As of late, people typically use the phrase “iconic” a bit too liberally. Like when a star wears a wonderful gown to a crimson carpet occasion or an actor posts some worthy shade on social media. Even calling somebody Hollywood’s “It girl” has misplaced a whole lot of its taste because of overuse.
However when somebody manages to upstage Larry David, one of many funniest curmudgeons on TV, on his personal present, as Keyla Monterroso Mejia has, then possibly we should always simply give the side-splittingly hilarious actor her due. When you’ve seen her play the remarkably untalented aspiring star Maria Sofia Estrada on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” you then already know what I imply.
Her comedy, as those that additionally caught her as a completely unserious trainer’s help undercutting Lisa Ann Walter’s each effort on “Abbott Elementary” may attest, is daring, massive, chaotic and completely honest. It’s no marvel that she’s now the star of Netflix’s “Freeridge,” the much-anticipated “On My Block” spinoff, the place she is stealing the present as soon as once more.
And but by some means, whenever you meet Mejia, 25, she appears simply a kind of issues. “I’m so excited,” she feverishly admitted as she jumped on a video name with me. “I’m so nervous. Oh, my god.”
{Photograph} by John P. Johnson/ HBO
The earnestness continues to be very a lot there, and Mejia is, charmingly, way more grounded and conscious than lots of the characters she’s performed. However what is maybe essentially the most startling factor about her is that she’s shy, which she confessed — as she typically did — with a giggle.
It’s that timidity, although, that makes Mejia so endearing and pushes her to offer us a few of the most ridiculously humorous scenes. She has to go to this point outdoors herself that she will be able to’t assist however have a ball with it.
“My mom, brother, everyone will tell you I’m more quiet and reserved, and it’s been really fun to get to express myself in these ways,” the actor mentioned. “I think I’m a little more self-conscious than these characters are.”
Simply that rapid-fire transition ― the primary of many she has all through our dialog ― from giddy pleasure to considerate self-reflection provides you a whole lot of perception into who Mejia is.
Gilles Mingasson/ABC by way of Getty Photographs
“You ever have this feeling of, like, ’Oh, I wish I could do that”? she requested me. “Or, ‘I wish I could wear that, but I’m not as confident?’”
Like many individuals, she’s an intriguing ball of contradictions; the kind of star that, refreshingly, doesn’t really feel the necessity to placed on airs about who she is off-screen.
“I think when I get to play these women, I am — I don’t know how to say it in a nicer way — [like], ‘fuck it,’” Mejia defined. “I’m not going to judge myself. I’m not going to worry about how I look or how I’m acting or what I’m saying. And it’s really freeing.”
It’s additionally a far cry from who she was not too way back. The primary-generation elder baby of oldsters from Mexico and Guatemala, Mejia remembers missing shallowness and being painfully shy rising up in California. However what sustained her was the world of make-believe.
“When I was little, I loved playing pretend more than other kids,” she remembered. “I would take it really seriously and used to act like a teacher and made my little brother be a student and do homework. And other kids — they get bored within an hour or so.”
As soon as she found at round age 14 that performing was an precise job that she may receives a commission for, she threw herself into it, fortunately along with her dad and mom’ full help. “I was able to do my own research and go into a performing arts high school and stuff and take on from there,” Mejia mentioned.
At this level, a completely completely different thought entered her thoughts, letting me know that she’s apparently nonetheless wrestling with the dichotomy between her precise self and her display self.
“You know what’s weird, not weird, but — people say there’s a lot of people on set,” the actor mentioned. “There’s not that many. Because everyone’s behind the scenes, so I can’t see them when I’m acting. I’m not aware that everyone’s looking at you.”
That’s till actuality units in. “And then as soon as someone yells ‘cut,’ I’m in a cocoon, girl,” she laughed. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’”
It’s these sorts of candid revelations that additionally assist humanize Mejia’s latest character, elder sibling Gloria on “Freeridge,” making her immediately accessible, layered and enjoyable to observe. In actual fact, after we meet her in episode one, she is tussling along with her sister Ines (Bryana Salaz) in entrance of their complete highschool.
Followers of “On My Block” will keep in mind all of the drama among the many present’s core buddy group (performed by Sierra Capri, Jessica Marie Garcia, Brett Grey and Jason Genoa), Black and brown teenagers in South Central, Los Angeles, navigating life, love, gangs and a bag of stolen curler rink money.
