Actress Jessica Camacho, who enjoyed her recurring in the CBS legal drama All Rise as public defender Emily Lopez, felt a bit let down when the series was canceled after only two seasons last May. But then her spirits rose considerably when CBS execs offered her a lead in the holiday television movie A Christmas Proposal. The film will premiere Dec. 12.

“I play Maria Winters, a struggling chef, who dreams of starting her own line of food trucks,” says Camacho, who stars opposite Adam Rodriguez in the TV film.  “She agrees to pose as the girlfriend of a hotshot Seattle attorney (Rodriguez), visiting his family for Christmas, in order to help him prove he’s the ideal candidate to take over the family firm. It gets complicated but due to the magic of the season, real sparks begin to fly.” 

A Christmas Proposal was not originally written for a Latino cast but CBS had the foresight to convert the focus to a prosperous Latino family of attorneys. The cast includes Andrés Soto (Bennett Diaz), Bianca Caroca (Daphne Diaz), Juan Chioran (Charles Diaz), Claudia Ferri (Helena Diaz). For Rodriguez, who plays Rodriguez attorney Julian Diaz and is also a producer on the movie, the network’s decision offered an opportunity to do something different. “We wanted this to be about the people and not about characters whom we’ve seen so many times before,” recalls the actor of the Magic Mike franchise. “I think we accomplished that.”

Camacho admits that this role is a different type of character from others she’s been playing lately. “I recently recurred on two DC Comics superhero series, CW’s The Flash, portraying Gypsy (10 episodes) and HBO’s Watchmen as Pirate Jenny (four episodes).”

What originally surprised the actress was learning they were going to shoot the snow-laden film in the summer. “The first thing I learned is all these Christmas movies are shot in the summer,” adding, “So, under all those winter clothes, we were sweating.”  

The next thing that immediately impressed Camacho was the inherent beauty of the location, shot in Burnaby, British Columbia, near Vancouver. “It was gorgeous,” she exclaims. “My first day on the set, I was just awed by the beauty around me. Luckily, I got to see some of the mountainous area outside the city. I drove to Whistler, whose Olympic Park was a venue for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.” 

A Christmas Proposal was more than just work for the Chicago-born actress. “Acting in this film has been a total blast for me,” Camacho says. “It was fun because I knew I was joining the ranks of all of those people who do these movies every year. I was totally stoked and it goes back to why I became an actor … my passion for trying new things.”

The Puerto Rican-American actress enjoyed American-style yuletide traditions while growing up in the Windy City. Her father is Puerto Rican, born and raised in Santurce, one of the most populated areas and home to the Puerto Rico Museum of Art. “I never lived on the island,” she states. “My grandparents met in New York City. I enjoyed being part of a Latino family that also took part in American Christmas traditions. My family would actually go Christmas caroling.  I loved it. I even left cookies out for Santa.” 

What caught Camacho’s fancy most was acting after taking a class at the suggestion of a friend. She instantly fell in love with the craft and moved to San Francisco, enrolling at the Actors Conservatory Theatre.  She recalled, “When I was studying at ACT, I was very young and optimistic.  

“San Francisco was an amazing city to me,” Camacho recounts, “I’d work as a waitress. After my shift, I’d learn my lines at a coffee shop, then go to class.  I was full of passion and curiosity. I would walk around North Beach, bought books at City Lights, hung out at Vesuvios. It was like a dream.”

Camacho’s first theater experience was at a small theater in Antioch, California. She eventually returned to Chicago, where she worked in a play by Miguel Pinero in Humble Park.  “Chicago is a beast of a theater community,” she says. “They take it very seriously.” She eventually went on to work in television in Chicago, where she was able to obtain her Screen Actors Guild member-ship card before settling full time in Los Angeles.

When A Christmas Proposal was not renewed, Camacho admits she was wondering what her next gig would be. She remembered that when All Rise was cancelled in May of this year, her character Emily was written off as leaving her job and heading to Los Angeles to find herself. “She was going off on this adventure, not knowing where it was going to lead her, and that’s kind of what happened to me,” Camacho recounts. “But that’s what I love about this career. You have to have faith that when one door closes, another one is waiting for you to discover it.” 

In September of this year Camacho learned that her former series had officially been picked up by the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).  The cabler ordered a 20-episode third season of the legal drama. “They also brought back the original cast,” she states wistfully. “I am getting ready to start Season Three.  We start shooting in January.”

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by Roberto Leal

“The more things change, the more they stay the same” —Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

When it comes to amassing a team of talented, resumé rich, creative people to put together a series, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, which premieres on Showtime, Sunday, April 26, is loaded for bear!

