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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Ghosts follows a struggling young couple, Samantha (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar), whose dreams come true when they inherit a beautiful country house, only to find it’s both falling apart and inhabited by many of the previous deceased residents. Based on the popular BBC series of the same title, the show is written by Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, who worked together on the Fox comedy series New Girl. 

The series’s ensemble cast also includes Rebecca Wisocky, Brandon Scott Jones, Danielle Pinnock, Asher Grodman and Richie Moriarty.

Carrasco plays Flower, a flower child who died in the late 1960s while attending a music festival on the property, while Sasappis Native American character from the 16th century.

“Rose and Utjarsh play an energetic, positive couple whom you really want to root for, and I play one of the deceased permanent residents,” Carrasco says drolly. “When I first read for the script, I started watching the British series, and I fell in love with it. All the ghosts died on the property in the last thousand years. It has a really fun Bill and Ted meets Beetlejuice vibe.” 

Carrasco says she shot the series pilot while working in theatre during the pandemic. “I was in the midst of performing my solo comedy show, Anyone But Me, which was running virtually at IAMA Theatre in L.A. and at the same time I was playing a ghost on television,” she says, adding, “It was great.”

The peculiar death of Carrasco’s hippie character may seem far-fetched to some but not to the actress. “She wandered around the property, tripping on acid, and was attacked by a bear she was trying to befriend.” Carrasco shrugs, “It can happen. My family has been through a few harrowing experiences.”

Carrasco’s father is from Curacautín, a small rural town in the Araucanian region of southern Chile. After a chance meeting with Carrasco’s American mother in Temuco, reportedly without speaking a word of each other’s languages, they fell in love, married, and subsequently fled the overthrow in 1973, leaving everything behind, according to the actress from Chicago.

Carrasco is excited about not being the only actor with a Spanish surname in the cast. “He (Zaragoza) plays a Native American character from the 16th century, which is really cool,” she says. She notes that the actor’s mother is Taiwanese/American and his father a mix of Mexican-American and Native-American.

When asked what a 16th century Native American wears, Zaragoza laughs and says, “I’m not sure. My costume changed from the pilot to Episode 2.” He praised Wiseman and Port for valuing respectful representation over continuity. “It was a big part of what I really wanted to bring to this character,” Zaragoza states. “They brought in a consultant who helped them as well as our amazing costume designer, Carmen Ali, to change the costumes to be more accurate.”  

The Manhattan-raised actor says he believes in the afterlife. “So yeah, I do a hundred percent,” Zaragoza shouts after a question from a reporter. “I’m Asian and Native American. I think the older we get, sometimes it’s harder to communicate with them. When we were young, like babies, you’re so close to that other world. I feel like when I was a kid, I could do that a hundred percent.” He claims he could see dead relatives when he was a child. “My parents said I would point to the corner of the room and say, ‘Hey, look, there’s Grandpa,’” he says. “Today, I find that scary. I don’t know about you, but if I was a parent and my kid said that, I would be terrified.”

Both Carrasco and Zaragoza have put in their dues to finally land in primetime television. 

Carrasco grew up on the South Side of Chicago making home movies about her dogs and cats–not starring her pets, but featuring herself as her pets. A graduate of NYU and Harvard, she has performed diverse stuff at the American Repertory Theatre, Steppenwolf Garage, Court Theatre Chicago, Moscow Art Theatre, as well as comedy at the Groundlings. Other television credits include CBS’s The Odd Couple and Life in Pieces and YouTube Red’s Me & My Grandma. She also had a recurring role as Detective Dana Peruzzi on The CW’s Jane the Virgin.

For his part, Zaragoza began acting in 2010, making his debut in the television movie Everyday Kid. He has appeared in several short films including The Oblivious and You Could Be Happy. In 2016, he appeared alongside Maria Thayer in an episode of TruTV’s Those Who Can’t and three years later in Stumptown. His father, Gregory Zaragoza, and sisters, Danielle and Rayanna, are also actors. This year, Román produced a documentary short, This is Their Land, starring his father.

Ghosts airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET and 8: CT.

Featured Photo: Sheila Carrasco in Ghosts (Credit: CBS)

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Morales will debut live Oct. 11. alongside current hosts former NFL player Akbar Gbajabiamila, fitness instructor Amanda Kloots, actor Jerry O’Connell and comedian Sheryl Underwood. The national show features the prominent personalities discussing current events, pop culture, family, celebrity and trending topics of the day. The hosts exchange stories and share their opinions on issues and events in the headlines. The show also features celebrity guest interviews, musical performances and cooking segments, as well as human interest stories. Morales is the only professional journalist on the show’s hosting panel. 

