December 21, 2021 • 47 mins
Gloria Calderón Kellett sits with Robin Bronk and talks about demeaning roles early in her acting career, her decision to become a writer, her personal relationship with obesity, and starting new and important conversations about disenfranchisement and representation.
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(00:07):
This is On the Edge, apodcast series from the Creative Coalition featuring conversations
with an edge and chats with personalitiesfrom the world of entertainment. Now here's
your host, Creative Coalition CEO,Robin Bronk. Welcome back everyone to another
episode of On the Edge. I'mRobin and I'm so happy to have you
(00:28):
with me. Today's guest is thegreat executive producer and one of television's greatest
screenwriters, Gloria Calderon kell It.Today we get to have an inside peek
at her many hit series One Dayat a Time, I Zombie, How
I Met Your Mother, and Amazon'supcoming With Love. Please welcome Gloria Calderon
(00:52):
kell It to the hot seat.Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for having me. Gloriacalder On Kellett. Which I think
you have the greatest name. Yeah, it's Tooy, but yeah, you
know, we're going with it.I didn't think I was going to be
a person with three names. Itsurprised me as well when I was like,
no, this is what I'm doing. Yeah, it's a good one.
It's a good three namer. Itworks. So we met over obesity.
(01:19):
Yes, I went to other CreativeCoalition events, but I don't know
that we got to meet at those, so we zoom. And what's great
is that you have changed the worldthrough your art in so many ways.
And the theme of this podcast ison the edge in a good way.
How you've gone to the edge andbrought us all with you. And even
(01:42):
to start out, as I said, we met over obesity. And as
you know and as you've been workingwith us, the Creative Coalition takes on
issues that we think should be inthe public and in the zeitgeist, and
we try to change the world tomake it a better place. And obesity
has been this shame and blamed diseaseand we want to stop that shame and
blame. And you were terrific insort of understanding and saying, yeah,
(02:08):
I can use my art to helpchange this. It's weird. I mean,
it's this disease where we still avertour eyes. Well, especially in
Hollywood. It's the silence, thisdeafening silence. And it's not, as
you know, not probody positivity,not antibody positivity. It's threading the needle
in a different way. You area mentor in our writers workshops on this
(02:31):
issue. What gave you the courageto do this? Because it is courage
to take on it, to atleast be out there talking about issues that
no one wants to talk about.Well, first of all, I think
it's more interesting, like for me, as somebody who consumes entertainment as a
source of comfort, to be ableto learn something, to be able to
(02:54):
have empathy for a different situation,a different way of life, a person
who store is nothing like mine.To have been able to do that for
years, really, I think doescreate empathy. Those stories create empathy.
So going into this, I wantedto be a storyteller because the stories I
was seeing reflective about my community wereso ill advised, and we're not true,
(03:21):
or at least we're not my experienceof what was true. So I
had already been doing that work.I entered through dominic culture shows. I
was on mainstream network shows for manyyears and loved it, loved it,
really enjoyed writing on various I gotto work in comedy and drama and procedural
even and it was interesting to seehow the different effects that each of those
(03:43):
had, how each of them usedstorytelling to make points about certain things,
whether it was aligori or right therein your face. And it's a really
powerful medium, this type of storytellingthat we do, and I think TV
and film is a way to talkabout things that you might not be able
to talk about in your home.And while entertaining, if you could also
(04:04):
give people tools and talking points andways of reflecting on something that they haven't
been able to reflect on in thatway before, that's really exciting. That's
exciting for culture shift, that's excitingfor allowing people to see inside another perspective
and realize like, oh, Ihad different views about that and now I
(04:26):
feel differently. You know, whenwe met, we really got to meet
over this issue of obesity. Didit speak to you in particular personally in
any way? It's in my family. I have a lot of obesity in
my family. I think that thatobesity is tied to intergenerational trauma as well.
So it's mental health and the chemistryof what happens in bodies. And
(04:47):
so I had already been reading cognitivebehavioral therapy books about brains and addiction and
how to break brain addiction because it'shuge in my life. It's a big,
big part of my life. AndI've seen how it has slowed people
down and robbed people of joy andmade them feel not great about themselves as
well. And I have my ownweight struggles over the years, up and
(05:11):
down and whatnot, and how likewhy am I eating the same that this
person is eating? But thereist thinperson and I am not. And what's
happening differently in my body in relationto the generations prior to me. So
all of that was already something thatwas interesting to me. So then for
it to be the topic of conversation, it was like, oh, well,
this is great because I get tolearn too, and I get to
(05:34):
hear even more. And you know, I connected with I'm forgetting the lovely
doctor that we had there that night, her name doctor, Yeah, yeah,
yeah, she was great. Weofflined about a few things and it
was really wonderful to hear that weneed to just change our perspective about this
issue. You certainly with your televisionshows, which we'll get into, but
you've taken on issues, You've takenon things. If you're going to take
(05:58):
on this issue of obesity, what'sgonna be hardest about it to bring it
to the screen. Do you thinkare you gonna meet with resistance. I
don't think I'm gonna be with resistance. I think it's how do we do
it in a way, And thisis with any issue, how do you
do it in a way that feelsorganic? How do you do it in
a way that feels true to thecharacters that you're working on. I'll tell
you actually where the challenge is,and I will not say the actor's name.
(06:21):
I wanted to do a storyline aboutthis on a show I was on,
and I was doing it in ahumorous way where the mom this is
a story for my own life,where you know, after I got pregnant,
my mom made my husband breakfast andmade pancakes and eggs and sauce and
brings out this beautiful play for myhusband and then hands me like a yogurt
(06:43):
a lifesaver. And I was like, we must have the same mother.
Would this bes you know? Andshe's like, well, I know you're
trying to lose the baby weight,you know. And it was like I
wanted to do jokes around my ownissues with because it's all cultural, like
in Latino culture, women and howthey look, and you know, j
Loo is who people are like,well, You're like, yeah, you
(07:05):
guys age like that, right,No, we don't. We're not all
going to be fifty and look likeJlo. Unfortunately, I don't know.
You look, there's a lot ofthere is a Latino Patina Robin. It's
true, it's true. We're alreadyblessed in that way. But I wanted
to make a joke about this,and I wanted to do sort of a
similar thing with an actress, andthe actress was like, I don't want
(07:26):
to do anybody stuff. I don'tfeel good about it personally. So it's
like, oh, so we creativelywanted to do stuff about talking about food,
talking about the relationship with Latino families, Latino women in general, about
this, and we met with resistancebecause it's hard for all of these actors
to go out there and to betheir bodies are constantly being talked about and
(07:48):
on display. We see this withthe addictions that we have as a culture
embraced to talk about with alcohol andwith drugs. But my god, when
you see celebrities coming out rehab,my god, the struggles that these people
have and there's photographers following them asthey're trying to recover, we just don't
do them any favors, so Iknow, and especially when you and the
(08:11):
entertainment industry come out on an issue, I worship what you're doing because half
your fans won't like it whatever itis you're doing or saying. If you're
not doing it for the publicity,certainly you know, and you're not doing
it for your career, and Idon't want to, like, you know,
discourage anyone. So it's just whatyou're doing is such a public service.
I mean, you do change people'slives in a positive way. And
(08:33):
even with this issue, I thinkit's almost forty five percent of Latino Americans
have this disease ye and yet totalk about it. Yeah, well because
they're shame. There's shame surrounding itfor all the reasons that we've discussed,
and we we discussed on the youknow that night. It's like, there's
it. You don't look quote unquotehealthy or good and you don't feel I
(08:58):
mean, the diet industry, mygod, million dollars industry, so make
sure that people don't reach their goalsever and are constantly reading self help books
and whatnot, and it's not dealingwith the real issues at hand, right,
I think getting out Accurate information isalso a big thing. It's also
important. We are in a timewhere I feel more than ever that our
(09:18):
education system is failing us, andI think it's also failing our children.
There are curriculum that I would love. I feel like this is an issue
where I wish curriculum in grad schooltalked about nutrition and talked about OBEs so
that kids could know the signs,have a path towards knowing if it's something
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that they have or not, andlearn tools early on so that they don't
have to suffer for years and yearsand years thinking there's something wrong with them,
or they can't do what their peerscan do, or wear what their
peers can wear, or etc.And this is the type of thing that
the more we talk about it inan entertainment space and try to make it
someone entertaining, the people will starttalking about these things. There's an activist,
(10:01):
Fabiana Rodriguez who I love to citebecause she did a talk. You
should talk to her at some point, Robin. She's pretty extraordinary. She
does a culture shift conversation and shetalks about how it takes a decade for
culture for pop culture, TV,film, movies, music to filter into
culture to make change in policy andin the minds and hearts of specifically American
(10:26):
culture. It's a decade. Adecade it takes. So she said,
if you're looking at people are suddenlycaring about something, probably a decade earlier
those seeds were planted. And shetalks specifically about marriage equality in the LGBTQ
community and Will and Grace and Ellen. And if that's the case, boy,
(10:48):
we better be talking about some thingsbecause I know it the seeds.
