Written by Judi Jordan

The Imagen Awards was co-founded by legendary television producer and writer Norman Lear, who lived to the ripe age of 101, and passed in 2023. A deeply curious and humane person, Mr. Lear’s awareness of the void of positive portrayals of Latinos in the entertainment industry gave weight to the importance of positive Latino images. 

Norman Lear would be so proud of the 2025 nominees. His quest to see Latinos portrayed with respect and creativity is met in the ten categories including Drama, Comedy, Docs, Shorts and more. Helen Hernandez is the President & Founder of the Imagen Foundation who produces the Imagen Awards.

LATIN HEAT + IMAGEN  – Part One

The suave Latin devils of old Hollywood TV cliches have been replaced by a crop of intriguing, grown men with callings, consciences and inner conflicts. 

These new Drama Kings are dyslexic, intuitive, vulnerable (Will Trent/ Ramón Rodriguez) caring, conflicted, educated (The Cleaning Lady/Santiago Cabrera) regretful, emotive and resolute, (The Last of Us/Pedro Pascal) evolved, affable and effective, (Lincoln Lawyer/Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and lonely, wary, idealistic (Andor/Diego Luna) These roles played to the talent’s dramatic strengths while offering exciting nuances that kept audiences tuning in weekly or binging – streamer contingent.  

Drama Kings – modern Latin Lovers are vulnerable, aspirational, responsible and gainfully-if sometimes painfully-employed. These seasoned IMAGEN-nominated men defy the tired one-dimensional stereotypes of heartless seducers, skeezy scammers and gun-happy cholos.

Established TV and film stars in uncommen roles wowed their fans with new facets of their talent and audiences approved. With resumes, personas and ‘chops’ that TV networks and streamer execs respect, TV showrunners craft episodes that highlight and challenge their characters’ strengths. 

Three seasons of Will Trent blew up the long, steady career of Ramón Rodriguez! Who knew he had 20+ film roles on his resume including G-20, Gang Related, Transformers? His memorable early TV work on The Wire 2002-2008 laid the foundation. By the time Will Trent arrived, Ramón Rodriguez, in the title role, was more than ready. His heartfelt, eccentric Southern detective is fascinating, never parodied. Will Trent, broken and brave feels embedded in his soul, but joy has crept into the series with dance numbers that lighten the storyline and a thoughtful, romantic storyline with Gina Rodriguez that fans loved.

An executive producer on the show, Rodriguez directed the exceptional Season 3 premiere episode and will direct again in Season 4. Deadline broke the story that Rodriguez recently signed a multi-year deal with 20^th Television, to develop and produce series and films for Disney, a fitting outcome for the gifted, dedicated multi-hyphenate. 

Santiago Cabrera is nominated for his dark turn as Jorge Sanchez, the highly-reluctant Harvard-educated drug cartel leader of the Sin Cara Cartel, in the gritty Fox/Hulu series The Cleaning Lady. Chilean-born Cabrera joined the show in seasons 3 and 4. Typically cast as the hero, female fans still swoon over his pitch-perfect portrayal of dashing, soulful Aramis in the 3-season BBC hit show Musketeers, now airing on Hulu. His 20-year working streak of good guy supporting and leads in Picard, Heroes, Merlin, Salvation, and prestige series romantic roles in Big Little Lies, Flight Attendant, Land of Women, and a kindly ghost Richard Deetz in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice called for a change. 

Cabrera had resisted drug lord roles for years; but tempted by the premise, he used his discomfort – his very conflicted Jorge feels real. He admits, “It was fun to play the bad guy.” Audiences witnessed a very different Cabrera with a gun in his hand wading through cartel carnage as the ambiguous yet ambitious man with a plan that goes south by the hour. Not to mention a fraudulent marriage with Thony, a fearless Cambodian female doctor (played by Elodie Yung), who dissects bodies of cartel enemies in exchange for his protection. Plagued at every step by his obsessed sociopath sister Ramona (Kate de Castillo) for control of Sin Cara, Santiago’s Jorge is an idealist, out of his depth in the blood-soaked world.  