Morales is the second new host to join the show to join The Talk in three months. In July, O’Connell replaced Sharon Osbourne, who left the show after having a controversial on-air exchange with Underwood.

LATINO INCLUSION
With Morales’s arrival, The Talk will finally catch up with its rival The View on ABC on Latino representation. The latter New York-produced show has featured two Latinas in its 20-plus-years history–actress Rosie Perez was brought in in 2014 and political commentator Ana Navarro has been a co-host since 2018.

The Talk is broadcast live weekdays at the CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California. Morales has lived in Los Angeles since 2016.

“It’s an extraordinary opportunity to be joining this team at The Talk,” said Morales, a journalist who speaks Spanish and Portuguese, was born in Taiwan and spent much of the first 18 years of her life living overseas in Panama, Brazil and Spain as the daughter of an Air Force family. “I love the new energy and direction and couldn’t be more excited to join Sheryl, Amanda, Jerry and Akbar,” she added. “I’m looking forward to many good times while talking about the days’ topics, and I can’t wait to get going.” 

Morales was born in Taiwan while her Air Force family was stationed there. She graduated summa cum laude from Rutgers University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and Latin American studies.  

LONG CAREER AT NBC
Morales comes from NBC Universal, a media company in which she spent 15 years as an anchor and national correspondent in some of the network’s most prominent national shows. Most recently she was West Coast anchor of NBC News’ Today, a correspondent for Dateline NBC as well as the anchor of Behind Closed Doors with Natalie Morales. 

She previously served as host of Access and co-host of Access Live and as news anchor of Today, co-hosting the show’s third hour. Morales joined Today in 2006 as a national correspondent and reported across all of NBCUniversal News’ platforms, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and MSNBC. 

In a Today first, Morales followed 20 children from the class of 2020–all of whom were born a year after 9/11–from their first day of kindergarten to graduation, amid a global pandemic nonetheless. In addition to hosting At Home With Natalie, Morales contributed to several major breaking news stories, including the sexual harassment scandals, the 2017 Las Vegas massacre, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the rescue of the Chilean miners in 2010. The latter coverage was seen worldwide and earned a National Headliner Award. 

EXCLUSIVES & NOTABLE INTERVIEWS
In August 2008, Morales had the exclusive jailhouse interview with the infamous convicted murderer and impostor Clark Rockefeller. Her other notable reports include the 2009 presidential inauguration; Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005; the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami; the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005; and the election of Pope Francis in 2013. She also reported on the royal wedding in 2011 and the birth of Prince George in 2013.  

As a part of the Shine a Light campaign in 2014, Morales ran in the Boston Marathon and raised over $70,000 for victims of the 2013 bombing. Morales has won three Daytime Emmy Awards as part of Today’s recognition as the best morning news program. She won a Robert F. Kennedy Award in international journalism for her report on Honduran lobster divers for Rock Center with Brian Williams in June 2013. She has won three Gracie Awards, one for Outstanding Series for her Dateline NBC special, “My Kid Would Never,” and two for her reporting in 2016 and 2017. 

“We couldn’t be more excited to have Natalie Morales join the Talk family,” said executive producers Heather Gray and Kristin Matthews. “We have been fans of her and her work for years. Her varied skill set and versatility are a great addition to our talented panel. Natalie’s intelligence, passion and enthusiasm always shine through in all her work, and we are fortunate to have her on the team. In addition to her role as an exceptional broadcaster, we believe her perspective as a wife and mother will provide a special connection with our audience.” 

The Talk airs weekdays, 2-3 p.m., ET and 1-2 p.m. PT/CT, on the CBS Television Network. It is available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+. The show is produced by CBS Studios. 

Featured Photo: Natalie Morales (Credit: CBS)

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By Julio Martinez

Writer/performer Sheila Carrasco is happily immersed in live theater and shooting the CBS Ghosts, a comedy pilot starring Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar, and written by Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, for Lionsgate Television, BBC Studios and CBS Studios.  This while her solo comedy, Anyone But Me, continues its virtual run at iamatheatre.com.

Ghosts follows a struggling young couple, Samantha (McIver) and Jay (Ambudkar). Their dreams come true when they inherit a beautiful country house, only to find it’s both falling apart and inhabited by many of the previous deceased residents. 

“Rose and Utjarsh play an energetic, positive couple whom you really want to root for, and I play one of the deceased permanent residents,” Carrasco remarks drolly. The show is based on a series that’s currently very popular on the BBC in England.  “When I first read for the script, I started watching the British series, and I fell in love with it. All the ghosts died on the property in the last thousand years. It has a really fun Bill and Ted meets Beetlejuice vibe.” 

