Despite living in a neighborhood where fighting is stitched into the fabric of everyday life, high school junior Miguel (Tyler Dean Flores) has never found himself in one. And, to be honest, he’s perfectly fine with that. But when a combination of events turns his life upside down, Miguel and his three best friends —the stoic David (Christian Vunipola), the rowdy Cass (Imani Lewis), and the quick-tonged Srini (Suraj Partha)— enter into a series of hilarious misadventures as he tries to get into his first ever fight.

Directed by Oz Rodriguez (Vampires vs. the Bronx) and written by Jason Conception (Primo) and Shea Serrano (Primo), the cast of Miguel Wants to Fight includes Tyler Dean Flores (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), Raúl Castillo (El Chicano), Dascha Polanco (Orange is the New Black), and Andrea Navedo (Jane the Virgin).

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Justina Machado is best known for her comedic roles as Penelope Alvarez on the Netflix and CBS sitcom One Day at a Time and Darci Factor in The CW dramedy Jane the Virgin. She takes a decidedly dramatic step forward in the Lifetime movie Switched Before Birth, portraying Anna Ramirez, a woman who wishes to become a mother but struggles to concieve. Directed by Elizabeth Rohm, the film premieres Oct. 23. 

Switched Before Birth follows Olivia Crawford (Skyler Samuels) and her husband Brian (Bo Yokely), who stretch themselves to financial limits after multiple miscarriages and failed in vitro fertilization trials. While going through her latest round of IVF, Oliva meets and becomes fast friends with Anna Ramirez (Machado), who is struggling to have a child after years of focusing on her successful restaurants.

Interviewed with her friend and the film’s director, Elizabeth Rohm, Machado just smiles when asked about the role she is playing. “I really don’t have a formula for this,” she says “I’m always looking at the character. And I really could relate to what she had to offer. Anna Ramirez loved everything that was going on in her life. The only thing she couldn’t deal with is what she couldn’t have. We all know what that feels like.”

When Olivia and Anna both become pregnant the ladies celebrate and begin to prepare for their babies. But Anna suffers a devastating miscarriage and struggles to move forward while her marriage to restaurateur Gabe Ramirez (Yancey Arias) crumbles. When Olivia and Brian finally welcome their twins, Olivia feels her life is complete, but the couple’s world is turned upside down when they discover one of the babies is biologically the child of Anna and Gabe’s that had been implanted into Olivia by mistake. Now pitted against each other, Olivia will do anything to keep the baby that she carried, while Anna will stop at nothing to bring her son home.

“Justina just kills it as Anna,” says Rohm. “People don’t know how we have our miracle babies. IVF is still considered to be like pioneering in the wild west. I think this movie will do a lot to help people understand what is possible in this modern age.”

Machado points to her friend and adds, “And this powerhouse was also the director. I’ve acted with her. Elizabeth is a talented lady. As for me, I just dig into the script. It is so much fun to be able to be this character and truly show what she is going through.” The actor and director might work together on another project. Rohm hints that she and Machado may team up again for a reboot of the 1980s police drama Cagney & Lacey.

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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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Gina Rodriguez is headed to the White House in the role as POTUS in Diary of a Female President, the series she is executive producing for Disney+ streaming service.

Earlier this year, Disney+ gave a 10-episode straight-to-series order to Diary of a Female President with Gina Rodriguez attached as an executive producer. The series follows a 12 year-old Cuban-American girl through middle school and her journey to becoming the future president of the United States.

Rodriguez’s Jane the Virgin ends its run August 31st and will move on to portray the adult Elena in Diary of a Female President, in a recurring guest-starring role, who is currently on the campaign trail. She will also direct the first episode.

Tess Romero will play the teen Elena, who is described as “unabashed, semi-dweeby, ultra-observant” and wielding a “strong point of view.” Also cast include Charlie Bushnell, Selenis Leyva (Orange is the New Black) and Michael Weaver (Here and Now).

Working alongside producing partner Emily Gipson, Rodriguez will also work with Robin Shorr (The Carmichael Show, The Middle), who is attached as showrunner. Series creator Ilana Peña, (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) will write the scripts.

Currently, in production in Los Angeles, Diary of a Female President is set to premiere in 2020 on Disney+, which launches this year in November 12th.

Gina Rodriguez is repped by Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Narrative (Publicity). Ilana Peña is repped by UTA.