We know that pop culture, likeI said, does influence, and it
influences for the positive. And itis your keyboard that has the pulse as
a communicator. And in this issuespecifically, you know, we've talked about
it. I feel like the timeis right. We did it with mental
(11:11):
illness, we did it with bullyingor anti bullying. We did it.
You know, it's not a crazynotion, no, not at all.
And it's killing us. It's thebiggest epidemic before the pandemic and it's still
around. Right to go vaccine,right and by the way, it also
did rob so many that in COVID. Really that was a perfect storm for
(11:33):
so many people, right, So, yeah, it was weird COVID also
sort of legitimized obesity as a disease, that's right, and not a noise.
Right, that's right. So goingback to you know, you had
One Day at a Time and goingback to how I met your mother,
and you did it with with comedyand bringing in so many pathos. What
(11:54):
was one of your favorite episodes onOne Day at a Time and you really
took a big mantle on Oh mygoodness, there were so many episodes that
we did that. Really we didan episode about the VA because you know,
Norman Leary was a veteran and sohe has great compassion for our veterans
and it was his idea that theex husband to be a veteran. He
(12:16):
said, I think that Penelope's exhusband should be a veteran, and we
said, oh, we love that. And then as we started doing research
and meeting with veterans to hear storiesand to get you know, perspective.
We had a consulting company, Musa, who helped us connect with veterans.
We found that many veterans met inservice, many veterans married somebody else in
service. Because of course you're young, you're in the best shape of your
(12:39):
life. You know, so youget it, yeah, and you understand
and you understand. So then Iwas like, wait, I think we're
going to make a Penelope a veterantoo. Let's make them both veterans,
right. And the husband has amore you know, a path that we've
seen more of on television, whichis he had a hard time and he
came back and became addicted to painkillers because of some injuries that he had.
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And we wanted her path to beone that we don't hear about,
which is the mental health path.She was having anxiety and depression and had
to struggle with medication because that's veryin the Latin X community. Unfortunately,
medication is still seen as the difficultthing for the community to wrap their brains
around, and so we wanted totalk about that really. In the pilot
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episode, her mom is talking toher about you can't take these pills.
This is terrible for you, andshe's like, well, I'm doing it,
so and then she starts going totherapy. So like there were episode,
I think the episodes about her mentalhealth journeying on medication, going to
group therapy. Then at one pointshe's feeling great and she goes off of
her medication and what that truthfully lookslike. You know, that episode won
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a lot of awards and got alot of attention, and the most important
was the amount of veterans that reachedout to us on our personal level to
say how grateful they were that wewere shying a light on this. And
then people who warn't veterans but hadmental health issues and had a difficult time
explaining to an older generation that mentalhealth is something we care about now and
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something we talk about and it's okay, and we need to destigmatize it.
And it's like you were saying,it seems like we are in a space
where something was planted a decade agoto allow for this moment where people are
understanding mental health and things that youhave to do to maintain your mental health
and mental wellness. I think becausealso people were struggling and dying as a
(14:33):
result of it. So yeah,I think it's a great tie in to
be able to now talk about obesityin that same way. How did you
step into one day at a timethose shoes? Were you a fan crying
out? You know? The OA? Were you too young? I was
too young? Yeah? The originallycame out the Arrow was born and came
out in teventy five. So butthe thing is, it was zeitgeisty enough
where I knew who Schneider was.Oh really, Oh yeah, I knew
(14:56):
that there's a guy that had thething. I knew cigarettes on the in
the arm and he was like,you know, would constantly be flirting with
people that I have that memory somewherelocked in there. So it must have
been on after school, or itmust have been on at some you know,
I watched Happy Days episodes when Icame home from school, so I
feel like it must have been on, But no, I didn't really know.
(15:18):
I mean, I knew all inthe Family because those were all on
as well. But the work ofNorman's I saw was Who's the Boss and
Facts of Life? You know,like those are the works of Norman's that
I grew up on, those eightiessitcoms. So yeah, I was kind
of just a journeyman writer for twelveyears, working on other shows, working
on many, many network shows.And I got a phone call saying,
(15:41):
do you want to meet Norman Learnwho doesn't want to do that? So
I should like, oh, yeah, I'll go on. Yeah, So
I went really just to meet Normanto be I mean, I've told him
this now too. I really hadno interest in shout. I just wanted
to sit with him, and heis is my goodness. They really had
(16:02):
broke the mold there. He's justsuch an incredible, kind, sweet,
decent, curious man, and withinthe I think hour and a half total
I was there, completely convinced methat I should do this. I had
complete trust and faith in him,and really it was kind of love at
first sight. You must have impressedhim in a tremendous way because he was
(16:25):
giving you the reins of a treasure, of a national treasure. Now I
can't believe it. I mean,Mike Ross, who's my wonderful partner on
the show. He and I wereconstantly like, you know, people had
asked was their pressure, and we'relike, yeah, we don't want to
destroy the legacy of Normally, Likeup to this point, people love him,
so we don't want to mess itup when he's ninety seven. We
don't want to really mess it upfor this guy. So we did mess
(16:47):
it up for Normal. Early itwas Rita Moreno. At what plan did
Rita Moreno come on board? Well, that first meeting with Norman, and
he asked me to describe my family. And since I was a kid,
since I saw a West Side story, I would say, oh, my
mom, she looks like Rida Marano, So picture Rida Rino. Right,
I've been seeing that my entire life, Robin, my entire life. So
(17:10):
in this conversation with Norman, mymother picture Rida Mariano. And he was
like, oh, we should getreader to do it. I said,
okay, yeah, and then sureenough we write it and he's like,
let's get reader to do it.I said, how do we do that?
He's like, well, we justpick up the phone and we just
ask her. Okay, I meanthe world of Norman Leader. He's Willy
Wonka, you know, he justmakes true. So he asked and she
(17:33):
said, yes. So you'd startedon Netflix and then you moved over to
Pop TV correct and then the pandemickilled us, but you had enough time
to make some beauties. Got tomake forty. Well now there's six and
eight episodes, so we really dofeel like we got to make you know,
h three seven episodes I think iswhat we ended up making, and
(17:56):
we're really proud of them. Andwe had a wonder full time making them.
We're still on a text chain andwe constantly reaching out to one another,
and we really formed a lovely littlefamily there. And had Norman already
decided the demographic of the family beforehe met you, or how did that
work? You know? It?Actually Kep his producing partner Brent Miller,
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had been reading a study that CocaCola had done that very underserved yet over
indexing audience in television was single Latinawomen, and so he thought, oh
my gosh, we have a showfrom the seventies about a single woman.
Maybe the way to reboot that isto speak to this enormous demographic of women
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that are currently living in America thatare single Latina women. So the only
mandate was single Latina women. Andthen Mike Royce and Mike and I both
have a daughter and a son,which is why we made it a daughter
and a son instead. Also inthat first conversation with Norman, he said,
what would it look like if yougot divorced? And I said,
oh, my parents would live withme one hundred percent. My mom live
(19:00):
with me, my parents across thestreet. Now, oh that's so nice.
It really is. I'm keep aneye on. I'm keep an eye
on them. Oh, yeah,there they are. Did you start out
as an actress? I did?I did. I started as an actress
and all the parts were gangbanger's girlfriendsor gangbanger sisters. That was it.
That's all I got auditions for.And I would go in and they're like,
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no, no, no, weneeded an accent. You don't understand
like her parents were from another country. I said, yeah, my parents
are from another country. They camehere speaking no English. This is what
I sound like. And I was, well, this character isn't I was
like, okay, I mean,like the America. Did you ever just
want to tell them to shut upand get real always? I mean,
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that's really why I became a writer. It became very clear that the people
with the pen didn't know what theywere talking about in terms of my community,
and so the only way that Iwas going to be able to change
it was to be on the otherside. That was the only way I
could change it. I wasn't gettingparts that I wanted anyway. The auditions
I was going out for were sodemeaning. So it's like, well,
I don't want any of these rolesanyway. What am I doing, I
might as well try to create rolesthat I would like and then maybe one
(20:06):
day I'll get to play those,and if not, at least I'm able
to add to a narrative and authenticvoice of who we actually are. And
you know, the statistics anniber justdid another study that came out this year.
It's still pretty dire. We aretwenty percent of this country and we
are five percent what is on televisionand speaking roles, and those are still
largely marginalized roles. Of that fivepercent, forty percent are criminals. Oh,
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that's pretty sobering statistics. So againand again, it's like, that's
why we're treated a certain way,that's why, you know, it's the
immigration conversation is always fascinating to mebecause Latinos are not the biggest people trying
to get into this country at all, and yet because they're poor, because
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they are coming from devastated countries thatterrible things are happening in, and not
super wealthy people that are coming ona plane that have money. We are
treating these poor people as though theyare lepers and they're not. They are
literally searching for the American dream thatour grandparents all were able to benefit off
of and that's why we're here,right, So it's like I can't have
(21:17):
benefited from it and stay quiet andnot call attention to the fact that this
is crazy. We need to adjustso that people start seeing the humanity of
these people. I mean, it'sshocking to me that we're still in the
place that we are at in termsof representation. Would you say that How
I Met Your Mother was your bigbreak as a writer a producer, Yeah,
(21:41):
I would say so. I've beenon a bunch of shows, but
that was definitely the most popular show. The guys also were really young,
so they were Carter and Craig.Carter Based and Craig Thomas were very generous
in allowing the writers to participate intheir episodes. We could be in uncasting
and we could be in editing,and not every show owners like that.