It begins with Academy Award nominee writer and creator of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator), to Oscar winning producer / director, Sam Mendes (1917, American Beauty), who executive produced the original Showtimes series. 

The cast is stellar with engaging performances that include Natalie Dromer playing all the female evil incarnations (Magda, Alex, Elsa and Rio); Daniel Zovatto (The TV Shows Here and From Dusk Til Dawn) as the first Chicano detective in the LAPD; Kerry Bishe as the saintly Molly.  Nathan Lane, in a dramatic turn as Lewis Michener, Daniel Vega’s detective partner. Then there is Amy Madigan as Molly’s mother whose actions belie the religious woman she purports to be.  The rest of the Vega family is played by Adam Rodriguez (NCIS: Miami, Magic Mike), Johnathan Nieves (Shameless) and Jessica Garza (The Purge).

Logan’s sweeping, kaleidoscopic, multi-layered saga is set in 1938, Depression Era, pre-world War II, Los Angeles. It is a story with many fascinating moving parts; murder, racial discrimination, crooked cops and politicians, religious charlatans, Nazis, cultural upheaval in the Chicano community, horror, myth, and Mexican folklore, all culminating in a penultimate, apocalyptic battle between Good and Evil. Logan’s story is a cautionary tale that eerily and prophetically holds up a critical mirror, to present-day America, to remind us: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The breadth and depth of Penny Dreadful: City of angels, is truly breath-taking.

However, within all those moving parts, there is one significant, central gear that makes the narrative machinery move along smoothly: Maria Vega, the strong-willed, loving mother of the Vega family. And fortunately, Logan cast the perfect Latina actress to play this critical, pivotal role, Adriana Barraza. Mexican-born actress, Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner, director, and acting coach.

Barraza grew up in Toluca watching old Mexican and North American movies, in black and white, on Mexican network TV. Young Adriana loved watching such diverse movie stars as German Valdez Tin Tan, Pedro Infante, Carmen Montejo, Marga Lopez, as well as Esther Williams and Fred Astaire.

“I loved the dramas with Bette Davis,” she recalls fondly. “I think I’ve seen All About Eve more than 20 times.” What she admired most about those stars and stories, was they made her laugh, cry and always to dream.

In Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, Adriana plays family matriarch, Maria Vega. She modeled Maria Vega after her own grandmothers.  “I modeled Maria after my two grandmothers who were the attentive parental role models in my life,” she began.

“My fraternal grandmother, Doña Virginia Marin de Barraza, was a very traditional, old-fashioned woman, very Catholic, and always wore black.”

“On the other hand,”, she continued, “My maternal grandmother, Doña Angela Flores de Gonzalez was an eccentric woman with a beautiful house full of light, classical music, birds in the garden, extravagant pets, like herons and large turtles.”

Logan played a huge part in getting the talented Mexican actress involved in this epic project. She had been a fan of the original Penny Dreadful series and an admirer of John Logan’s work.

“I received an invitation, from John Logan, to read the first episode of the new series. I was thrilled,” she recalls gleefully. “John’s uncanny knowledge of Mexican culture—such as Maria’s nahual, the coyote, and the other positive examples of what la Santa Muerte means—that is what hooked me on the project.”

Logan expressed to Barraza his desire and passion to bring to a wide audience the rich, complex, often turbulent and painful history of Mexican Americans in a city that once had a much longer poetic Spanish name, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río Porciúncula — before it became simply, Los Angeles.

It was Logan’s portrayal of Mexican Americans as not “the other”, but as people with normal every day hopes and dreams like everyone else, that ultimately drew Adriana to the role of Maria Vega. 

“I knew that I understood Maria Vega as a Mexican and as a fighting mother who loves her children and is capable of doing anything for them. Plus, the supernatural world that is familiar to me as I previously mentioned. I am forever grateful to John Logan for thinking of me for the role of my beloved Maria!” And Logan has done a masterful job of capturing the essence, the sights and sounds and what has been documented to be the reality of the Mexican American / Chicano experience of that time.

As with all great stories, and Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is all that and a bag of spicy chicharrones, there is always an overarching truth. Here it’s Logan’s tribute to the struggle and triumph of humanity of the Vega Family and by extension, the greater Chicano community.  The powerful mythical, supernatural presence of Coatlicue, the Aztec Earth Mother Goddess of Life, is embodied in the heart and soul of the family matriarch, Maria Vega.

It has been reported that Barazza has a part in the upcoming Robert Rodriguez superhero film We Can Be Heroes, due to appear on Netflix soon. Did Robert cast her as the very first mature, Latina superhero?

“No,” she came back quickly, “I play Grandma Moreno. I teach the superheroes.”

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels premieres on the Showtime Networks , Sunday, April 26, 10/9c.

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