STAY TUNED.  NEXT UP: Sci-Fi Nominees

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What is an American?  Gloria Calderón Kellett, the showrunner and co-creator of Netflix’s Emmy Award-winning One Day at a Time, explores this often-asked question in her new play One of the Good Ones premiering at the Pasadena Playhouse March 13-April 7.  The action is ignited when a “perfect” Latina daughter introduces her boyfriend to her parents. The meeting reveals the family’s biases and preconceptions – to hilarious effect. A writer-actor-producer-director with the impressive credits (co-creator of One Day at a Time, creator of Amazon’s With Love and The Horrors of Dolores Roach) Ms. Calderón Kellet is one of Hollywood’s workingest television content creators. I had the privilege of chatting with her between rehearsals for One of the Good Ones. We talked about the magic of theater, the power of familia, the genius of Norman Lear and the importance of normalizing Hollywood’s portrayal of Latinos.  

CRIS FRANCO (CF): 

I’m so happy to speak to you.  You are such a talented quadruple threat. 

GLORIA CALDERON KELLETT(GCK): 

GCK: Oh, that’s so nice, Cris. Can you call me every day?

CF: Sure. I’ll have my girl call your girl and while our girls are talking, we can talk – grrrl.  Whew, your list of credits is very impressive! My first question is to what do you attribute your success in so many fields? 

GCK:  I think I’m just really a tenacious hard worker.  My fellow show runner and friend, Sarah Gamble, told me that I have class president energy.  The pretty blonde girl might run against me, but everyone knows that I’m gonna get the job done!

CF:  And you have head cheerleader energy too. Were you a hyper-creative kid? 

GCK:  Yes! I sang and danced. I was really fortunate to have Cuban immigrant parents who, although they didn’t speak the language, knew the value of education because in Cuba the educational system was excellent.  So they knew that the key to achieving the American dream was education.  God bless my mom, she would enroll me into a class for anything I took interest in: tap, ballet, jazz, piano. They would encouraged me to try things out to see if I liked it. Of course not everything stuck. But it was privileged to have access to those classes because my parents sacrificed to pay for them since they didn’t have a ton of money.  Yet, they had such immense belief in me. I’m so grateful that they allowed me to try and fail often at different things. It just gave me a willingness to learn to work my way through something if I really wanted to do it. And that’s such a gift to give your kids.

CF: Ditto. Tell me about your family. 

GCK: I have a younger brother who’s a lovely guy. He lives in San Diego. We’ve always gotten along. And my parents live across the street from me. 

I check in on them all the time and when my kids come home from school, they go across the street to hang out with grandma and grandpa and then come home. I often cook dinner and bring it over to them. It’s great.

CF: That’s like a sitcom. 

GCK: I know. Everybody Loves Raymond in real life.  And my husband, God bless him, is the best. He sees them more than I do to be honest.

CF:  But it’s cool that your kids are getting that whole enriching, Old World, extended familia, multi-generational experience.

GCK:  I love it. I grew up living with my grandparents and I consider it a great gift. We Latinos really value our older generation, acknowledging them for establishing our foundation. We don’t place our elderly into nursing homes.  Our customs call for us to care for them.

CF: True. U.S. Latino straddle so many old and new traditions. We have a very unique family dynamic – and families is what brings us to your new play, One of the Good Ones.  What does the title mean?

GCK: Well, it is left somewhat to interpretation, but it’s a play on something that I think successful Latinos often hear. I have often been told, “You’re one of the good ones.” This play it is a reversal on that. It’s a play on that verbiage. I don’t want to say too much more and spoil anything. 

CF: Am I safe in assuming that drama will be triggered when the boyfriend arrives? So, it’s an unexpected coupling?

GCK:  Yes. It is an unexpected coupling that launches lots of great conversation. The daughter who’s home from college has a lot of questions about her upbringing and how her parents feel about her future with the new man in her life. The evening’s conversation spurs growth, discomfort, in-fighting and ultimately, understanding. I hope audiences leave having laughed a lot and with new insights. I see my play as an invitation. Of course it’s filtered through a Latino lens because that’s my point of view. 

CF: Which is honest. 