I think a lot of the generationbefore was not into that. They kind
(22:03):
of did all of that and thewriters just came to write and go home.
So them allowing me a peek behindthe curtain really taught me so much,
so that by the time I wasin a Seed of Power, I
already had experience being u editing.I already had experience casting, so for
many reasons, that was a bigshift for me and just enjoyed. It
was just a really fun show tobe up. Oh what a great and
(22:26):
I wrote a great cast. Imean, you did I think around twenty
episodes in the mid two thousands,or I did I did like sixty episodes?
I did? Oh yeah, Iwas there for three seasons of twenty
two. Yeah, I did almostseventy episodes. Maybe event well, we
have to update your IMDb page.I am. Now you're maybe as a
(22:48):
produce staff writer. You know,at season one, I was a staff
writer, so that twenty two Iwasn't producing. So you were there season
one? I was there season one, two and three. Did you have
a favorite episode or two or amost challenging one or when were you wanted
something done. We had an episodethat got thrown out season one. I
(23:10):
forget what that episode was about,and I had told the guys a story
and we were like cardon Craig andI sort of went to the side and
kind of wrote this episode within twentyfour hours, which ended up being drumroll
please, where it was like alittle rom com where he meets a girl
at a wedding and they don't exchangenames and they just have a romantic knight
(23:30):
together and decide they're just going tohave a romantic knight and never see each
other again, and then at theend they want to see each other again.
So that there was an energy,a kinetic energy. I still watched
that episode of how there could havebeen a joke here, There could have
been a joke there, but therewas no time. I mean, we
were it was like, we're shootingit in a minute, so look up.
So I particularly fund memories of thatone. And so when you were
(23:52):
on and when you started writing withit and producing, you knew the ending
and I didn't know how it wasall gonna shake up. Shot that we
shot that in season We shot thatin season one. I think we shot
that around when we were doing DrumalPlease that episode because the kids were getting
older. I think David Henry's voicewas starting to crack. Oh, so
(24:14):
the guys shot that ending with them, and yeah, it was that was
season one. That was shot seasonone. Wow, that's amazing. That's
awesome. So what have you learnedand what are the lessons that you'd say
you'd learned. I think that beingcognizant of disenfranchised, marginalized voices. Once
(24:34):
I started doing that work, thingsfelt more meaningful because all of this is
entertainment and storytelling and joy. Imean, I'm very much I pedaled joy
one hundred percent. My work isjoyful. But if I can sneak some
broccoli into that joy, you know, if I can get something in there
(24:56):
that teaches you something or makes youfeel differently about something, or starts a
conversation in your own home about something, that's a lot more exciting to me
as a creator, because then it'snot just me presenting like here, it's
then building I think, a conversationwith the audience, which social media at
its best I think does It startsconversations that we can continue to have.
(25:18):
I think that, you know,social media can be a dumpster fire as
well if people just yelling their ideasat each other, but sometimes it can
be a space where people are tryingto connect and trying to learn from one
another and grow. And that's whenit's really exciting to me. So now
that I do that type of work, When I first did one day at
(25:38):
a time, I was on panelswith other you know, they like to
put us on panels with other peoplefrom disenfranchised communities, so we get to
meet each other, which is kindof joyful, right, you know.
I was on a panel with ourLady Jay, who was an Emmy nominated
writer on Post Brilliant Pianist, andJay was talking about how as a trans
(25:59):
woman and she had never seen transpeople on television that weren't sex workers or
dead bodies. Never occurred to mebecause I don't have that experience, right,
So hearing from our Lady Jay reallywas like open my eyes, you
know. I think that it wasreally moving to hear the journey. And
then she she was talking about poseand she was talking about how meaningful it
(26:22):
would be to see trans people justlive in their lives. So on one
day at It's Time, I broughtin a trans character that's a trans veteran
their journey there. It has nothingto do with their transnis. They're just
talking in the therapy group to theladies, trying to live her life.
And on my Knee Show with Love, we have a trans non binary character
that's living their life and fallen inlove and figuring it out. And so
(26:47):
you know, and the same istrue. When I was on you know,
Twitter. I do a lot ofTwitter threads where I talk to people
about who should I know, what'sgoing on when you guys care about a
lot of people from the disabled communityhave come out and said, we never
see ourselves, please, we neversee people with a cane, We never
see people talk about in a wheelchair, like, we are here, we
are here, and we are invisibleon television. So oddly, because I
(27:11):
think once we put things out therewere better able to see, right,
We're better able to experience the worldin a different way once we plant the
seed. I was at an improvshow shortly after and I saw Santina Moire,
who was doing improv on the stage, running around this wheelchair and just
being amazing. And I've cast heron the show, cast her on the
(27:33):
show as well as a veteran whojust happens to being a wheelchair We don't
discuss it, she just is.And the amount of love that I got
from both the trans community and thedisabled community, and the conversations that we
had surrounding things that you know.I remember I was on a panel works
I said something about disabled voices andthen somebody said, oh, no,
they don't like disabled voices they likedifferently abled. There were like six disabled
(27:59):
peoples, but we don't like that. Actually, like you people think we
like that, but we don't.We like we're good at disabled. It's
like, this is the conversation,right, this is Oh I didn't know
that. I kind of heard thattoo, So I'm so happy I know
that now. So I'm not spreadinga thing that's not what this community wants
to be talking about. So allof those things are small and meaningful.
I remember a day I was directingan episode of One Day at a Time
(28:22):
where all the girls from the therapygroup go to have a drink after therapy
and at one point they have toleave, and so they were leaving and
Santina was like, oh, Ineed a There's no I can't leave,
Like there's like stairs, I can'tleave. So I talked to this set
guys. I'm like, hey,guys, can we build a like a
rail or like something a ramp?And they're like, of course, of
(28:45):
course. The next day the rampwas there and she got onto set and
she started crying and she was like, you didn't understand how just seeing me
leave the bar on a ramp isgoing to mean so much to my community,
So like we just need to belistening to each other. We just
need to be aware. And Ican't tell you how many other I mean,
(29:06):
I wish I could do everything onthe street. You can't. You
have to do it's organic to yourshow. You can't make it only about
issues and only about But are thereplaces to make these adjustments in our storytelling?
I think so? Did you purposelygo back and watch the old episodes
or not? We watched the pilot. We watched the pilot, and we
tried in our pilot to pay homageto that first episode. The second episode
(29:30):
I think we talked about I thinkMike saw that one. I didn't see
that one. I think Mike sawthat one, and it was about sexual
harassment. So we made our secondepisode about sexual harassment. But that was
it. That was it. Thatwas like we just wanted to sort of
pay homage. The set was thesame build as the original set. Really,
Yeah, it was a back Ithad a little back poppy area and
(29:52):
the kitchen and the hole and thearch that goes back. So it paid
homage in that way, and thenumber of the apartment was the same as
well. We tried to put inlittle Easter eggs. What was one of
your favorite episodes of One Day ata Time. I would say the phenale
of season one in the phenoale ofseason two. The phenale of season one
was about a young lesbian that ishaving a keen Sennia, which is an
(30:17):
archaic tradition based on me not wantingto have a king Sennia, because I
read about it and it was like, wait a minute, Yeah, yeah,
it was like, oh, Blake, dress up your prize daughter and
you put her up and go anybody. I mean that's what it was,
right, Like, that's where itcame from. Wi Tom Pouls were the
same thing. It was, Hey, we put her in a dress,
anybody, two sheeps and a goat. Awesome, she's yours. I mean
(30:41):
that's what it was. But youdid not have They would have loved it.
I think I saved him a fortuneand I said, you can save
that money for an eventual, abig wedding and it'll be in a church,
and I think, so they're happy. So yeah, Elena decides she
isn't going to have one, andthen she decides to have one, but
she uses it as her own comingout, and you know, there's still
(31:04):
a lot of because of the deeproots with Catholicism, there's a lot of
issues with homosexuality LGBTQ kids in theLATINX community, and so to be able
to provide a family that struggles withit, but it gets to the other
side and loves their kid and supportsthem ultimately in finding love and being fine
with their sexuality was really important tous and we were really happy to be
(31:27):
able to put that out. Sothat was the first finale. What do
you hear from fans? Oh,my gosh. Any event I went to
Robin, there would be a lineof people. A lot of them were
mothers or grandmothers with their daughters whowere coming up to hug me and say,
because of your show, I feellike my kid's going to be okay.
I have a lot of crying,a lot of hugging and crying.