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Two TV shows, Miss Bala Film Premiere, a “Jane” Spinoff and a Starring Role in Warner Bros. Bobbie Sue

When Gina Rodriguez was 14 years old she already knew she wanted to star in her own TV show. Fast forward to the present, she now stars as Jane in the CW’s Jane the Virgin and voices the lead character in Netflix’s Carmen SanDiego (which premiered Jan. 18th) making that now two TV shows. But wait, there is more. Having surpassed her childhood dreams in a matter of weeks, Rodriguez now stars in the film Miss. Bala which opens nationwide on Friday, February 1st.

The Golden Globe award-winning actress Rodriguez (Jane The Virgin) plays Gloria in Sony Pictures’ action-thriller Miss Bala, directed by Catherine Hardwicke and written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. It is based on the 2011 Mexican film of the same name directed by Gerardo Naranjo and which was on the short list for an Oscar nomination. The remake follows a woman who trains to take down a drug cartel after they kidnap her friend.

Gloria is a young Mexican-American makeup artist from Los Angeles who travels to Tijuana, Mexico to visit her best friend Suzu (Aislin Derbez). When Suzu suddenly disappears at a nightclub Gloria begins a search and rescue mission, and in the process, gets kidnapped. She is forced to smuggle laundered money for the drug cartel. Ismael Cruz Cordova (Ray Donovan) co-stars as Lino, plays the charismatic drug cartel leader with Anthony Mackie as the DEA agent.

Recently Rodriguez explained to the Las Vegas Review-Journal why she is thrilled to finally be playing a “kick-ass” action hero.

“Action films don’t come along too often for women of color. This was a godsend because it’s not only about a female hero, but I also got this beautiful, amazing female director and an incredibly insane — in the best way — Latino director of photography (Patrick Murgia),” she explained. “Also, it’s not often that you get to participate in a film that’s about 95 percent Latino production from cast to crew. I had the opportunity to speak two languages on the set, and I was immersed in a culture that is beautiful and glorious.”

Pablo Cruz (Cesar Chavez) who produced the original Miss Bala in his native Mexico partnered with Kevin Misher (The Scorpion King: Book of Souls) for the remake. The film was shot on location in and around Tijuana, Baja California Mexico. Graciela Mazon (The Mask Of Zorro) served as Costume Designer for the film and Marco Niro was the Production Designer.

As Miss Bala is set to premiere, Rodriguez is busy filming the fifth and final season of Jane the Virgin, playing the title role of Jane Villanueva (the role which made her a household name). Showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman adapted Jane the Virgin for American audiences from the Venezuelan telenovela Juana la Virgen which was created by Perla Farías. The final season premieres on March 27 9/8c.

However, Jane will live on in a new pilot spinoff announced just days ago by The CW. The pilot is titled Jane the Novela and is a telenovela-inspired anthology based on Jane Villanueva’s fictional novels. Each season will featuring the story of a different book. The first season will “takes place at a Napa Valley vineyard, where family secrets (and family members) don’t stay buried for long,” the CW said in a statement.

Rodriguez will narrate Jane the Novela and will also executive produce along with Urman. Valentina Garza will pen the pilot script with Brad Silberling slated to direct the pilot.

While still involved in the spinoff, Rodriguez will be closing a very important chapter in her life, as she moves behind the scenes on the spinoff (other than her voice) and moves front and center to the big screen.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. recently announced they have swooped Rodriguez up for her their film Bobbie Sue. This will it the second movie in which she plays the title character, but certainly, not her last.

Rodriguez will be playing Bobbie sue who, having been raised in a blue-collar neighborhood in South Boston, works hard to become an attorney. She is hired by a top law firm and assigned, under false pretenses, to represent their powerful client in his sexual discrimination case. When Sue finds out the truth, she turns on her own law firm in fighting for workers rights.

Charles Stone III (Unlce Drew) is set to direct with Donald De Line producing and Rodriguez and Emily Gipson executive producing. Casting for the other roles is currently underway for a possible production start date by the end of 2019.

Most recently, audiences saw Rodriquez starring alongside Natalie Portman in Paramount’s Annihilation and later this year she will star in another Netflix project, this time a film Someone Great.

In addition to these projects, Rodriguez also has four projects in development that are slated to be produced through her own production company I Can and I Will Productions. The projects range from comedy to drama and animation. Rodriguez will star in and produce the live action movie of Carmen SanDiego through her I Can and I Will Productions. Kevin Misher and Caroline Fraser will produce alongside her with Andy Berman of Misher Films executive producing

Although it has certainly not come easy, Rodriguez’s talent has helped her make her childhood dreams come true, and soar beyond the dream.

Gina Rodriguez is repped by CAA

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