GCK: Exactly. So, are there special moments for Latinos?  Yes. Is there Spanish that’s not translated? Yes. But it’s okay because I know that growing-up watching American television, I didn’t know what a bar mitzvah was – but I still watched and learned. Because I’d go look it up in the dictionary. My play is an invitation to non-Latino audiences to consider what it means to be American. What did their families go through? What are the parallels with their own families? 

My great mentor Norman Lear was taken with the idea of our common humanity. I think that’s why his work remains so relevant. It’s also what I try to pepper into my own work. I make sure that I am speaking specifically to a specific community while simultaneously inviting in others outside that community by showing them how we are more similar than we are different.

CF:  I, too, wrote for Norman Lear and know that exploring our shared humanity was his mantra.  That’s why I liked working on his shows. I also I liked Norman’s sitcoms because they played so much like theater. I know you, too, love theater and you’ve written lots of short plays. 

GCK: Yes, but One of the Good Ones is my first full length play. And I’m delighted that it’s the first one out the gate.

CF: Plays inhabit such a unique space in storytelling. Being live, theater shares a real-time relationship with the audience. Plus the playwright has to sustain an idea without the breaks and instant scene changes afforded film and TV. So, I guess my question is: How do you get your playwriting head on vs. your TV writing head?  Or is it the same head?

GCK: It is. My One Day at a Time was the Norman Lear-style of storytelling: a filmed play. 

It was presented in long scenes largely in the proscenium of the apartment, played in one room, in real time. My new play is the same. No intermission. The actors are on stage the whole time. No scene break, no lighting changes – played in one fell swoop in 90-minutes. The audience is experiencing the events with the characters in real time because I love that tension. I love that we’re taking this journey without a break.  And it’s a wonderful challenge to keep the conversation feeling natural. Like it’s moving while still having an inciting incident, a progressive complication, crisis, climax and resolution. While keeping it feeling organic so it sounds like a conversation would between these family members.

Writing wise, I love painting myself into a coroner then trying to figure my way out in an elegant manner.  So, the labor of this play was making it feel like a real 90-minutes in the life of this family.  There was so much joy in writing it and hearing it. I had Zoom readings with actors and I would adjust and adjust and – and then suddenly, it’s first week of rehearsal!  

I had the joy of sitting with the cast and doing my last bits of tailoring. The next week you watch it and make some adjustments. I’m really fortunate to have a wonderful director Kimberly Senior who’s been so collaborative. And our cast (Lana Parrilla, Carlos Gomez, Nico Greetham and Isabella Gomez and Santino Jimenez both from One Day at a Time) many of whom I already knew, have really put their fingerprints on it – made it their own. That was all such a joyful process.

CF: This is a commissioned piece, right?

GCK: Yes, for the Pasadena Playhouse. It’s Danny Feldman’s first commission as artistic director.

CF: Regarding your adaptation of One Day at a Time, did you have to culturally adjust it for it to take place within a Latino household?

GCK:  No, I didn’t. Norman was so wonderful. In sitting down with my show partner Mike and I, he (Norman Lear) said, take the mother and the two kids and do your own thing with it. It’s a single mom and she’s Latina. What would that look like for you? I didn’t watch any of the original episodes. What I did was really consider what would happen if I was divorced. Well, my mom would probably move in with me. Then Norman asked me to describe the mom.  And I said that she’s like Rita Moreno. 

CF: And that’s how you got Rita?!

GCK:  Yes. We took the basic premise and went from there.  We made the Schneider character a Canadian man-child who is also an immigrant. Finally, we updated their world to make it feel more contemporary. We didn’t reference any of the original series episodes. We just did our own thing while asking: What was it like for Latino family living in Los Angeles during the Trump administration? And that’s what we explored for the four years of that show. I had complete freedom. I was not bound by anything that the original series had done.

CF: Tell me about The Horrors of Dolores Roach? Similar to Sweeney Todd, Dolores exacts revenge on her enemies by baking them into empanadas. 

GCK: Yes. That project was lots of fun and based on a play commissioned by Danny Feldman at the Labyrinth Theater Company. The Horror of Dolores Roach is how I met Danny! Back then it was called Empanada Loca starring Daphne Rubin Vega (original Mimi in Rent), written by Aaron Mark. It went up nine years ago. That became the popular podcast, The Horror of Dolores Roach, which then became the series. 