You do that kind of stuff andyou get addicted to how meaningful that is
(31:49):
to people. You know. Invisibilitymakes you feel invisible visibility, my god,
it makes you feel empowered. Andso not only were we doing an
LGBTQ story, we were doing aLatin X LGBTQ story, which are very
rare, very very rare still onTV. You know, I can point
at two, maybe three, andso that and then the conversations around that,
(32:14):
because we did a whole episode aboutPenelope thinking she was okay with it
generally not having any issue with gaypeople, but sort of struggling with the
fact that her kid was gay andwhat did that mean? And she was
hating herself, like I thought Iwas fine with this? Why am I
not fine with this? And justgoing through the journey of your kids known
they were gay for years, youfound out five seconds ago. Give yourself
(32:35):
a minute, Do you love yourkid any less? No? Okay,
then you're gonna be okay. Thenjust show your child love and support and
try to guide them in this worldto make good choices. And that's all
you can do, you know.So I think that parents appreciated that we
that we sort of saw it throughthat lens so that we could give tools
to people who were maybe struggling.And what I have found in speaking to
(32:55):
a lot of these people now isthat they're afraid. It's not that they
have an issue with it, it'sthat they're afraid about how the world's going
to treat their kid. Right wewant to. I mean, as a
parent, that's all we want todo is protect our kids. That's all
you want to do is protect yourkids. So if there's another reason why,
maybe somebody's not going to be niceto them or hurt them or hate
(33:15):
them, You're like, no,not that right, right, this is
another way are they can get soI think breaking that down to help them
understand it wasn't about that they wanttheir child to find love they do.
Were there any episodes that you changemidstream? The episode that was the hardest
for us to write was Norman reallywanted us to do an immigration episode and
(33:39):
I had to explain to him thatyou can't support Cubans, or you couldn't
at the time, right, thatthere are different rules for different Latinos.
And he was blown. He didn'tunderstand. He was like, what are
you talking about? And I said, yeah, yeah, different rules for
different Latinos depending on politics. Somy family was allowed to come here,
was allowed to the citizenship. Notevery family's allowed that. Some people come
(34:02):
here and then get sent back,right Like even in this moment, we
have ninety thousand Afghans that are comingover, but we just shipped back forty
three patients, why rules The ruleswere different, and it is awful and
I cannot imagine the conundrum that istrying to figure out the immigration system.
(34:22):
But this is a very big countrywith a lot of land, and the
promise of it is that you comehere to be free. So something that
immigration is something, especially for communitiesof color, that I really want to
look at, especially when we're sendingpeople back because they don't have resources and
they're going back to horrible situations thatare going to put them in harm.
(34:43):
So we had to find a wayto make a character who was Mexican part
of the family's story enough to careabout them because I didn't want to do
a very special episode. I didn'twant to have in one episode and then
this very special thing happens and thenthey leave. So it made us work
backwards and then go, Okay,if we're going to have something happened to
(35:04):
this girl, we need to establishher in several episodes before. So we
came up with this character, alady's best friend, Carmen, who's very
very smart, and she's a dothMexican and very funny, very dry,
played by the amazing Ariel Berrera,and we established her earlier, and then
suddenly we find out that her parentshave been deported. She was born here
(35:27):
so she can stay, but herparents were not, And the family has
a conversation around immigration and around thedifferent rules and around you know, Schneider,
the character of Schneider that we hada Canadian and came here and bought
himself basically through good lawyers, boughthimself citizenship. Not everybody has the luxury
of being able to do that.So it created a really great conversation around
(35:50):
immigration and around things that people.Norman, who's ninety seven years old,
didn't know that, right, soit was great. I didn't know it
until you just I hadn't thought aboutit until you just talked about it.
So you're kind of Also, you'rea social historian, you're an anthropologist,
and who would have thought about thatAs a television writer and producer, how
(36:10):
you are affecting social change, andyou probably understand history and policy and government
relations a lot better than most ofus, well, because I've had to
write like my parents. You know, the Cuban government and what happens with
us in Cuba is constantly shifting andchanging. With Obama, he had lifted
sanctions, and then Trump and thennow COVID. I mean, it's what's
(36:34):
happening in Cuba is devastating. Ithas been people who have been starving there
for years and it's very hard.I don't know about every country, so
I don't get upset if people don'tknow the complexities of Cuba. But the
amount of people who are like,oh my god, have you been.
I've been three times to go beforeit's ruined, and I'm like, oh,
it's already ruined. The people arestarting. The average Cuban woman has
(37:00):
reabortions because in order to pay forher life, she has to be a
prostitute, because it's easier to blowsomebody for twenty bucks than it is to
work in a factory for a monthfor twenty bucks. And constantly also having
to have conversations surrounding what people thinksocialism is versus communism Cuba. It's not
socialist. Cuba is a communist countryand it is not working. People are
(37:21):
starving, people are dying of COVID. We are getting reports off of the
island pretty consistently where it's just it'svery dire for the Cuban people. So
I'm obviously very involved in the nextIt's personal to me, and I think
that all of these stories when youwere talking about anthropology and being a historian,
TV is a historical portrait of amoment, you know. It's what's
(37:43):
fun about going back and looking atold things and seeing like even sex in
the City pre nine eleven, whata picture of a moment, you know,
a prior and looking at stuff afterwhat happened before, what happened after?
Help speaking in let's how have thefuture? Your new show Love tell
me about that. So with LoveAgain came out of the pandemic, came
(38:04):
out of feeling. I was alsobinging, and I didn't want to watch
anything depressing, and there's a lotof depressing stuff out there. So I
went up my parents, Like Isaid, live across the street. I
went over there. It was Christmastime and my mom just had hallwork on
twenty four seven, and I noticedthat people. It seems like only why
people are allowed to fall in loveat Christmas? So rich white people,
(38:27):
rich white people are allowed to falllove nobody. So I went to Amazon
January and I said, guys,I don't know what it is, but
I would love to do something centeringblack brown and LGBT communities around the holidays
and Love, Trauma Free, WarmInviting centered on a family, and they
(38:49):
said, how quickly can you doit? So it was like out of
the gate. It's the fastest productionthat they've ever done. And we're hoping
news will be coming soon of whenwill be premiering, but it's you know,
the family is warm and has moneyand looks beautiful and their house is
beautiful. I remember Constance Marine andBenito Martinez, who are better in Latino
(39:12):
actors have been working forever, havebeen in everything like have worked for so
long, and our beacons of talent. They walked into the house and they
both got emotional. They're like,we can't believe that we have characters.
They get to live in a housethat's nice. Wow, and so have
you finishing that. We've finished shooting. We're impost right now, almost done,
(39:34):
and I'm just so excited. Wehave a story where a young man
is bringing home his boyfriend for thefirst time and the family's going to meet
him. No coming out story hekeep out a decade ago. Nobody cares.
They're excited to meet the boyfriend rightlike it's all love and warmth and
fun conversations and you know, centeredon love, and I'm just thrilled.
(39:55):
And the cast is mostly Latin X, but we also have two leads that
are API, one lead that's trans. So it's nice to also have leading
characters leads series regulars, not thesixth character or the one episode, right,
It's centered on these people, andso this is really the most modern
(40:16):
love. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And it's very
inviting and lots of fun and soyeah, so check it out. Check
it out when it comes out.Oh, I definitely will. What else
is on the horizon, Oh mygod, so much stuff. I mean,
Amazon has been such a wonderful creativehome. I'm working on the Horror
of Dolorous Roach, which was apodcast that Daphne Rubin Vega had done with
(40:38):
Bobby Kennivally. It was very popularpodcast and so Amazon Audible bought it with
Blumhouse and we've shot the pilot andwe're waiting to see what happens with that.
Starting what's the premise. The premiseis Sweeney Todd. It's Sweeney Today,
but set in set in modern NewYork City. So Justina Muchado,
who was in one day at atime, who I adore who was the
(41:00):
most talented actresses working today. Jinaplays Dolores Roach and it's very clever.
Aaron Mark, who is the playwrightand the writer of this pilot, he
wanted to sort of talk about theprison industrial complex and also about communities of
color in prison. She basically thiswoman goes to prison. She takes the
fall for her boyfriend who's a potdealer, and she takes the fall and
(41:22):
goes to prison for sixteen years,and then she gets out and now pot
is sold in like the Apple storebasically right like now you go to apples.
So now that white people have pot, it's like super cheesy and totally
fine, but she gave up halfof her life for it. As but
then the Sweeney todd of it,which is they have revenge and then do
(41:44):
people get cut up and put intopies? This time it's empanadas. So
it's really fun and dark and she'sabsolutely brilliant. So I have that and
then some animated projects that I'm thrilledwith, and I have one called Verona
that's Shakespeare in high school. Ohyeah, I want to talk about that
for a second. Yeah, tellme about that. I'm so excited.
(42:07):
Well, I went to grad schoolin England, so I'm like proper drama
school trained and I know all theShakespeare plays and they're wonderful. But I
also remember being in high school andreading them and it's so daunting that language.
