On playing Nina Simone:
“I needed to walk her path. As a woman, it wasn’t difficult to empathize with another woman. But I needed to be very isolated. I moved out of my house for three months. I wasn’t really talking to anybody that I knew. I just needed to be all things Nina. It was so intense, and everything happened really fast. The people behind the project weren’t my cup of tea. The director was fine, but there was a lot of mismanagement, which is why we’re still here three years later. And I’m still trying to fight with everybody to get the movie finished. Nina deserves better.”
On working with her sisters:
“Do you ever fight with them over the vision? How have you stayed so close? Mami was very much like, ‘You guys can disagree. You guys can be upset at each other, but don’t disrespect each other. I don’t want to hear name- calling. No quiero vulgaridad. No quiero profanidades que se llamen unas con otras y no quiero nunca que se toquen.’ That’s how our mom raised us. They’re the closest things to me. So even when we disagree, we can be passionate. We have staff, we have executives, we have assistants in our company. We can’t be just in a brawl in front of our employees. Those aren’t signs of a leader. And even though we’re going to be homey, this isn’t a living room. We’re working, and that’s how we keep it professional.”
On the evolution of Latinos in America:
“Latinos are overall very respectful. Once we started being discriminated against, we chose the high road: Keep quiet. Keep working. Don’t teach our kids Spanish because we don’t want them to get picked on. Now we’re entering that phase where the first and the second generations are so in love with our ancestry and want to keep it alive in the best possible way. So it’s more like, ‘I’m not keeping my head down. This is who I am, and I’m just as American as I am Latina. So you need to move out of the way. I’m not asking.; I love this proprietorship, because this country does belong to Latinos, too. We’re working here, and our sons are dying at war for the U.S. So it belongs to me as much as it belongs to my neighbor.”
On taking time off between films:
“See, I don’t really see it as a career. I’m an artist; I’m not a corporate person. Therefore, I fill my fountain of inspiration [with] memories, which is where I have to feed from to be inspired. My husband is a firm believer that if you’re not living, then you can’t create your art.”
Source: Latina
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