CF:  Your next project was your own, With Love which you conceived and wrote and acted in. That sounds exciting and exhausting. 

GCK: With Love was lovely. Of course, it depends on the creator’s bandwidth. I really just wanted to do a fun small role because the demands of a leading role isn’t of interest to me. But I loved just acting in here and there, playing the funny tia who says outrages things and then leaves. That gives me time to return to video village (the control room) to make sure everthing else was fun and funny.

CF: You’re an adorable hoot as the funny tia.  Did you act in college?

GCK:  I did. I acted in London where I went to grad school. When I returned, I did a couple of episodes here and there between writing gigs. So, for me,  acting and writing have always gone hand in hand. But I’ve always preferred the writing because I like being the boss. I might like being the boss too much.

CF: Oh, you know what I think is so great about writing? You get to be all the characters.

GCK: Yes, it’s true.

CF: Actors only get to be their one character. Writers get to explore all the characters in the whole bloody thing.  

GCK: Yeah, it’s great. It’s the best.

CF:  You’re quoted as saying that for you With Love’s most exciting episode was when the Diaz family simply threw a party night — like so many families do in America. You hoped that With Love would “normalize” the Latinx image on TV. I think that’s so important. 

GCK: Yes. It boggles the mind to know that we are 20% of the American population and only 5% of the speaking roles. 

CF: Yes. Statistically we’re less represented in the scripted media than before when you factor in the ever-growing content. 

GCK: It hurts my brain because I can’t quite make sense of it. And that 5% are still largely stereotyped characters, even today. I personally take grievance with the proliferation of narco narratives. If we had other representative narratives I wouldn’t mind as much. But so many of our stories being set in that world is damaging to the community. Plus, they don’t represent the Latinos I grew up with in Oregon, San Diego and Los Angeles. They were all lovely, decent people and good citizens. I didn’t know gang bangers and drug dealers. What I saw was the hard working, kind people living their lives. And so it became really clear to me when I started in television that it was those real people that America needed to see. 

CF: Why do you feel real Latinos are still so underrepresented and misrepresented? What do you think is holding us back?

GCK: More access and more yeses from execs. There’s a deep contraction happening in production right now. That is worrisome to me because our projects are always the first to get cut. 

CF: That means our new stories won’t be seen. 

GCK: Exactly. I’ll never forget when Benito Martinez who played the father in With Love said that it was his first TV role where he played a dad with a full family – he wasn’t a cop or a villain. He was a man who loved his wife. Oh, and when his wife, played by the legendary Constance Marie, walked into the kitchen on the set, she started crying. Constance said, “Oh my gosh – we get to have a nice kitchen?! We never get to have nice kitchen on TV.”  So, it’s these small steps that hopefully will move the needle for us in the future. A future where we get to play what we truly are: just humans trying to make our way.

To see the brilliantly funny Gloria Calderón Kellett’s new comedic take on the contemporary Latinx family, be sure to catch One of the Good Ones at the Pasadena Playhouse from March 13^th thru April 7^th.  For tickets & all show info: pasadenaplayhouse.org

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Review

The PBS American Masters biographical documentary, Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, doesn’t just focus on the successes and struggles of Moreno’s monumental 70-plus year journey as an entertainer. Filmmaker Mariem Pérez Riera practically turns this story into a “selfie.” As the camera relentlessly follows the performer, who calmly flows into a self-narrated, unexpurgated journey of the five-year-old girl who traveled with her mother to New York from  Puerto Rico during the depth of the Depression. By age thirteen she was the family’s principal breadwinner.

As it turns out, those were Moreno’s happy years. During the first day of filming the documentary, Riera was surprised to hear about the adversity Moreno faced during her career and was impressed by her openness in discussing how she sought help through therapy. As a Puerto Rican woman working in the film industry, Riera clearly empathizes with many of Moreno’s struggles. 

The result is a fascinating journey into the exploits of a young performer who battled through the demeaning ethnic inequities of Hollywood’s “studio system” in the 1950s; a disastrously failed romance with a superstar; and an attempted suicide. 

