood. She has returned to the set of her TV show, Not Dead Yet, while also celebrating the release of her latest film, Players, now streaming on Netflix.
In Players, she stars alongside Liza Koshy and Damon Wayans Jr., offering audiences a thrilling and hilarious take on traditional romantic comedies. Rodriguez’s character, Mack, is fun and sensual, someone who wields all the power and this challenges heteronomative gender roles. Seeing her onscreen is a breath of fresh air.
Ahead of the anticipated rom-com, released on Valentine’s Day, HOLA! had the opportunity to talk to Rodriguez in person at a busy press junket. Before our interview, Rodriguez grabs lunch, looking like the definition of a ‘cool mom’ in a letterman’s jacket. The light she carries shines through as she smiles and says hello before heading to a room. “She’s having lunch and pumping,” I hear someone explain. It was the epitome of a woman in Hollywood juggling motherhood and her career.
The moment was a precursor to the rest of the interview. Rodriguez’s life orbits around Charlie, who just celebrated his first birthday. Everything goes back to her little boy, who makes her face light up with love when she talks about him. Rodriguez’s answers resonate like poetry, with each sentence carrying intentionality. In our conversation, she discussed her love for her husband, her pride and joy Charlie, and complex topics like aging in an industry filled with unrealistic beauty standards, and embracing motherhood while challenging societal norms in her personal and professional spheres. She also opened up about her unique and empowering new character.
We are here to promote Players. I mean, so much has changed since you filmed this movie. You’re pumping during lunch. How are you feeling just sitting here? This week has been so exciting. You’ve been doing all this promo.
Yeah, it’s been wild. I’m just kind of hanging onto my seat. I mean, all the while, I’m shooting my TV show, Not Dead Yet, with my son running around on set, pumping in between scenes, and being able to promote this movie that I’m madly in love with. When we shot it, we had the greatest time. I didn’t have a child at the time. It was a very different experience, but I’m grateful for every single moment of it both now and then.
We don’t really get to see many movies where women are in this player role. How fun was that?
It was exhilarating and sexy and fun and empowering. And I felt so viscerally connected to my body and my feminine prowess in the film. And it’s like a romance. I mean, it’s like her with her homeboys, and she’s running them, but she’s loving them, and they love her, and they protect her, but they also uplift her. And it is a very unique role. And I had a very unique experience because I have a phenomenal cast. I think the trick to life is to surround yourself with giants. And that’s what I did.
We’re constantly changing, hopefully growing, evolving, making mistakes and doing better, trying, allowing failure to help you grow versus making you crumble. So I try so hard to shed the idea of being this thing that I have to always hold up, especially now as a mom. I’m going to make mistakes.
Yeah. It looks like it was so much fun. And you are happily married now, but have you ever been played?
Yeah. Yeah. So many times. So many times. And not so secretly played either. But I think it’s important, you know? I mean, those are defining moments for boundaries, defining moments to self-reflect and be like, ‘Hold up, this is what I deserve. This is what I believe I’m worth.’ And those are moments where you can say, ‘I’m deserving of more.’
Now you’ve found love with Joe Locicero. When did you know that you not only wanted to have a drawer with him, but build a whole life?
Pretty quickly. I mean, four months into our relationship, we went to Thailand for a month together and trained at a Muay Thai camp. He’s a martial artist. That’s his main thing. I think after being together there for 20 days, I was like, ‘I could be with you forever.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah.’ And we were like, ‘Let’s not move in for at least a year. Because we know we can do this. Let’s not mess it up, and let’s wait a year.’ Girl, we moved in two months later. I was like, ‘Well, that flopped.’ But yeah, I knew it. I definitely knew it.
I mean, if you ask my husband, he’ll tell you that I gave him an ultimatum, which at one point I kind of did. I was like, ‘What’s the deal? What’s the deal?’ But that was part of my deserving. That was part of me being like, ‘I want this. I want to be clear. I don’t want to play games.’
Yeah. That’s really sweet. It’s going to be many years from now, but when Charlie starts dating, what kind of advice do you think you’ll give him?
Oh my God. I am so in love with this little boy that I already hate the person he… I’m kidding. I’m joking. I’m like… No. Untrue. My mother-in-law is such a great mother-in-law. And she made such an amazing boy… My husband is such a wonderful man. And recently, she said, “All I wanted was for him to be a good husband. I worked so hard at just making sure he would be a good husband.” When she said that to me I was like, oh my God. That was her intention? Because it worked. He’s a phenomenal husband.
So now I’ve been shifting to this secret or not-so-secret jealousy of the person who takes my son away from me, but how to make him a good partner? And I think a good partner is honest and loving, supportive and understanding, empathetic, and is… Perfection is not a thing. It’s an illusion. The term in itself is so subjective that I want him to know that he could be flawed a minute, and successful the next. He can break or be constructed perfectly, that there is no one being. There’s no one way to be. We’re constantly moving and evolving and changing and growing. And I want him to feel free in that and to find a partner that grows and moves and evolves with him and is patient in that growth, and he is to them as well.
I just pray that I can save for my son’s future. That’s all. That’s all I’m ever thinking about and whatever that has to be. If it has to be something else outside of this industry, then it will be.
Oh, that’s beautiful. Take notes, mothers. The line in the film, ‘He rewrote you,’ is so powerful. You’ve been in this industry for so long. Have you ever felt like the industry has tried to rewrite you?
Well, it’s interesting because now we’re talking about identity, right? This is a journey I’ve been on for a while because identity is so limiting. ‘I am this way, I am this person.’ And when you’re in the industry – this industry and I’m sure in many others, but I can only speak from my perspective and my journey – there’s this idea of who you are projected onto you.
