Over the past year, immigration raids have put Los Angeles’ immigrant neighborhoods at the center of the national debate. In that debate, immigrants are often flattened into a single story.
Adriana Paz says that has never been the reality.
“Many times Latins are portrayed like all the same, like it doesn’t matter if you’re Colombian or you’re Mexican, or you’re Mexican from the south or north,” the actor told Blavity. “Even they are in different situations.”
In Ben Affleck’s new Netflix thriller Animals, Paz plays Cecilia, an immigrant worker whose life is tied to a powerful Los Angeles family. Luis Gerardo Méndez plays Ramon, another immigrant in that orbit. Both are immigrants, but Paz pointed out that their circumstances are far from identical.
“Cecilia has papers and documents and Ramon doesn’t,” she said. “So we are not just one thing. We are a universe within.”
Méndez said the goal was to show immigrant workers the respect they rarely get, on screen or off.
“It was very important for us to show a lot of dignity in these characters,” he said. “We know that the Latin community in the U.S., especially in Los Angeles, is very hardworking. They just wanna work and they just wanna have a better life. But the dignity aspect of it is something that you don’t see in the movies very often.”
He’s tired of the familiar stereotype of the domestic worker who only says yes.
“It’s not this character that we’ve seen 100 million times, where the lady is like, ‘Oh yes, yes, whatever you say,'” Méndez said. “This character is not like that.”
Instead, he said, these characters do the work and still speak up: “Yes, of course, what do you need, sir? What do you want? Yeah, but I also need this.”
What he hopes people take away is empathy. “I feel if that happens, we already won,” he said.
Kerry Washington, who stars opposite Affleck, said the same question of empathy shaped her approach.
“For me it was this idea of family and how you define family,” she said. “How able are you to extend your heart to the pain of others? Who gets to fit into the circle of who you would do anything to protect?”
Affleck said much of what divides people comes down to how little they know about one another.
“It’s the truth about people and part of why we don’t see each other,” he said. “We don’t happen to know everything about them and their experience. It’s our lack of knowing one another, in part, that sort of separates us.”
“Nobody thinks they’re the villain,” he added. “Most people are just trying to be happy. Most people wanna do good and wanna be good people, and they also have bills, and they have kids, and they have a life, and they have someone they love.”
Méndez has spent seven years working in Hollywood. He said the industry’s approach to immigrant and Latino stories is starting to change.
“Five, six years ago, it felt like there’s a quota, you know, like, ‘Yeah, we need a Latin character,'” he said. “I’ve been in that position where I’m the Latin character, which I enjoy because it’s a good job. But now it’s way more complex than that.”
“You don’t just need the Latin actor. You need the Latin consultant in the conversation,” he continued. “You need to really understand what’s going on, because authenticity right now is king. The world is so connected that if you show a Mexican something that is not Mexican, we’re gonna know. And it’s the same in any other country. We are masters of smelling bulls**t.”
He credited Affleck for being “very open about having the conversations.”
“He took the time to actually ask the questions to the right people,” Méndez said. “And it’s not very common, sadly.”
Paz hopes those conversations keep going after the credits roll.
“I hope after that they can have important conversations about all these topics,” she said. “Maybe they are not gonna realize in that moment because they’re gonna be trapped by the film, but later, I think these ideas will come up.”
Animals hits Netflix and select theaters Oct. 9.