After committing to therapy, she then went on to become one of only sixteen artists to become an EGOT (winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards), signifying the ultimate success in every field of performing, referred to as the “grand slam” of show business. Director Riera punctuates Moreno’s narration with a Greek chorus of celebrity commentators, including Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, Justina Machado, Eva Longoria, Mitzi Gaynor, Gloria Estefan, Lin-Manuel Meranda, and George Chakiris, as well as playwright Terrence McNally, and television writer/producer Norman Lear (One Day At A Time). Along the way, the documentary also includes a plethora of film clips that impressively underscore Moreno’s narration. 

Moreno recalls her preteen years in New York City and her intense desire to perform. She took dance lessons and landed her first Broadway role at 13. This led to Hollywood talent scouts setting up an appointment for her and her mother to meet studio head Louis B. Mayer in the penthouse at the famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Moreno recalled that she didn’t know how to dress for the meeting since she had no Latina role models to guide her. So, she decided to emulate Elizabeth Taylor, who was a teenage star in Hollywood at the time. Mayer took one look at her and uttered, “You look like a Latin Elizabeth Taylor.” She got her Hollywood contract. 

Although Hollywood had been her dream, the reality of the parts she was cast in were less than satisfying. She found herself portraying ignorant dark-skinned native girls in such films as The Toast of New Orleans, Pagan Love Song, The Fabulous Senorita, and Cattle Town. Actress Eva Longoria described “the universal accent” that Moreno developed to cover any part she was given, no matter what the nationality was.  She received a break from the stereotypical roles, playing film star Zelda Zanders in MGM’s Singin’ n the Rain (1952), but the rest of the 1950s found her in the usual casting box. Not even her role as Tuptim in The King and I (1956) changed her career trajectory. “That was a boring role,” she admitted. 

Moreno also candidly recounts the humiliation she faced being a starlet in Hollywood at this time, including countless meaningless “dates” set up by the studios for her to be seen with other young actors. There was also the horrific time she was invited to a party where she was vulgarly propositioned by movie mogul Harry Cohn and later groped on the dance floor by another guest. She describes running out into the garden where she was rescued by Mexican workers who helped her with her getaway. 

The actress matter-of-factly delves into her tempestuous eight-year relationship with Marlon Brando, whom she met in 1954 when she was 22. “He loved me, and I was obsessed by him,” she admits, despite enduring abuse at his hands, as well as enduring two of his marriages during their relationship. The Brando impregnated her, and then paid to have aborted, which was dangerously botched. It ended with her suicide attempt. 

Moreno went into therapy. Six years later, Brando and Moreno were in a film together, The Night of the Following Day (1968).  “In the film, we had a fight scene. All my emotions came to the surface, and we went at it. The director loved it.  He kept rolling the film.” However, Moreno does credit Brando for introducing her to social activism, and she became quite involved in what is now known as the “Me Too movement”.

The documentary highlights her Oscar-winning role as Anita in the film West Side Story (1961) as the turning point in her career. In rehearsing for this role she came to identify with the type of strong, self-determined woman that Anita represented. But she was so unprepared for winning the Best Supporting Oscar award.  All she could say was, “I can’t believe it.” It was one of the shortest acceptance speeches on record. 

Moreno expanded her work on stage to include her Tony award-winning turn in The Ritz and concerts.  She recorded and worked on television, working on the PBS children’s series, The Electric Company (1971-77).   She won two personal Emmys one for The Muppet Show in 1977 and the other for her performance as a guest actress on The Rockford Files in 1978.   She also won a Best Actress ALMA Award for performance on HBO’s  Oz (1977-2003). 

Many critics were disappointed when Moreno was overlooked for a 2020 Emmy nomination for her most recent TV role in Norman Lear’s reboot of One Day at a Time which aired four season, first on Netflix, then POP TV, and finally on CBS.

The documentary offers a poignant look at her marriage to cardiologist Leonard Gordon, whom she married in 1965. They had one daughter, Fernanda Gordon Fisher, and two grandsons. Moreno reflects that he was a wonderful, loving man, but he was not the passion of her life. “We were really not a good couple,” she says. Moreno once considered leaving her husband but could not because she did not want to break up the family. He died in 2010, and Moreno concurred she was relieved at his passing.  