Now, when I went to college, I really got to get in
there and learn and like understand I'mcatameter. And initially it was like,
what would be a cool piece ofsource material that could also start a conversation
(42:30):
with young people. Right, Soit's the pilot episode. Everything I do
is give me Latina led. SoLatina Led. It's the city of Verona,
which is like near Miami, soit's like the south, very very
wealthy Latinos, which Miami has afair share of. And the oldest daughter
is basically Lady Macbeth, the secondoldest daughters basically Ophelia, and the youngest
(42:54):
daughter is Juliet. And we seethese girls go through the storylines of the
traditional plays over the course of theseason and how it plays in modern day
life, and we really feel liketalk about all the world as the stage
and we're merely players. Never isthat truer than in high school. So
it's fun to play on those tropes, to play on you know, our
(43:15):
lady Mabeth is trying to get herboyfriend to be the star quarterback, right,
so like all of those little littlethings, and then hopefully again starting
conversations so that kids can think ofShakespeare in a different way. I can't
wait. And then you have GlowingUp. Glowing Up is animated. That
one's based on Emma, So it'sa young queer blogger, makeup blogger who
(43:36):
is Latino and Jewish and he isjust setting people up and making them beautiful.
So it's lots of fun. Thatone was like a teen adults animated
show for celebrating queer kids. Soundslike a party to me. So much
fun, so much fun. Ihope they all go. I hope they
all get picked up, because Ithink they're all up. I hope they
all get picked up because I'm alreadythinking about what could happen. I want
(44:00):
to see them, and they soundlike they'd be great places to lend to
our newest issue. Yes, agreed, we already have some of that built
in. The Lady Macbeth character struggleswith weight issues, and that's already built
into that one. Actually if youwere going to talk to your thirteen year
old self, what's the one pieceof advice you'd give to her. I
(44:21):
wouldn't say anything, to be honestwith you. I think I needed to
go through everything I went through toget to this point. I needed to
go through every struggle. And Iwouldn't have wanted to do anything differently.
And I fear that saying anything toher would have made her do something different.
I would have maybe just sat inthe moment and observed what that was
to be that age and remember.But I think, like you know,
(44:44):
while we're here, I think we'resupposed to learn stuff, and we're supposed
to find people, and sometimes yourdifficult relationships that are a lesson that you
need to learn through that relationship.I was telling somebody the other day,
and I'll share it with you becausethey seemed tickled by it. They were
talking about an old friend of minewho nothing bad happened. We're just not
really friends anymore because life, youknow. And they said do you miss
(45:05):
him? And I said, youknow, I think of him as a
wonderful guest star in my life.You know, he was a wonderful guest
star and he was here and hecrushed it in the episode and then off
he went, and it's all good. I still think wonderful, loving things.
When he's not a series regular.You got the series regulars, you
got the guest stars, and yougot the co stars in your life.
And some people just come in toyou know, have a lovely moment and
(45:27):
exit and give you what they need. And so yeah, for me,
I don't think I would say anything, and I would say that, Like
my husband was reading something the otherday that I think really touched me that
I think touches on this. Whatwould I say to myself question? He
said, instead of asking ourselves whatwe would have said, right, because
we can't do that right. That'sit's a question that like we have no
control over that. Maybe it's moreinteresting to think of you're ninety years old
(45:52):
and you get to live being fortysix again, because I'm forty six.
So if I live every day thinkingI'm actually ninety getting to do this again
at forty six, how am Igoing to live my day? And I
thought that was really powerful. Iwas like, oh, honey, I'm
so glad you should that. Ithink that's really cool because I can't be
twenty again. But I am fortysix, so like, let's do this
(46:13):
right, Like, what can Ido today? He's a twenty first century
philosopher. Well, he read it, but he is pretty brilliant. I'm
not gonna lie. He's a prettyday. Well, thank you, thank
you, thank you. It's ajoy. I want to be a regular
and your series of life. Thankyou and thank you. I'm that tenacious.
(46:36):
But yeah, and I look forwardto seeing you again soon in the
Human in the Human, as wesay, I know likewise likewise, Hey,
thanks for tuning in and coming byand sitting down in a huge thank
you to Gloria for joining us today. Come back next time where we'll be
sitting down with Emmy nominee and iconicGrey's Anatomy Miranda Bailey, also known as
(47:02):
the brilliant actor Chandra Wilson. Welook forward to seeing you then. You've
been listening to On the Edge,a podcast series from the Creative Coalition hosted
by Creative Coalition CEO Robin Bronk.For more information on how you can protect
funding for the arts and harness thepower of the arts to promote social good,
(47:23):
visit us at the Creative Coalition dotorg.
This is On the Edge, apodcast series from the Creative Coalition featuring conversations
with an edge and chats with personalitiesfrom the world of entertainment. Now here's
your host, Creative Coalition CEO,Robin Bronk. Welcome back everyone to another
episode of On the Edge. I'mRobin and I'm so happy to have you
(00:28):
with me. Today's guest is thegreat executive producer and one of television's greatest
screenwriters, Gloria Calderon kell It.Today we get to have an inside peek
at her many hit series One Dayat a Time, I Zombie, How
I Met Your Mother, and Amazon'supcoming With Love. Please welcome Gloria Calderon
(00:52):
kell It to the hot seat.Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for having me. Gloriacalder On Kellett. Which I think
you have the greatest name. Yeah, it's Tooy, but yeah, you
know, we're going with it.I didn't think I was going to be
a person with three names. Itsurprised me as well when I was like,
no, this is what I'm doing. Yeah, it's a good one.
It's a good three namer. Itworks. So we met over obesity.
(01:19):
Yes, I went to other CreativeCoalition events, but I don't know
that we got to meet at those, so we zoom. And what's great
is that you have changed the worldthrough your art in so many ways.
And the theme of this podcast ison the edge in a good way.
How you've gone to the edge andbrought us all with you. And even
(01:42):
to start out, as I said, we met over obesity. And as
you know and as you've been workingwith us, the Creative Coalition takes on
issues that we think should be inthe public and in the zeitgeist, and
we try to change the world tomake it a better place. And obesity
has been this shame and blamed diseaseand we want to stop that shame and
blame. And you were terrific insort of understanding and saying, yeah,
(02:08):
I can use my art to helpchange this. It's weird. I mean,
it's this disease where we still avertour eyes. Well, especially in
Hollywood. It's the silence, thisdeafening silence. And it's not, as
you know, not probody positivity,not antibody positivity. It's threading the needle
in a different way. You area mentor in our writers workshops on this
(02:31):
issue. What gave you the courageto do this? Because it is courage
to take on it, to atleast be out there talking about issues that
no one wants to talk about.Well, first of all, I think
it's more interesting, like for me, as somebody who consumes entertainment as a
source of comfort, to be ableto learn something, to be able to
(02:54):
have empathy for a different situation,a different way of life, a person
who store is nothing like mine.To have been able to do that for
years, really, I think doescreate empathy. Those stories create empathy.
So going into this, I wantedto be a storyteller because the stories I
was seeing reflective about my community wereso ill advised, and we're not true,
(03:21):
or at least we're not my experienceof what was true. So I
had already been doing that work.I entered through dominic culture shows. I
was on mainstream network shows for manyyears and loved it, loved it,
really enjoyed writing on various I gotto work in comedy and drama and procedural
even and it was interesting to seehow the different effects that each of those
(03:43):
had, how each of them usedstorytelling to make points about certain things,
whether it was aligori or right therein your face. And it's a really
powerful medium, this type of storytellingthat we do, and I think TV
and film is a way to talkabout things that you might not be able
to talk about in your home.And while entertaining, if you could also
(04:04):
give people tools and talking points andways of reflecting on something that they haven't
been able to reflect on in thatway before, that's really exciting. That's
exciting for culture shift, that's excitingfor allowing people to see inside another perspective
and realize like, oh, Ihad different views about that and now I
(04:26):
feel differently. You know, whenwe met, we really got to meet
over this issue of obesity. Didit speak to you in particular personally in
any way? It's in my family. I have a lot of obesity in
my family. I think that thatobesity is tied to intergenerational trauma as well.
So it's mental health and the chemistryof what happens in bodies. And
(04:47):
so I had already been reading cognitivebehavioral therapy books about brains and addiction and
how to break brain addiction because it'shuge in my life. It's a big,
big part of my life. AndI've seen how it has slowed people
down and robbed people of joy andmade them feel not great about themselves as
well. And I have my ownweight struggles over the years, up and
(05:11):
down and whatnot, and how likewhy am I eating the same that this
person is eating? But thereist thinperson and I am not. And what's
happening differently in my body in relationto the generations prior to me. So
all of that was already something thatwas interesting to me. So then for
it to be the topic of conversation, it was like, oh, well,
this is great because I get tolearn too, and I get to
(05:34):
hear even more. And you know, I connected with I'm forgetting the lovely
doctor that we had there that night, her name doctor, Yeah, yeah,
yeah, she was great. Weofflined about a few things and it
was really wonderful to hear that weneed to just change our perspective about this
issue. You certainly with your televisionshows, which we'll get into, but
you've taken on issues, You've takenon things. If you're going to take
(05:58):
on this issue of obesity, what'sgonna be hardest about it to bring it
to the screen. Do you thinkare you gonna meet with resistance. I
don't think I'm gonna be with resistance. I think it's how do we do
it in a way, And thisis with any issue, how do you
do it in a way that feelsorganic? How do you do it in
a way that feels true to thecharacters that you're working on. I'll tell
you actually where the challenge is,and I will not say the actor's name.