Carrasco plays Flower, a 1960s flower child, who died on the property in the late 60s while attending a music festival on the property, as she explains, “She wandered around the property, tripping on acid, and was attacked by a bear she was trying to befriend.”

Aside from Carrasco, the series co-stars Rebecca Wisocky, Brandon Scott Jones, Danielle Pinnock, Asher Grodman, Richie Moriarty and Román Zaragoza. “They are tremendous comedic actors, and yes, they are the other ghosts, American characters from the past,” Carrasco exclaims. “Another of the series regulars, Román, is Latino. His mother is Taiwanese/American. His father is a mix of Mexican/American and Native/American (Teema Tribe).  He plays a Native American character from the 16th century, which is really cool”.

The Ghosts pilot was greenlit last February but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, which was shot in December. 

“I am pretty sure Ghosts will start airing in the Fall,” says Carrasco. “We have to shoot the rest of the season. We still have to find out when we’re shooting it, where we’re shooting, how many episodes.  I am thinking it will premiere in October, but I am really guessing. It is all TBD. The only thing I am sure about is my costume. All the ghosts are in the attire they were wearing when they died.” 

While Carrasco is waiting to get in front of the camera, she is determined to write a new play. She muses, “I don’t think this will be a solo show, though. I actually want to write a large Latino ensemble, kitchen sink kind of play. I don’t believe we have enough of those.  I want to write my version of it. And of course, I want to write for television. I’ve always enjoyed writing TV scripts and pilots.  I want to take advantage of every opportunity I have.  I think I am going to take some time to just think about some things. But what is lovely right now is I have some options.”

For now, you can see Carrasco in her virtually solo comedy, Anyone But Me, which she wrote and performs.  It was filmed live at L.A.’s Pico Playhouse, directed by Margaux Susi, and you can see it at www.iamatheatre.com, continuing through April 25. “The play deals with eight different women. They’re based on ladies I’ve known, and there’s a little of me in each of the characters,” Carrasco says. “Anyone But Me is an exploration of all my different alter egos and the insecurities I’ve had in my life.”

Carrasco also has Native American roots but from South America. Half Chilean/Mapuche Tribe, she is originally from the South Side of Chicago and an alumna of NYU. She was selected to perform as one of the JFL New Faces of Comedy CBS Showcase (as both a performer and head writer). She has performed with the Groundlings, American Repertory Theatre, Moscow Art Theatre, Steppenwolf Garage and Chicago’s Court Theatre. Carrasco is a creator for Más Mejor, Broadway Video’s premium comedy studio for Latinx voices. 

On TV, she’s been seen in I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, The Good Place, Jane the Virgin, Outmatched, The Odd Couple, Life in Pieces, American Housewife and #VanLife for NBC/Universal.

— Featured Photo: Sela Shiloni

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By Julio Martinez

Writer/actress/creator Elaine Del Valle is riding the crest of a fast-surging wave. She recently attached Andrea Navedo (Jane The Virgin) and Arika Lisanne Mittman as her star and showrunner, respectively, and then sold her pilot The System to CBS. 

Del Valle has been in the entertainment business for some time. She started off as an actress, then realized that if she was going to see non-stereotypical Latina roles, she was going to have to write them herself. “I had been an actress for about a decade when I wrote my show as a result of feeling misunderstood and unseen by casting directors, because they couldn’t understand that somebody who looked like me could have my background, and so I wrote Brownsville, Bred.”

Brownsville Bred (2011), is her autobiographical, one-woman stage play, developed while studying with noted New York acting coach, Wynn Handman. It depicted her true Nuyorican (New York/Puerto Rican) coming-of-age years in Brownsville Brooklyn, New York, which quickly garnered acclaim. She subsequently adapted her stage play into a novel, Brownsville Bred: Dreaming Out Loud, which was named, “Most Inspirational Young Adult” book by the International Latino Book Awards.

In 2013, with a desire to make her work more accessible, Del Valle began to write for the screen. She co-wrote, produced, and directed a comedy web series, Reasons Why I’m Single (Amazon Prime). Elaine has since, as the owner and operator of Del Valle Productions & Casting, cast over 50 short films, and produced her own short films. In 2015 Elaine became the first person to license an interstitial series, her co-production of Gran’pa Knows Best, to the HBO Latino Network.

With other notable achievements along the way, Del Valle’s biggest accomplishment to date is the development deal with CBS Television for her pilot titled The System, which she will also co-executive produce. She is excited but keeping it all in perspective. “It’s not my first time at this rodeo,” she affirms. “The process came by way of relationships developed throughout the years and establishing mutual respect. It takes continuous work, continuous growth, and that’s how it happened for me.”

