Before taking over a brand new function, Melissa Barrera asks herself, “What is the message that I’m attempting to ship out into the world with this?”
The Mexican actor and singer is intentional with the initiatives she selects, together with her newest film, “Carmen,” the function directorial debut of “Black Swan” choreographer Benjamin Millepied.
It’s a musical love story loosely impressed by the 1875 George Bizet opera. The modern-day retelling, now displaying in theaters, is about each within the desert alongside the U.S.-Mexican border and in gritty Los Angeles.
Barrera — greatest recognized to U.S. audiences, maybe, for the “Scream” sequence and the movie adaptation of “In the Heights” — stars right here as Carmen, a younger Mexican girl. She crosses paths close to the border one evening with Aidan (portrayed by Oscar nominee Paul Mescal), a Marine with PTSD who’s working as a volunteer border patrol guard. A sequence of harmful occasions forces them to go on the run collectively.
Barrera says that constructing chemistry with Mescal was simple, since they spent hours in dance rehearsals collectively.
“When you’re dancing with someone, you get to know their body and you get to know how they move, and you make a fool of yourselves together, and you laugh and you fail and you fall,” she mentioned. “And it’s a very complete way of getting to know another human being very quickly.”
Millepied takes audiences on a visually poetic journey as the 2 make their strategy to Los Angeles. Carmen reunites there together with her late mom’s greatest pal, Masilda — portrayed by Rossy De Palma — and finds consolation in dance and her rising love for Aidan.
The movie’s rating consists by Nicholas Brittell, with Julieta Venegas, Taura Stinton and Tracy “The Doc” Curry.
When Barrera first heard of the venture, she didn’t know what the story was about. “I just saw Benjamin Millepied is making his feature debut, and it’s going to be an adaptation of `Carmen.’ That’s all I got,” mentioned the actor.
It was not till months later, when she acquired the script, that she realized it was a narrative that includes an immigrant girl fleeing the cartel. That’s a theme that Barrera had been attempting to keep away from since she started her crossover appearing profession within the United States. When she first moved right here, she mentioned, she would solely get calls to be a part of immigrant storylines or cartel-related roles.
“And we (Latinos) are always the victims, and we’re always painted in an ‘aye pobrecito’ (oh, you poor little thing) light,” mentioned the actor.
While she is aware of that immigrant tales are actual and necessary, Barrera prefers to “fight for other spaces where they don’t see us, and try and get us in there.”
As she saved studying the script, nevertheless, her preliminary hesitation started to vanish.
“I used to be like, OK, that is totally different. This is form of lovely and romantic and poetic, and it’s going to be informed by means of motion and dance sequences,” she mentioned.
Millepied’s “Carmen” is a surrealist fever dream with avant-garde symbolism woven all through. Each tune and every dance sequence options Barrera, Mescal or De Palma.
When asking herself “What is the message?” on this case, Barrera mentioned, it’s “the plight of this woman who is like many women that are at the border right now, who is running from danger and trying to find a better life and find freedom and safety and love, which is what all human beings want.”
She hopes the film will humanize the people on the border who’re ready for asylum, create dialog and “get through to another type of audience.”
Barrera mentioned she labored intently with Millepied, who was born and grew up in France, to method the story with sensitivity.
“It was a very collaborative experience, and I always felt like my opinion mattered and my voice mattered. And it was the first time that I ever felt like that on a project.” she mentioned.
Barrera’s profession started in Mexico on well-liked telenovelas, and she or he appeared in Netflix’s “Club De Cuervos.” In the U.S., she shortly landed a tv crossover function in Starz’s “Vida,” as Lyn. She went on to star as Vanessa in Jon M. Chu and Lin Manuel Miranda’s movie “In the Heights,” amongst different initiatives.
When taking the function of Sam in “Scream,” Barrera mentioned, the message she needed to ship is “we (Latinos) belong in franchises… We can be the lead of a franchise.”
“I like to simply maintain working and maintain knocking on these doorways and maintain auditioning for issues that aren’t meant for me however change folks’s minds, and be like, ‘Oh, actually, it can be someone like you,’” she mentioned.
Barrera will quickly be starring in an untitled monster thriller directed by “Scream VI” administrators Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin. Audiences may also watch her on Netflix’s “Keep Breathing.”
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