“Freeridge” is one other heartfelt dramedy that takes a few of that very same grounded chaos (sure, there’s such a factor, and this franchise has mastered it) and applies it to freshly sophisticated characters led by Mejia’s Gloria, a teen with an entire new set of points.
These embody an annoying youthful sister, being a buttinksy, grieving her lifeless mom, worrying about her dad’s well being, a mysterious curse, preserving her pals joyful and discovering love.
And, oh yeah, the curler rink cash resurfaces right here.
Easter eggs like which might be precisely the type of issues that excited Mejia, who was a large fan of the unique collection. “Oh my gosh,” she gushed. “That show — it was everything to me.”
And it got here proper on time for her. “You know sometimes when you watch things at certain points of your life [when] they mean more because of what you’re going through?” she requested. “I was really depressed and ‘On My Block’ was an escape to me. It gave me so much comfort.”
The present additionally gave her a mirrored image of herself in Garcia’s character Jasmine, a sex- and body-positive Latina teen who liked her dad and her pals dearly.
“I remember really looking at Jessica Marie Garcia and seeing myself and thinking, ‘Holy shit!’” Mejia mentioned. “‘She looks like me and she’s a character that I identify with.’ And I remember she gave me so much hope.”
So when it got here to the auditions for “Freeridge,” Mejia jumped on the alternative so as to add her personal spin to the franchise. She had her reservations, nevertheless.
“I was like, ‘As a fan, I don’t know how I would feel about new people,’” she mentioned. “I’m biased because obviously, it’s me. I’m part of the new people. But if it wasn’t me, I’d be like, ‘I don’t know about that.’ So I was scared.”
However then she learn the script and was instantly obsessive about doing no matter it took to ace the audition course of. “I remember wanting the role so badly,” she mentioned. “I was checking in every five minutes like, ‘Have they called? Have they said anything?’”
As you watch Mejia embody Gloria all through the primary season of “Freeridge” — together with her ticks, over-the-topness, vulnerability, and the truth that she loves fiercely and is slightly in every single place — you start to know the supply of the actor’s nervousness. Gloria is the character she was born to play at this stage in her life.
Mejia giggled on the very considered their similarities. “I felt like I knew her,” she mentioned. “I’m an older sister as well. I have a younger brother and I can relate to a lot of the things that she struggles with and how, at the end of the day, she just wants what’s best for her family and her friends — maybe to an annoying extent.”
The actor is aware of that final half all too properly from her personal relationship along with her household, and even sought assist to work on it. “A couple years ago, I was exactly like Gloria and worked really hard in therapy to mind my own business and not meddle in the lives of other people,” Mejia mentioned plainly. She added: “I don’t know why I have to feel like the savior of everyone.”
In search of steering grew to become a vital step for a Pisces like herself, who used to place others’ emotions above all else. “I think part of it was I was so busy dealing with other people’s issues because I didn’t want to deal with my own,” Mejia recalled. “And I think sometimes Gloria is that way. But that was how I got in [to the role].”
Along with her pleasant candor, consolation inside her personal physique and sheer audacity to put her feelings naked on display, it could be straightforward to think about Mejia as somebody to look as much as. However that’s not a place she is especially acutely aware of, or through which she would even really feel snug.
Nonetheless, she thinks concerning the methods her look or the way in which that she carries herself on display can affect others. She famous that she was once self-conscious about her arm hair (“I got it on my knuckles too,” she mentioned. “It’s a whole thing”) and was fearful about how noticeable it might be on digital camera.
Gilles Mingasson by way of Getty Photographs
Now, Mejia realizes that many different younger ladies would possibly be capable of relate to that. “I remember thinking, ‘This is so ugly,’” she mentioned. “Before we started shooting, I was like, ‘Should I shave my arms? I don’t want them to be on display.’” And I assumed, ‘No, I’m not going to do it.’”
She thought of her viewers: “Because there’s other girls like me and they’ll see their arms. It was like, ‘There’s a little hair. It’s not going to hurt anybody. Who cares?’”
The identical goes for a way her physique seems on display. “I think with the things that I wear as well, being confident in it and just not moving or sitting or standing in a way that’s going to make me look skinnier,” Mejia continued. “You know what I mean?”
She makes these small selections to assist audiences like her really feel higher or see themselves in her. As a result of, as she put it, “I know this is what I used to feel like.”
However make no mistake, she’s not making an attempt to be the subsequent Hollywood idol. “Not necessarily wanting to take on the responsibility of being a role model,” Mejia added with fun. “I am so flawed. Is it even possible? It’s not possible.”
No, and that’s what remedy is for.
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