Then there’s this idea of who you are that you project into the world, and it’s so hard because we are not the same person every day of our lives. We’re constantly changing, hopefully growing, evolving, making mistakes and doing better, trying, allowing failure to help you grow versus making you crumble. So I try so hard to shed the idea of being this thing that I have to always hold up, especially now as a mom. I’m going to make mistakes. I have to hold myself accountable to my son so that he feels free to be who he is because it’s ever-evolving. And he can say, ‘I’m sorry, I made a mistake. I can do better,’ or ‘Thank you, I will live in that compliment. I will accept and receive that.’
So this industry, I’m sure many others are kind of culturally like, ‘we want you to be this thing that we see, this person on a poster, this person on Instagram.’ But there’s very little room in that for failure, for growth, for redemption, and I think that’s what I’m trying to surpass in the real world because that’s the only one we’re living in. This is a game, a fun game, a very fun game that I like to play, but I think it’s important to always come back to the only thing constant is change. So hopefully, I will constantly change.
Watch clips from the interview
This industry is already so tough when it comes to unrealistic beauty standards. I know that you have a self-love mantra. Has it changed at all since becoming a mother?
I mean, that’s interesting. Beauty because… I haven’t really thought about the idea of beauty because I am raising an infant right now. We’re not in that space of body reflection or self-reflection because everything’s just kind of like, ‘Let’s learn how to walk, and let’s learn how to make sounds and words.’ So I haven’t really thought about that. But I do know that in my relationship with my husband and relationship with myself, I’m constantly fighting the propaganda of this idea that aging is not allowed.
I don’t shame anyone who… Everybody has their own journey. We see how difficult it’s become with how globally our own faces can reach the masses and people’s perspectives. You don’t even know who they are. They have an opinion about you. To combat those voices that are faceless can be very difficult. But I think it’s really important for me to look in the mirror and say ‘who I see surpasses this spacesuit I’m wearing, this flesh that will fall. It’s meant to deteriorate.’ It’s like, I’m going to turn 40 this year, and I still feel like I’m 20. Like that girl that I would look in the mirror when I was at NYU and be like, ‘Let’s go get them. Let’s go climb to the top of this mountain. Let’s go soar. Let’s go be alive and have fun,’ has never changed in that I still want to eat life like that, vivaciously, and I want to celebrate life, but things change. I’m breastfeeding. My tits are different. My body. I gave birth. My hips are different. I watch this movie, and I don’t look like I looked when I did this film, but I am that person still right now because it’s just flesh. So I try to work on the eternal, which is like beyond this flesh.
Is it easy? No. No, because I am a comedic actor. I have wrinkles. I make smiley faces, I have smile lines, I have wrinkles on my forehead. I have to express myself through my face, and I don’t ever want to change that. So it’s a constant conversation. But as long as my husband is loving the heart that I’m constantly growing into, everything else is going to fall away anyway.
That’s very, very true. It is just flesh. You’ve talked about how America Ferrera was your inspiration, and now you are so many others, Jenna Ortega, and myself. What is your piece of wisdom for rising or in Jenna’s case, already a star?
Jenna is a massive… I’m so proud of her to see her. To have known her when she was 12 years old, you just knew she was like beyond. She just had a presence that rippled. So Jenna’s exactly where I always imagined she’d be and will continue to surpass anybody’s wildest imagination. She’s also just a wonderful, wonderful woman.
But to those who are on their journey, or even my younger self who was on this journey, time is an illusion. Follow your heart, be good to others, and work on yourself. Try to do better every day of your life for yourself, just for the sake of knowing that you’re capable of it. And don’t give up because if we only got one shot, give it your all. I think that’s a very privileged perspective because I’m sitting in a space where I saw my dreams come true. I’m not unaware of that, but I didn’t get Jane until I was 30. I wasn’t young out of college and hit it. You know? I would’ve given it as many years as it needed to give. Now I’m on a new journey of motherhood, and I’m going to give that the rest of my life.
I’m not a mother, but I imagine it comes with a lot of fears, including how it could affect your career. Is that something you had to navigate?
No, I’m not even thinking about my career. Fears? No, no, no. Listen, the fears are intrusive, and they’re terrifying. They’re mostly like I just want my son to be healthy, and I just want to be healthy, and I just want him to be healthy. I just want him to be healthy. The idea that money buys all? No, no, no. Health. You’ve got health? You are capable of doing things. That itself is a massive blessing.
I feel like for a long time, I didn’t think about how imperative it was to be healthy. And health, after being in the NICU with my son last year this time, you just… Life is so precious. So for me, those are always the fears. It’s like you’re holding the baby at the top of the stairs, and somehow you’re thinking about falling down the stairs, and you’re like, ‘How is this in my brain right now?’
So, the intrusive thoughts are bananas. When it comes to my career, I just pray that I can save for my son’s future. That’s all. That’s all I’m ever thinking about and whatever that has to be. If it has to be something else outside of this industry, then it will be. Like, you got to do what you got to do, especially when you have somebody that now they’re your whole existence. I’d do anything for that little boy.
Do you have any updates about your directorial debut, The Fight Inside?
Ooh. So I’ve attached a few movies to direct. It has shifted because of my son. What do I have time for? And my TV show, Not Dead Yet. That takes up a good portion of my time. But we’re still crafting the perfect cast. We’re still crafting where we’re going to do it all. And schedules – it’s always about schedules.
I still do television. I direct a lot of TV. I’m going to direct some Matlock this summer, which I’m very excited about because Kathy Bates is a dream, and Skye Marshall, whom I know personally and love very much. So I’m very excited to be doing that, but we have to find the time. I have to find the time. Honestly, my son kind of comes first, but we’ll find the time. There’s nothing but time if we’re lucky. We’re blessed.