(06:21):
I wanted to do a storyline aboutthis on a show I was on,
and I was doing it in ahumorous way where the mom this is
a story for my own life,where you know, after I got pregnant,
my mom made my husband breakfast andmade pancakes and eggs and sauce and
brings out this beautiful play for myhusband and then hands me like a yogurt
(06:43):
a lifesaver. And I was like, we must have the same mother.
Would this bes you know? Andshe's like, well, I know you're
trying to lose the baby weight,you know. And it was like I
wanted to do jokes around my ownissues with because it's all cultural, like
in Latino culture, women and howthey look, and you know, j
Loo is who people are like,well, You're like, yeah, you
(07:05):
guys age like that, right,No, we don't. We're not all
going to be fifty and look likeJlo. Unfortunately, I don't know.
You look, there's a lot ofthere is a Latino Patina Robin. It's
true, it's true. We're alreadyblessed in that way. But I wanted
to make a joke about this,and I wanted to do sort of a
similar thing with an actress, andthe actress was like, I don't want
(07:26):
to do anybody stuff. I don'tfeel good about it personally. So it's
like, oh, so we creativelywanted to do stuff about talking about food,
talking about the relationship with Latino families, Latino women in general, about
this, and we met with resistancebecause it's hard for all of these actors
to go out there and to betheir bodies are constantly being talked about and
(07:48):
on display. We see this withthe addictions that we have as a culture
embraced to talk about with alcohol andwith drugs. But my god, when
you see celebrities coming out rehab,my god, the struggles that these people
have and there's photographers following them asthey're trying to recover, we just don't
do them any favors, so Iknow, and especially when you and the
(08:11):
entertainment industry come out on an issue, I worship what you're doing because half
your fans won't like it whatever itis you're doing or saying. If you're
not doing it for the publicity,certainly you know, and you're not doing
it for your career, and Idon't want to, like, you know,
discourage anyone. So it's just whatyou're doing is such a public service.
I mean, you do change people'slives in a positive way. And
(08:33):
even with this issue, I thinkit's almost forty five percent of Latino Americans
have this disease ye and yet totalk about it. Yeah, well because
they're shame. There's shame surrounding itfor all the reasons that we've discussed,
and we we discussed on the youknow that night. It's like, there's
it. You don't look quote unquotehealthy or good and you don't feel I
(08:58):
mean, the diet industry, mygod, million dollars industry, so make
sure that people don't reach their goalsever and are constantly reading self help books
and whatnot, and it's not dealingwith the real issues at hand, right,
I think getting out Accurate information isalso a big thing. It's also
important. We are in a timewhere I feel more than ever that our
(09:18):
education system is failing us, andI think it's also failing our children.
There are curriculum that I would love. I feel like this is an issue
where I wish curriculum in grad schooltalked about nutrition and talked about OBEs so
that kids could know the signs,have a path towards knowing if it's something
(09:41):
that they have or not, andlearn tools early on so that they don't
have to suffer for years and yearsand years thinking there's something wrong with them,
or they can't do what their peerscan do, or wear what their
peers can wear, or etc.And this is the type of thing that
the more we talk about it inan entertainment space and try to make it
someone entertaining, the people will starttalking about these things. There's an activist,
(10:01):
Fabiana Rodriguez who I love to citebecause she did a talk. You
should talk to her at some point, Robin. She's pretty extraordinary. She
does a culture shift conversation and shetalks about how it takes a decade for
culture for pop culture, TV,film, movies, music to filter into
culture to make change in policy andin the minds and hearts of specifically American
(10:26):
culture. It's a decade. Adecade it takes. So she said,
if you're looking at people are suddenlycaring about something, probably a decade earlier
those seeds were planted. And shetalks specifically about marriage equality in the LGBTQ
community and Will and Grace and Ellen. And if that's the case, boy,
(10:48):
we better be talking about some thingsbecause I know it the seeds.
We know that pop culture, likeI said, does influence, and it
influences for the positive. And itis your keyboard that has the pulse as
a communicator. And in this issuespecifically, you know, we've talked about
it. I feel like the timeis right. We did it with mental
(11:11):
illness, we did it with bullyingor anti bullying. We did it.
You know, it's not a crazynotion, no, not at all.
And it's killing us. It's thebiggest epidemic before the pandemic and it's still
around. Right to go vaccine,right and by the way, it also
did rob so many that in COVID. Really that was a perfect storm for
(11:33):
so many people, right, So, yeah, it was weird COVID also
sort of legitimized obesity as a disease, that's right, and not a noise.
Right, that's right. So goingback to you know, you had
One Day at a Time and goingback to how I met your mother,
and you did it with with comedyand bringing in so many pathos. What
(11:54):
was one of your favorite episodes onOne Day at a Time and you really
took a big mantle on Oh mygoodness, there were so many episodes that
we did that. Really we didan episode about the VA because you know,
Norman Leary was a veteran and sohe has great compassion for our veterans
and it was his idea that theex husband to be a veteran. He
(12:16):
said, I think that Penelope's exhusband should be a veteran, and we
said, oh, we love that. And then as we started doing research
and meeting with veterans to hear storiesand to get you know, perspective.
We had a consulting company, Musa, who helped us connect with veterans.
We found that many veterans met inservice, many veterans married somebody else in
service. Because of course you're young, you're in the best shape of your
(12:39):
life. You know, so youget it, yeah, and you understand
and you understand. So then Iwas like, wait, I think we're
going to make a Penelope a veterantoo. Let's make them both veterans,
right. And the husband has amore you know, a path that we've
seen more of on television, whichis he had a hard time and he
came back and became addicted to painkillers because of some injuries that he had.
(13:03):
And we wanted her path to beone that we don't hear about,
which is the mental health path.She was having anxiety and depression and had
to struggle with medication because that's veryin the Latin X community. Unfortunately,
medication is still seen as the difficultthing for the community to wrap their brains
around, and so we wanted totalk about that really. In the pilot
(13:26):
episode, her mom is talking toher about you can't take these pills.
This is terrible for you, andshe's like, well, I'm doing it,
so and then she starts going totherapy. So like there were episode,
I think the episodes about her mentalhealth journeying on medication, going to
group therapy. Then at one pointshe's feeling great and she goes off of
her medication and what that truthfully lookslike. You know, that episode won
(13:48):
a lot of awards and got alot of attention, and the most important
was the amount of veterans that reachedout to us on our personal level to
say how grateful they were that wewere shying a light on this. And
then people who warn't veterans but hadmental health issues and had a difficult time
explaining to an older generation that mentalhealth is something we care about now and
(14:11):
something we talk about and it's okay, and we need to destigmatize it.
And it's like you were saying,it seems like we are in a space
where something was planted a decade agoto allow for this moment where people are
understanding mental health and things that youhave to do to maintain your mental health
and mental wellness. I think becausealso people were struggling and dying as a
(14:33):
result of it. So yeah,I think it's a great tie in to
be able to now talk about obesityin that same way. How did you
step into one day at a timethose shoes? Were you a fan crying
out? You know? The OA? Were you too young? I was
too young? Yeah? The originallycame out the Arrow was born and came
out in teventy five. So butthe thing is, it was zeitgeisty enough
where I knew who Schneider was.Oh really, Oh yeah, I knew
(14:56):
that there's a guy that had thething. I knew cigarettes on the in
the arm and he was like,you know, would constantly be flirting with
people that I have that memory somewherelocked in there. So it must have
been on after school, or itmust have been on at some you know,
I watched Happy Days episodes when Icame home from school, so I
feel like it must have been on, But no, I didn't really know.
(15:18):
I mean, I knew all inthe Family because those were all on
as well. But the work ofNorman's I saw was Who's the Boss and
Facts of Life? You know,like those are the works of Norman's that
I grew up on, those eightiessitcoms. So yeah, I was kind
of just a journeyman writer for twelveyears, working on other shows, working
on many, many network shows.And I got a phone call saying,
(15:41):
do you want to meet Norman Learnwho doesn't want to do that? So
I should like, oh, yeah, I'll go on. Yeah, So
I went really just to meet Normanto be I mean, I've told him
this now too. I really hadno interest in shout. I just wanted
to sit with him, and heis is my goodness. They really had
(16:02):
broke the mold there. He's justsuch an incredible, kind, sweet,
decent, curious man, and withinthe I think hour and a half total
I was there, completely convinced methat I should do this. I had
complete trust and faith in him,and really it was kind of love at
first sight. You must have impressedhim in a tremendous way because he was
(16:25):
giving you the reins of a treasure, of a national treasure. Now I
can't believe it. I mean,Mike Ross, who's my wonderful partner on
the show. He and I wereconstantly like, you know, people had
asked was their pressure, and we'relike, yeah, we don't want to
destroy the legacy of Normally, Likeup to this point, people love him,
so we don't want to mess itup when he's ninety seven. We
don't want to really mess it upfor this guy. So we did mess
(16:47):
it up for Normal. Early itwas Rita Moreno. At what plan did
Rita Moreno come on board? Well, that first meeting with Norman, and
he asked me to describe my family. And since I was a kid,
since I saw a West Side story, I would say, oh, my
mom, she looks like Rida Marano, So picture Rida Rino. Right,
I've been seeing that my entire life, Robin, my entire life. So
(17:10):
in this conversation with Norman, mymother picture Rida Mariano. And he was
like, oh, we should getreader to do it. I said,
okay, yeah, and then sureenough we write it and he's like,
let's get reader to do it.I said, how do we do that?