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It concludes as we follow Moreno onto the set of Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, where Moreno, at age 89, happily worked in the supporting role of Valentina in the film.  The film is scheduled to release in December 2021. 

Moreno is now looking forward to her next role. 

American Masters “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for it” airs in February is a production of AmericanMasters Pictures and Act III, in association with Marmara. Michael Kantor Norman Lear and Lin-Manuel Miranda are executive producers, with Michael Kanto executive producing for American Masters. Producers include Brent Miller and Mariem Pérez Riera in addition to directing.  Ilia Velez is co-producing.

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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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Saturday night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, it was all about the 34th Imagen Awards, a foundation that honors and recognizes Latino talent for over 30 years. President and Founder, Helen Hernandez took a suggestion by veteran television producer Norman Lear to encourage and recognize the positive portrayals Of Latinos in media, and ran with it! On August 10th, the winners were judged and selected in 18 categories by an independent panel of entertainment industry executives and Latino community leaders.

Among the top honorees:

Luisa Leschin is the recipient of the Norman Lear Writer’s Award. Leschin is currently co-executive producer of the Netflix Original hit show, Mr. Iglesias

Cris Abrego received the Imagen President’s Award. He currently serves as the Chairman of Endemol Shines Americas and CEO of Endemol Shine North America.

TV series that also shone include Pose and Magnum P.I. who tied for Best Television Drama. Actress MJ Rodriguez walked away with the Best Actress for her portrayal of Blanca on the FX series. The popular reboot of One Day At A Time from Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce took the Best Comedy Award. Monsters and Men received the award for Best Feature Film as well as Best Director for Reinaldo Marcus Green, and Best Actor for Anthony Ramos.

The complete list of winners:

Best Feature Film: Monsters and Men (NEON/Moviepass Films)

Best Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green, Monsters and Men (NEON/Moviepass Films)

Best Actor – Feature Film: Anthony Ramos, Monsters and Men (NEON/Moviepass Films)

Best Actress – Feature Film: Isabela Moner, Instant Family (Paramount Pictures)

Best Primetime Program – Drama (TIE): Magnum P.I. (CBS; CBS Television Studios, Universal Television, Perfect Storm Entertainment, Davis Entertainment, 101st Street Productions); Pose (FX Networks; Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions)

Best Primetime Program – Comedy: One Day at a Time (Netflix; Sony Pictures Television for Netflix)

Best Primetime Program – Specials, Movies & Limited Series: Icebox (HBO; HBO Films in association with Gracie Films and Endeavor Content)

Best Actor – Television: Jon Seda, Chicago P.D. (NBC; Wolf Entertainment in association with Universal Television)

Best Actress – Television: Mj Rodriguez, Pose (FX Networks; Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions)

Best Supporting Actor – Television: Wilmer Valderrama, NCIS (CBS; CBS Television Studios)

Best Supporting Actress – Television: Rita Moreno, One Day at a Time (Netflix; Sony Pictures Television for Netflix)

Best Young Actor – Television: Anthony Gonzalez, Icebox (HBO; HBO Films in association with Gracie Films and Endeavor Content)

Best Variety or Reality Show: Hip-Hop Houdini (Fuse; 7Beyond)

Best Children’s Programming: The Loud House (Nickelodeon)

Best Documentary – Great Performances: John Leguizamo’s Road to Broadway (PBS; NGL Studios & Diamante Content Production in association with THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC for WNET & Latino Public Broadcasting)

Best Informational Program: Breaking Big (PBS; Ozy Media)

Best Short-Form Non-Fiction Program: SC Featured – A Dreamer’s Path (ESPN Deportes)

Best On-Air Advertising: Sexism (Orci)

The post Imagen 2019: “One Day At A Time”, “Pose”, “Monsters & Men” Win Top Honors first appeared on .

The Imagen Foundation announced that TV writer, Luisa Leschin has been tapped as the recipient of the Imagen’s Norman Lear Writers Awards.

Leschin, whose recent credits include Amazon’s Just Add Magic and the Netflix pilot Mr. Iglesias, was originally an actress and a co-founding member of the comedy group Latins Anonymous where she began honing her writing skills. She has written comedy shows, co-executive producing for the George Lopez and Everybody Hates Chris and several dramas including Hulu’s East Los High, Austin & Ally, and The Brothers Garcia.