Del Valle describes the arduous work involved from first putting words on paper to getting the deal with CBS. Beginning in 2018 when she was selected as one of nine directors to participate in the Sundance Short Narrative Film Lab after the film she directed, 3.769 was shown at Sundance. “I started taking their classes, including a course on feature film writing.”

Then she found the class on television episodic writing and she decided to look into that because at that time Del Valle was determined to turn her Brownsville Bred into a series. “But the minute I started learning what a network series really needed in order to have infinite longevity, I realized that perhaps Brownsville Bred was not the best story I could tell. And so I turned my time at the Sundance episodic lab into developing The System.”

Del Valle’s idea for the series evolved, eventually focusing on a competent yet jaded female social worker, navigating the same broken New York City system she had grown up in, while dealing with family issues of her own. The character advocates to resolve issues for every family she encounters while struggling to fix her own. When Del Valle finally felt she was ready to pitch the series, she turned to a longtime friend.

“I reached out to my dear friend Andrea Navedo whom everyone knows from Jane the Virgin. She had played Jane’s mom for five seasons. We have been friends for many years, auditioned together all the time. I brought the project to her and told her, ‘I really think that you’re right for it’.”

A year later, about the time Jane the Virgin was ending Navedo reached out to ask about the project. She had called right at the moment when Del Valle was going to sign an option deal for The System with another production company. She had been procrastinating because she really wasn’t happy with the terms of the agreement.

So when Navedo called, “I made some tweaks and sent it over to her,” Del Valle recalled. “The next day, Andrea told me that she read it, her team read it, her entire management team read it. They loved it. And they were on board with her being a producer on it.  And so with that, we just decided to proceed to the next steps.”

As it turned out, everyone was in agreement that the very next step was to get the project in front of Jennie Snyder Urman, Jane the Virgin’s creator and showrunner. Andrea texted Urman, “Hey, can we have a conversation? I have this project” Urman loved it and immediately showed it to CBS Studios where she has a first-look deal.

“They loved it,” exclaimed Del Valle. “And then the next thing I knew, I found myself in an If-Come deal with CBS.”  This kind of deal simply means the series creator has an agreement but is not formally signed with the studio. Basically, nobody gets paid until the project is sold. If there is no sale, the rights revert back to Del Valle, the writer.

Del Valle, Navedo and Urman moved forward as if mounting a military campaign. Del Valle recalled, “Jennie Urman told us we needed a showrunner and within an hour said, ‘I know the right showrunner for you, Arika Lisanne Mittman (Executive Producer of Paradise Lost and Timeless). The four of us first met on Zoom.” The next step was to pitch to CBS. Urman and Mittman shared some of their pitches with Del Valle, “I know writers don’t usually share their pitch ideas, but Jennie and Arika were so generous,” Del Valle recounted gratefully.

It took about a month for Del Valle to fine-tune her pitch, each time going back and forth with Urman and Mittman sending her feedback while also getting notes from the network executives. Del Valle described the process. “I had been refining and practicing that pitch for a month before I did it,” she recalled. “The whole pitch took place on a Zoom call that included the network executives and producers who spoke about their involvement and how they came to the project, then the showrunner spoke, and then it was my turn.” She had three minutes to talk about herself and 20 minutes to pitch the show.

“As soon as I was done, they asked some questions, I answered; the team answered questions, and then the network just said, ‘We want it.’ The whole thing took maybe 30 to 35 minutes.” Afterward, Urman called Del Valle to let her know just how well she had done, words that will stay with her forever. “You did something called ‘you sold it in the room’ and that doesn’t happen often,” Urman said. “You have a lot to be proud of.” Indeed she did.

Del Valle is currently waiting for the CBS corporate decision for the exact date to begin filming the pilot for The System. “So right now, that’s where I’m at,” she declares. “The CBS Network people gave me notes. I made the changes. I’ve been told that the head of CBS, Tom Sherman, loves the pilot and that we should celebrate that right now,” said Del Valle, but then continued cautiously. “But no, this is a very odd time because some pilots from last year have yet to be made.”

In the meantime, Del Valle is busy bringing her original one-woman book, Brownsville Bred to the screen, with the support of Warner Media 150 and The Sundance Institute. This is her first time directing a feature, “I start filming this summer in June, starring 10-year-old Latinx star Isabella Velasquez…and of course, I am looking forward to getting my pilot start date from CBS Studios.”

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The new sci-fi series Debris, about an alien spaceship, is landing on NBC this coming month, and its first episode is co-directed by Rebecca Rodriguez.

Debris is about the wreckage from a spacecraft whose remains fall across a large section of Earth. The pieces have strange effects in the areas where they have come down, defying gravity and other physics laws and impacting people’s lives in unforeseen ways. Two agents from different continents try to recover all the debris to understand its nature and power before it falls into the wrong hands. 