He's like, well, we justpick up the phone and we just
ask her. Okay, I meanthe world of Norman Leader. He's Willy
Wonka, you know, he justmakes true. So he asked and she
(17:33):
said, yes. So you'd startedon Netflix and then you moved over to
Pop TV correct and then the pandemickilled us, but you had enough time
to make some beauties. Got tomake forty. Well now there's six and
eight episodes, so we really dofeel like we got to make you know,
h three seven episodes I think iswhat we ended up making, and
(17:56):
we're really proud of them. Andwe had a wonder full time making them.
We're still on a text chain andwe constantly reaching out to one another,
and we really formed a lovely littlefamily there. And had Norman already
decided the demographic of the family beforehe met you, or how did that
work? You know? It?Actually Kep his producing partner Brent Miller,
(18:18):
had been reading a study that CocaCola had done that very underserved yet over
indexing audience in television was single Latinawomen, and so he thought, oh
my gosh, we have a showfrom the seventies about a single woman.
Maybe the way to reboot that isto speak to this enormous demographic of women
(18:38):
that are currently living in America thatare single Latina women. So the only
mandate was single Latina women. Andthen Mike Royce and Mike and I both
have a daughter and a son,which is why we made it a daughter
and a son instead. Also inthat first conversation with Norman, he said,
what would it look like if yougot divorced? And I said,
oh, my parents would live withme one hundred percent. My mom live
(19:00):
with me, my parents across thestreet. Now, oh that's so nice.
It really is. I'm keep aneye on. I'm keep an eye
on them. Oh, yeah,there they are. Did you start out
as an actress? I did?I did. I started as an actress
and all the parts were gangbanger's girlfriendsor gangbanger sisters. That was it.
That's all I got auditions for.And I would go in and they're like,
(19:23):
no, no, no, weneeded an accent. You don't understand
like her parents were from another country. I said, yeah, my parents
are from another country. They camehere speaking no English. This is what
I sound like. And I was, well, this character isn't I was
like, okay, I mean,like the America. Did you ever just
want to tell them to shut upand get real always? I mean,
(19:44):
that's really why I became a writer. It became very clear that the people
with the pen didn't know what theywere talking about in terms of my community,
and so the only way that Iwas going to be able to change
it was to be on the otherside. That was the only way I
could change it. I wasn't gettingparts that I wanted anyway. The auditions
I was going out for were sodemeaning. So it's like, well,
I don't want any of these rolesanyway. What am I doing, I
might as well try to create rolesthat I would like and then maybe one
(20:06):
day I'll get to play those,and if not, at least I'm able
to add to a narrative and authenticvoice of who we actually are. And
you know, the statistics anniber justdid another study that came out this year.
It's still pretty dire. We aretwenty percent of this country and we
are five percent what is on televisionand speaking roles, and those are still
largely marginalized roles. Of that fivepercent, forty percent are criminals. Oh,
(20:32):
that's pretty sobering statistics. So againand again, it's like, that's
why we're treated a certain way,that's why, you know, it's the
immigration conversation is always fascinating to mebecause Latinos are not the biggest people trying
to get into this country at all, and yet because they're poor, because
(20:52):
they are coming from devastated countries thatterrible things are happening in, and not
super wealthy people that are coming ona plane that have money. We are
treating these poor people as though theyare lepers and they're not. They are
literally searching for the American dream thatour grandparents all were able to benefit off
of and that's why we're here,right, So it's like I can't have
(21:17):
benefited from it and stay quiet andnot call attention to the fact that this
is crazy. We need to adjustso that people start seeing the humanity of
these people. I mean, it'sshocking to me that we're still in the
place that we are at in termsof representation. Would you say that How
I Met Your Mother was your bigbreak as a writer a producer, Yeah,
(21:41):
I would say so. I've beenon a bunch of shows, but
that was definitely the most popular show. The guys also were really young,
so they were Carter and Craig.Carter Based and Craig Thomas were very generous
in allowing the writers to participate intheir episodes. We could be in uncasting
and we could be in editing,and not every show owners like that.
I think a lot of the generationbefore was not into that. They kind
(22:03):
of did all of that and thewriters just came to write and go home.
So them allowing me a peek behindthe curtain really taught me so much,
so that by the time I wasin a Seed of Power, I
already had experience being u editing.I already had experience casting, so for
many reasons, that was a bigshift for me and just enjoyed. It
was just a really fun show tobe up. Oh what a great and
(22:26):
I wrote a great cast. Imean, you did I think around twenty
episodes in the mid two thousands,or I did I did like sixty episodes?
I did? Oh yeah, Iwas there for three seasons of twenty
two. Yeah, I did almostseventy episodes. Maybe event well, we
have to update your IMDb page.I am. Now you're maybe as a
(22:48):
produce staff writer. You know,at season one, I was a staff
writer, so that twenty two Iwasn't producing. So you were there season
one? I was there season one, two and three. Did you have
a favorite episode or two or amost challenging one or when were you wanted
something done. We had an episodethat got thrown out season one. I
(23:10):
forget what that episode was about,and I had told the guys a story
and we were like cardon Craig andI sort of went to the side and
kind of wrote this episode within twentyfour hours, which ended up being drumroll
please, where it was like alittle rom com where he meets a girl
at a wedding and they don't exchangenames and they just have a romantic knight
(23:30):
together and decide they're just going tohave a romantic knight and never see each
other again, and then at theend they want to see each other again.
So that there was an energy,a kinetic energy. I still watched
that episode of how there could havebeen a joke here, There could have
been a joke there, but therewas no time. I mean, we
were it was like, we're shootingit in a minute, so look up.
So I particularly fund memories of thatone. And so when you were
(23:52):
on and when you started writing withit and producing, you knew the ending
and I didn't know how it wasall gonna shake up. Shot that we
shot that in season We shot thatin season one. I think we shot
that around when we were doing DrumalPlease that episode because the kids were getting
older. I think David Henry's voicewas starting to crack. Oh, so
(24:14):
the guys shot that ending with them, and yeah, it was that was
season one. That was shot seasonone. Wow, that's amazing. That's
awesome. So what have you learnedand what are the lessons that you'd say
you'd learned. I think that beingcognizant of disenfranchised, marginalized voices. Once
(24:34):
I started doing that work, thingsfelt more meaningful because all of this is
entertainment and storytelling and joy. Imean, I'm very much I pedaled joy
one hundred percent. My work isjoyful. But if I can sneak some
broccoli into that joy, you know, if I can get something in there
(24:56):
that teaches you something or makes youfeel differently about something, or starts a
conversation in your own home about something, that's a lot more exciting to me
as a creator, because then it'snot just me presenting like here, it's
then building I think, a conversationwith the audience, which social media at
its best I think does It startsconversations that we can continue to have.
(25:18):
I think that, you know,social media can be a dumpster fire as
well if people just yelling their ideasat each other, but sometimes it can
be a space where people are tryingto connect and trying to learn from one
another and grow. And that's whenit's really exciting to me. So now
that I do that type of work, When I first did one day at
(25:38):
a time, I was on panelswith other you know, they like to
put us on panels with other peoplefrom disenfranchised communities, so we get to
meet each other, which is kindof joyful, right, you know.
I was on a panel with ourLady Jay, who was an Emmy nominated
writer on Post Brilliant Pianist, andJay was talking about how as a trans
(25:59):
woman and she had never seen transpeople on television that weren't sex workers or
dead bodies. Never occurred to mebecause I don't have that experience, right,
So hearing from our Lady Jay reallywas like open my eyes, you
know. I think that it wasreally moving to hear the journey. And
then she she was talking about poseand she was talking about how meaningful it
(26:22):
would be to see trans people justlive in their lives. So on one
day at It's Time, I broughtin a trans character that's a trans veteran
their journey there. It has nothingto do with their transnis. They're just
talking in the therapy group to theladies, trying to live her life.
And on my Knee Show with Love, we have a trans non binary character
that's living their life and fallen inlove and figuring it out. And so
(26:47):
you know, and the same istrue. When I was on you know,
Twitter. I do a lot ofTwitter threads where I talk to people
about who should I know, what'sgoing on when you guys care about a
lot of people from the disabled communityhave come out and said, we never
see ourselves, please, we neversee people with a cane, We never
see people talk about in a wheelchair, like, we are here, we
are here, and we are invisibleon television. So oddly, because I
(27:11):
think once we put things out therewere better able to see, right,
We're better able to experience the worldin a different way once we plant the
seed. I was at an improvshow shortly after and I saw Santina Moire,
who was doing improv on the stage, running around this wheelchair and just
being amazing. And I've cast heron the show, cast her on the
(27:33):
show as well as a veteran whojust happens to being a wheelchair We don't
discuss it, she just is.And the amount of love that I got
from both the trans community and thedisabled community, and the conversations that we
had surrounding things that you know.I remember I was on a panel works
I said something about disabled voices andthen somebody said, oh, no,
they don't like disabled voices they likedifferently abled. There were like six disabled
(27:59):
peoples, but we don't like that. Actually, like you people think we
like that, but we don't.We like we're good at disabled. It's
like, this is the conversation,right, this is Oh I didn't know
that. I kind of heard thattoo, So I'm so happy I know
that now. So I'm not spreadinga thing that's not what this community wants
to be talking about. So allof those things are small and meaningful.