Officially, Leschin is so much more than just a TV writer. She’s also a television producer, actress, and voice-over artist. Her childhood background is also just as interesting and impressive. Her mother was a concert pianist and her father the former President of El Salvador. While she was born in Hollywood, California, she grew up in Guatemala, where at the age of five made her debut as a dancer. At age eight, she moved to Europe, where she mastered to speak French and Italian. Upon her return to the U.S., she studied at the High School of Performing Arts in New York City, where she majored in ballet. She graduated with honors, and at 19, she joined the Grand Theatre de Geneve ballet company in Switzerland.

In Hollywood, Leschin has successfully amassed many films and TV credits as an actress. The fact that her roles were mostly gang girls, maids, and pregnant women led her to turn her passion for writing.

The post Luisa Leschin Recipient of Norman Lear Writer’s Award first appeared on .

One Day At A Time fans asked for the series to be saved, and Pop TV has answered the call. The comedy will have a 13-episode fourth season and will be on CBS-owned Pop in 2020.

Netflix canceled the show after three seasons and it caused a major backlash from the fans and many high profile entertainment industry figures. According to news reports, Gloria Calderon Kellett, ODAAT‘s Co-showrunner stated they had been in talks with various networks before choosing its new home at Pop.

One Day At A Time was inspired by Norman Lear‘s 1975 series with the same name. The show follows three generations of a Cuban-American family. A newly single mom and military veteran, portrayed by Justina Machado, is about the triumphs and tribulations that come with raising two strong-willed children (Isabella Gomez and Marcel Ruiz), all the while enlisting the help of her old-school mother, brilliantly played by Rita Moreno, and her building manager-turned-invaluable confidante portrayed by Todd Grinnell.

“We are thrilled beyond belief to be making more One Day At A Time,” said co-showrunners Calderón Kellett and Mike Royce. “This show has meant so much to so many, and we can’t wait to dive in with our amazing new partners Pop and CBS. And we’d especially like to thank all of the fans for their undying support, helping us turn #SaveODAAT into #MoreODAAT.”

Norman Lear state the following in a statement released:
“Three months ago, I was heartbroken with the news of our beloved One Day At A Time‘s cancellation. Today, I’m overwhelmed with joy to know the Alvarez family will live on,” said executive producer. “Thank you to my producing partner, Brent Miller, our incredibly talented co-showrunners, Mike Royce and Gloria Calderón Kellett, and of course, Sony, for never once giving up on the show, our actors or the possibility that a cable network could finally save a canceled series that originated on a streaming service.  And one last thank you to, Pop, for having the guts to be that first cable network.  Even this I get to experience – at 96.”

How amazing it is to be involved with the brilliant and culturally significant series that deals with important themes one minute while making you laugh the next. We couldn’t be more proud to continue telling heartwarming stories of love, inclusion, acceptance, and diversity that pull on your emotions while putting a smile on your face.” –Brad Schwartz, Pop TV.”

The series will also be broadcast on CBS later in 2020, as part of the pick-up deal, after its run on Pop. CBS was home to the original series which aired on the network over 40 years ago.

The post “One Day At a Time” Is Back! Season 4 on Pop TV first appeared on .

TheTRENDTalk Show, 4th Season’s, 1st Episode

If you miss any of the TheTRENDTalk shows, airing Sunday mornings at 7AM on MeTV, you can also watch on YouTube. Be sure to Subscribe.

In this episode hosts, Naibe Reynoso and Bel Hernandez welcome Justina Machado, the woman Harpers Bazaar called, “One of the most dynamic actresses on TV.” She’s fun and down to earth. Watch and listen to why she was such a hit on Norman Lear’s One Day At A Time, where she portrayed a single mom living with her two kids and her mother, played by the fabulous Rita Moreno.

Also featured in this episode are entrepreneurs Christina and Willy Escobar, a husband and wife team who have learned to successfully balance running a business and keeping family first.

Enjoy!

Follow Justina Machado on social media:
Twitter @JustinaMachado
Instagram @JustinaMachado

The post TheTRENDTalk: Justina Machado Chats Success & Staying Grounded first appeared on .