A DIVERSE CAST
The show stars up-and-coming actors Jonathan Tucker (The Ruins) and Riann Steele (The Magicians) as CIA and MI6 agents, respectively. Its diverse cast also features Thomas Cadrot (Firefly Lane), Armin Karame (Upload), Alex Bogomolov (Arrow), Myrasol Martinez (When Hell Calls Your Name), and debutante child actor Calix Miguel, among many others.

Debris is executive produced by its creator J.H. Wyman (Fringe, The Mexican), who also co-writes. Producing the series are Frequency Films and Legendary Television.

FILMMAKING FAMILY
Rodriguez is the sister of acclaimed filmmaker Robert Rodriguez (Machete, El Mariachi). In fact, her first known film credit is starring in the short Bedhead, directed by her brother Robert back in 1991. She later appeared in a small role in Spy Kids.

As an editor, Rebecca Rodriguez has worked in the Sundance film Frank & Lola, Machete Kills and Machete, the latter two also directed by her famous brother. She is also listed as a producer in Spy Kids 4-D: All the Time in the World.

Rodriguez is an up-and-coming filmmaker who has been producing a few episodes for series like Orville, Queen of the South, and Nancy Drew. Her latest work includes the episodics Snow Pierce, The Chi, and Mayans M.C.

In her biggest job yet, Rebecca Rodriguez is set to executive produce the TV series Zorro, created by her brother Robert, produced by CBS, and distributed by NBC.

Debris premieres March 1 on NBC. 

Featured Top Photo: In Debris (l-r): Yoshi Bancroft as Agent McGuire, King Lau as Situation Team Agent, and Riann Steele as Finola. Photo by: Sergei Bachlakov/NBC.

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Freddy Rodriguez was born January 17, 1975 in Chicago, Illinois to Puerto Rican parents.  At 13, Freddy discovered a theater program for inner-city youth, which led to a scholarship to the Pulaski International School of Chicago.   He moved into the Hollywood limelight playing Federico Diaz on HBO’s Six Feet Under which ran for five years.  For this role, he received two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series, and an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

His first leading role in a major film was in David Ayer’s Harsh Times in which he starred alongside Christian Bale and Eva Longoria.

He is also known for playing El Wray in Robert Rodriguez’s  Planet Terror, in the double-feature film, Grindhouse.  He has worked on several movies with Latino actors and/or filmmakers: A Walk in the Clouds directed by Alfonso Arau; alongside Roselyn Sanchez Chasing Papi (directed by Linda Mendoza); a music video for the Santana song Into the Night; a cameo in Fergie’s music video for the song Glamorous; and in Nothing Like the Holidays directed by  Alfredo Rodriguez de Villa, starring alongside John Leguizamo, Elizabeth Pena, Luis Guzman, and Jay Hernandez (Magnum PI)

Other film credits include the film Poseidon and M. Night Shyamalan’s film Lady in the Water. On TV Rodriguez starred for three years as Giovanni Rossi in Ugly Betty; and Dr. Michael Ragosa in two seasons of NBC’s The Night Shift (2014–15).  From 2003- 2004 he played Carla Espinoza’s (Judy Reyes) brother in Scrubs. 

Since 2016 Rodriguez has been starring in CBS’s crime drama Bull.

Featured Photo of Bull: CBS

— Latin Heat News Service

The post Happy Birthday to Actor Freddy Rodriguez! first appeared on .

By Cesar Arredondo

The new CBS television special, Essential Heroes: A Momento Latino Event, created by Henry Munoz III and executive produced and hosted by Eva Longoria, brings together a coalition of mega superstars who will pay tribute to Latinos in the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic while celebrating the U.S. Latino contribution and culture.

The TV special will highlight the grassroots work done by some individuals and organizations during the Covid-19 crisis with the participation of actors John Leguizamo, Rita Moreno, Lin Manuel Miranda, Freddy Rodriguez, Isabela Merced, and Wilmer Valderrama, comedians George Lopez and Arturo Castro, and musical performances by Juanes, Gloria Estefan, Pitbull, Luis Fonsi, Kelsea Ballerini and Ricky Martin–with the latter two also also co-hosting the one-hour special. The special will also be available to stream live and on demand on CBS All Access.

“We have comedy, we have music, we have these wonderful… documentary packages” about people and organizations helping the Latino community in the pandemic, said Longoria during a recent virtual press conference promoting the event. “It’s such a beautiful 360 (degree perspective) of our culture.” There will be documentaries about entrepreneur immigrants, a woman who provides children of farmworkers with school supplies, feeding programs for people in need, and nonprofits.

The show is produced by Momento Latino, a coalition that came together in the beginning of the pandemic to tackle the challenges facing Latinos in the tragic time of Covid-19. “As we move from crisis to recovery, we know that this is our moment to speak up and fight for US Latinos,” declares the group’s website.

Companies co-producing the CBS special are Will Ferrell’s Funny Or Die and Longoria’s UnbeliEVAble Entertainment along with the consulting firm Global Philanthropy Group. Executive producers are: Henry Muñoz for Momento Latino; Longoria and Ben Spector for UnbeliEVAble Entertainment; Maggie Neilson for Global Philanthropy; and Mike Farah, Joe Farrell, Jim Ziegler, Moira Noriega, Gloria Medel Solomons and R.A. Clark for Funny Or Die. The special is directed by Ron de Moraes, who won a Primetime Emmy for the XIX Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony and a Daytime Emmy for Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade.

A COALITION IS BORN
Launched earlier this summer in response to the impact of the pandemic on Latinos, Momento Latino is a coalition of activists, artists and allies “lifting our voices to push for change and elevate issues important to #Latino communities,” according to its Facebook page.

Munoz, who co-founded the group along with Longoria and created the television special said the Momento Latino’s idea started in New York back in march as the Big Apple became the epicenter of the pandemic. As Muñoz was driven to a coronavirus testing site through a desolated metropolis in lockdown, going through the National Guard and state and local police, he recalled imagining the intimidation some Latinos might feel facing all those challenges juts to get a Covid test, especially those with language barriers or with immigration status issues. Muñoz, a prominent businessman, designer and social justice activist who until recently was also the longest-serving Democratic National Committee finance chair, called Longoria and Estefan and told them, “We’ve got to do something.”

Momento Latino now boasts members such as U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, United League of Latin American Citizens, Acevedo Foundation, Hispanic National Bar Association, Hispanic Federation, Latino Policy Forum, Latino Community Foundation, and California Association for Bilingual Education, among others.

POSITIVE GOALS
The coalition aims at uplifting Latino stories and voices, talking action on issues relevant to the community, and celebrating Latinos’ diversity while highlighting commonalities in events that bring them together. Essential Heroes: A Momento Latino Event seems to check off all those boxes.

The Oct. 26 show will present stories that exemplify American Latinos’ resilience, ingenuity and caring during the pandemic which, according to organizers, has hit their community especially hard. “We are 18 percent of the population of the United States but we’re 34 percent of frontline essential workers,” said Longoria during a virtual press conference promoting the event. Those people include nurses and other medical professionals, farmworkers and delivery, restaurant and hotel workers, among others, added Longoria.

A recent study published in the Annals of Epidemiology shows that Latinos contract the virus and die from Covid-19 at disproportionately higher rates for their population. They account for 33 percent of all confirmed Covid-19 cases nationwide when they only represent about 18 percent of the country’s total population. Also, about one in five deaths from the disease is a Latino.

KEEPING U.S. GOING
“The majority of frontline essential workers that are keeping this country running and going are from our community, the Latino community,” stated Longoria, noting that many of them lack personal protection equipment. There have been numerous news reports, especially at the start of the pandemic, of medical staff, food processing plant employees and other workers toiling without proper protection or protocols against the coronavirus, risking their lives to make a living and support their families.

Workers from restaurants, farms, food industry and medical facilities are among those considered essential by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

While inevitably addressing the pandemic’s disproportional negative impact on Latinos, the CBS special appears to be an attempt to lift spirits and offer hope with community stories and entertainment.  

A short clip from Essential Heroes played at the conference highlights a family-owned Mexican restaurant La Guelaguetza, which was started by a food street vendor who immigrated from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. In the video, Estefan introduces the Los Angeles-based iconic eatery as an example of entrepreneurial creativity in the face of adversity. Estefan also attended the press conference via Zoom.

Two singers featured in the one-hour special offer uplifting songs. Grammy Award winner rapper Pitbull will perform his single I Believe That We Will Win, a song penned and released in the pandemic.

For her part, Estefan will sing a version of her pop dance hit Get On Your Feet especially adapted to serve as send-off at the end of the show.

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CBS announced a new one-hour entertainment special, Essential Heroes: A Momento Latino Event Event, a celebration of Latinx culture in America, produced and hosted by Eva Longoria, along with Gloria Estefan and Ricky Martin, to be broadcast Monday, Oct. 26 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. It will also be available to stream live and on demand on CBS All Access. Produced by Funny Or Die, in partnership with Momento Latino, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment and Global Philanthropy, the special will honor the contributions of the Latinx community to the United States and their importance to its future.

Essential Heroes: A Momento Latino Event will celebrate America’s diversity with a focus on Latinx culture, bringing joy, awareness and aid to the Latinx community that has been deeply impacted by and played an essential role in fighting COVID-19. Through musical performances, comedy pieces, docu-shorts and star-studded appearances, the special will explore the Latinx experience as told by Latinx voices. Performers and participants will be announced closer to air.

““The Latinx community has been the backbone of this country for hundreds of years, not just the last seven months, and it’s time that we not only know our own worth, but are also recognized, appreciated and celebrated accordingly for our contributions, pandemic or not,” said Longoria. “When COVID-19 hit the United States, people were quick to applaud our essential workers, many of whom are Latinos, for helping to keep food on our tables, delivering our packages and working in our healthcare system.”

Essential Heroes: A Momento Latino Event Event is created by Henry R. Muñoz III. The special is produced by Funny Or Die, Momento Latino, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment and Global Philanthropy. Executive producers are Henry Muñoz for Momento Latino; Longoria and Ben Spector for UnbeliEVAble Entertainment; Maggie Neilson for Global Philanthropy; and Mike Farah, Joe Farrell, Jim Ziegler, Moira Noriega, Gloria Medel Solomons and R.A. Clark for Funny Or Die. The special is directed by Ron de Moraes.

“We created Momento Latino because we understand the challenges that Latinos in America face every day, and we knew we had to bring together a national infrastructure of opportunity to move the community forward into the future,” said Muñoz III, founder of Momento Latino. “We’ve brought together more than 130 organizations, nonprofits, artists, activists and community leaders so far, and through this special we can share with the nation the inspiring stories of how Latinos served as the backbone of this country’s essential workforce throughout the pandemic despite being among the hardest hit by the disease and the economic fallout.”

Longoria’s UnbeliEVAble Entertainment’s recently partnered ViacomCBS’ Entertainment & Youth Group for their First Time Directors program highlighting BIPOC and women filmmakers to produce 50 films across the group’s portfolio of networks and streaming services. Soon UnbeliEVAble will produce Before I Forget for Amazon, the multi-generational drama Chicano centering on a Mexican-American family that immigrates to Los Angeles in pursuit of the American Dream for ABC, and the HBO film A Class Apart, with Robert Rodriguez directing, which tells the incredible true story of a group of Mexican Americans fighting for their civil rights during a landmark case that leads all the way to the Supreme Court. Past projects from UnbeliEVAble include the Emmy Award nominated Netflix documentary Reversing Roe, ESPN’s 30 for 30 series Versus, and the Lionsgate film John Wick

Momento Latino is a growing coalition of activists, leaders, nonprofits and artists lifting our voices and pushing for change for the Latinx community. COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated longstanding inequalities, and has had a disproportionate effect on the Latino community’s health, education and economic stability. But with crisis comes opportunity: together, we can create real change. Our partners – more than 130 activists, artists, nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups and corporate leaders – are working together to build an America where the Latinx community can reach out full potential. For more information, visit https://momentolatino.us/ and follow us on Instagram at @momento_latino.

CHEAT TWEET: @EvaLongoria produces and hosts MOMENTO LATINO with co-hosts @GloriaEstefan and @ricky_martin, a new 1-hour special that’s a celebration of Latinx culture in America, to air 10/26 9PM ET/PT #CBS! https://bit.ly/36z3cfP

RATING: To Be Announced

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Gloria Calderón Kellett and Norman Lear are about to launch the fourth season of Calderón Kellet’s Latino version of One Day at a Time, a mere 45 years after Lear’s original series become a mainstay on the network from 1975 to 1984. Calderón Kellett developed ODAAT, the series with co-creator Mike Royce, which ran three seasons on Netflix, then it was cancelled. After a social media outrage and a call for the return of the much loved show, it was picked up by POP TV but cut short because of the Covid. Then the news came that the series was picked up by CBS, making a full circle back to the television network where it began. Home again.  Originally scheduled to premiere on October 5th, it was pushed back to October 12th at the last minute.

With the trajectory of ODAAT Calderón Kellett and Royce are the TV show creators that could…three times! The season four they shot for POP TV is what will be airing on CBS. Calderón Kellett took to social media to once again elicit the help of ODAAT fans. This season is crucial for the beloved sitcom if they are to get a season 5 on CBS.

If Calderón Kellet has shown anything, it’s that she is resilient and a survivor. And so she recounts her journey to being one of the most sought after show runners on television. Calderón Kellet recalls, “My parents are Cuban. I was raised in Oregon and San Diego, so I guess we are West Coast Cubans. Yeah, they do exist. I was a singer, dancer and actor at a very young age. In the first grade I was performing at malls and retirement communities.  The writing came a little bit later. It really emanated from a deep frustration I felt after coming to Hollywood and going out on auditions. I was stunned by the limited roles that they had for Latinos. ‘Where’s a Latino teacher, a lawyer or a doctor?’ The roles were always gangbangers or girlfriends of gangbangers. This was only fifteen years ago. That really frustrated me, so I figured that the people holding the power are holding the pen. So, I gotta hold the pen.”

Calderón Kellet was doing standup comedy at the time and noticed there were very few Latinas doing standup. “It was very male dominated,” she says. “I was consistently told that women had no place in comedy. So, I put together a one woman show of 15 short monologues for women of various, diverse backgrounds. It was a very simply staged production, just an actor on a small blank stage and a single light. The first night I gave tickets out to all the local charities that I supported and to the businesses around the theater. We were sold out and the rest of the run we had a line going around the block. People seemed to want to see a woman being funny. This is how I got my agent and my manager. I put up another show called Baggage the next year.  Then I wrote a book, Accessories – 30 Monologues for Women, a compilation of the monologues I did in those two shows. And that is really what started my career. That is the thing that caught fire for me and allowed people to see what I could do and make them want to hire me.” 

The once aspiring young singer, dancer and comic moved forward as a writer, actress, story editor and co-producer on the CBS series, How I Met Your Mother. Then she moved on to writer and supervising producer on Rules of Engagement, Lifetime’s Devious Maids, ABC’s Mixology and the ABC series, United We Fall.  In her current series, she has modeled the lead role of Penelope (played by Justina Machado) on herself.  

“It’s true,” she admits. “Our lead character is a veteran and a nurse.  I am not a veteran and I am not in health care. But the way she thinks and feels about the world is me. She is balancing between her mother (played by Rita Moreno), who is much more conservative and her daughter (played by Isabella Gomez) who is very liberal. Penelope is really trying to keep her balance between these very powerful women. She serves as our moderate.”

Calderón Kellett is not finding a huge difference between creating a series for streaming television and having it air on network television. “It really isn’t different at all,” she exclaims. “What is so beautiful about this show is, we were always making a Norman Lear sitcom. On Netflix, the episodes got to be a little bit longer, which was lovely, but this was always in the tone and style of what Norman has been doing for 45 years. It is really glorious to now be on a network which is what this format was designed for. It is having a discourse with your audience and saying, ‘Welcome to this Latino couch.’  The sitcom is a proscenium, a theater, a play. And the couch is the center of every great American sitcom because that’s where the conversations are happening. To be able to do that in the Norman Lear style on CBS so many years later is just a gift. And I am so proud to have it seen through the Latino lens.” 

When asked about the makeup of the writers room and how many are on staff, Kellett explains, “Every year it varies a little bit. I believe this year there were 12 of us. It’s normally between nine and twelve. It is a glorious room to be in.”

There are a lot of Latinos in there. We are heavily Latino and we also are heavily queer because one of our main characters is from the LGBTQIA community. It’s a lot. And we also have various ages amongst the writers which is also very important to us because the show spans so many ages. That is what happens when you put a Latina in charge.  We’re very intentional in making change.” 

As far as filming in front of a live audience, Kellett goes on to say, “Lear’s series featured live audiences. And, yes, we did most of ours live.” But then, the whispers about COVID started, so our sixth episode did not have an audience. The six episodes are what CBS has signed on for this season. We did a seventh animated episode, the ‘Election Episode,’ which we are praying CBS will let us air just before the Presidential election. We wrote this entire fourth season for Netflix but only got to shoot half of it. The hope is that CBS will love it and we can fold the remaining shows we have written for season four into season five. That is our deep wish and desire.  However, the great hope is that our community will come out and really show up big on October 5 to 19. That will be a clear statement to the network that the public wants to have the show on the air and we’ll be able to provide the series for many years to come.”

Aside from One Day At a Time, when asked about any other projects she’s working on, Calderón Kellett laughs. “I have many projects I am working on. I don’t know how many I am allowed to talk about yet.  My new deal is with Amazon. They have already greenlit several pilots for me. Then I have a movie with Natasha Rothwell, an incredible African American actress and writer. She and I have a movie called We Were There Too, being produced by Greg Berlanti’s company for HBO Max.”   

Wondering if Calderón Kellett ever missed her old days as a performer, she tells us, “I do but of all the things that I do, the writing, directing and producing have had the most impact. So, right now, that is where my focus is. I certainly love acting, being able to pop over and do somebody else’s show or do one of my own. But my priority is still the pen. Once I get another show on, I am sure I will make an appearance in it. There are a lot of very talented Latina actresses out there but not a lot of Latina writers and directors who are given the opportunity to create. So, I f eel that is where I need to put my focus at this moment.”

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