I remember a day I was directingan episode of One Day at a Time
(28:22):
where all the girls from the therapygroup go to have a drink after therapy
and at one point they have toleave, and so they were leaving and
Santina was like, oh, Ineed a There's no I can't leave,
Like there's like stairs, I can'tleave. So I talked to this set
guys. I'm like, hey,guys, can we build a like a
rail or like something a ramp?And they're like, of course, of
(28:45):
course. The next day the rampwas there and she got onto set and
she started crying and she was like, you didn't understand how just seeing me
leave the bar on a ramp isgoing to mean so much to my community,
So like we just need to belistening to each other. We just
need to be aware. And Ican't tell you how many other I mean,
(29:06):
I wish I could do everything onthe street. You can't. You
have to do it's organic to yourshow. You can't make it only about
issues and only about But are thereplaces to make these adjustments in our storytelling?
I think so? Did you purposelygo back and watch the old episodes
or not? We watched the pilot. We watched the pilot, and we
tried in our pilot to pay homageto that first episode. The second episode
(29:30):
I think we talked about I thinkMike saw that one. I didn't see
that one. I think Mike sawthat one, and it was about sexual
harassment. So we made our secondepisode about sexual harassment. But that was
it. That was it. Thatwas like we just wanted to sort of
pay homage. The set was thesame build as the original set. Really,
Yeah, it was a back Ithad a little back poppy area and
(29:52):
the kitchen and the hole and thearch that goes back. So it paid
homage in that way, and thenumber of the apartment was the same as
well. We tried to put inlittle Easter eggs. What was one of
your favorite episodes of One Day ata Time. I would say the phenale
of season one in the phenoale ofseason two. The phenale of season one
was about a young lesbian that ishaving a keen Sennia, which is an
(30:17):
archaic tradition based on me not wantingto have a king Sennia, because I
read about it and it was like, wait a minute, Yeah, yeah,
it was like, oh, Blake, dress up your prize daughter and
you put her up and go anybody. I mean that's what it was,
right, Like, that's where itcame from. Wi Tom Pouls were the
same thing. It was, Hey, we put her in a dress,
anybody, two sheeps and a goat. Awesome, she's yours. I mean
(30:41):
that's what it was. But youdid not have They would have loved it.
I think I saved him a fortuneand I said, you can save
that money for an eventual, abig wedding and it'll be in a church,
and I think, so they're happy. So yeah, Elena decides she
isn't going to have one, andthen she decides to have one, but
she uses it as her own comingout, and you know, there's still
(31:04):
a lot of because of the deeproots with Catholicism, there's a lot of
issues with homosexuality LGBTQ kids in theLATINX community, and so to be able
to provide a family that struggles withit, but it gets to the other
side and loves their kid and supportsthem ultimately in finding love and being fine
with their sexuality was really important tous and we were really happy to be
(31:27):
able to put that out. Sothat was the first finale. What do
you hear from fans? Oh,my gosh. Any event I went to
Robin, there would be a lineof people. A lot of them were
mothers or grandmothers with their daughters whowere coming up to hug me and say,
because of your show, I feellike my kid's going to be okay.
I have a lot of crying,a lot of hugging and crying.
You do that kind of stuff andyou get addicted to how meaningful that is
(31:49):
to people. You know. Invisibilitymakes you feel invisible visibility, my god,
it makes you feel empowered. Andso not only were we doing an
LGBTQ story, we were doing aLatin X LGBTQ story, which are very
rare, very very rare still onTV. You know, I can point
at two, maybe three, andso that and then the conversations around that,
(32:14):
because we did a whole episode aboutPenelope thinking she was okay with it
generally not having any issue with gaypeople, but sort of struggling with the
fact that her kid was gay andwhat did that mean? And she was
hating herself, like I thought Iwas fine with this? Why am I
not fine with this? And justgoing through the journey of your kids known
they were gay for years, youfound out five seconds ago. Give yourself
(32:35):
a minute, Do you love yourkid any less? No? Okay,
then you're gonna be okay. Thenjust show your child love and support and
try to guide them in this worldto make good choices. And that's all
you can do, you know.So I think that parents appreciated that we
that we sort of saw it throughthat lens so that we could give tools
to people who were maybe struggling.And what I have found in speaking to
(32:55):
a lot of these people now isthat they're afraid. It's not that they
have an issue with it, it'sthat they're afraid about how the world's going
to treat their kid. Right wewant to. I mean, as a
parent, that's all we want todo is protect our kids. That's all
you want to do is protect yourkids. So if there's another reason why,
maybe somebody's not going to be niceto them or hurt them or hate
(33:15):
them, You're like, no,not that right, right, this is
another way are they can get soI think breaking that down to help them
understand it wasn't about that they wanttheir child to find love they do.
Were there any episodes that you changemidstream? The episode that was the hardest
for us to write was Norman reallywanted us to do an immigration episode and
(33:39):
I had to explain to him thatyou can't support Cubans, or you couldn't
at the time, right, thatthere are different rules for different Latinos.
And he was blown. He didn'tunderstand. He was like, what are
you talking about? And I said, yeah, yeah, different rules for
different Latinos depending on politics. Somy family was allowed to come here,
was allowed to the citizenship. Notevery family's allowed that. Some people come
(34:02):
here and then get sent back,right Like even in this moment, we
have ninety thousand Afghans that are comingover, but we just shipped back forty
three patients, why rules The ruleswere different, and it is awful and
I cannot imagine the conundrum that istrying to figure out the immigration system.
(34:22):
But this is a very big countrywith a lot of land, and the
promise of it is that you comehere to be free. So something that
immigration is something, especially for communitiesof color, that I really want to
look at, especially when we're sendingpeople back because they don't have resources and
they're going back to horrible situations thatare going to put them in harm.
(34:43):
So we had to find a wayto make a character who was Mexican part
of the family's story enough to careabout them because I didn't want to do
a very special episode. I didn'twant to have in one episode and then
this very special thing happens and thenthey leave. So it made us work
backwards and then go, Okay,if we're going to have something happened to
(35:04):
this girl, we need to establishher in several episodes before. So we
came up with this character, alady's best friend, Carmen, who's very
very smart, and she's a dothMexican and very funny, very dry,
played by the amazing Ariel Berrera,and we established her earlier, and then
suddenly we find out that her parentshave been deported. She was born here
(35:27):
so she can stay, but herparents were not, And the family has
a conversation around immigration and around thedifferent rules and around you know, Schneider,
the character of Schneider that we hada Canadian and came here and bought
himself basically through good lawyers, boughthimself citizenship. Not everybody has the luxury
of being able to do that.So it created a really great conversation around
(35:50):
immigration and around things that people.Norman, who's ninety seven years old,
didn't know that, right, soit was great. I didn't know it
until you just I hadn't thought aboutit until you just talked about it.
So you're kind of Also, you'rea social historian, you're an anthropologist,
and who would have thought about thatAs a television writer and producer, how
(36:10):
you are affecting social change, andyou probably understand history and policy and government
relations a lot better than most ofus, well, because I've had to
write like my parents. You know, the Cuban government and what happens with
us in Cuba is constantly shifting andchanging. With Obama, he had lifted
sanctions, and then Trump and thennow COVID. I mean, it's what's
(36:34):
happening in Cuba is devastating. Ithas been people who have been starving there
for years and it's very hard.I don't know about every country, so
I don't get upset if people don'tknow the complexities of Cuba. But the
amount of people who are like,oh my god, have you been.
I've been three times to go beforeit's ruined, and I'm like, oh,
it's already ruined. The people arestarting. The average Cuban woman has
(37:00):
reabortions because in order to pay forher life, she has to be a
prostitute, because it's easier to blowsomebody for twenty bucks than it is to
work in a factory for a monthfor twenty bucks. And constantly also having
to have conversations surrounding what people thinksocialism is versus communism Cuba. It's not
socialist. Cuba is a communist countryand it is not working. People are
(37:21):
starving, people are dying of COVID. We are getting reports off of the
island pretty consistently where it's just it'svery dire for the Cuban people. So
I'm obviously very involved in the nextIt's personal to me, and I think
that all of these stories when youwere talking about anthropology and being a historian,
TV is a historical portrait of amoment, you know. It's what's
(37:43):
fun about going back and looking atold things and seeing like even sex in
the City pre nine eleven, whata picture of a moment, you know,
a prior and looking at stuff afterwhat happened before, what happened after?
Help speaking in let's how have thefuture? Your new show Love tell
me about that. So with LoveAgain came out of the pandemic, came
(38:04):
out of feeling. I was alsobinging, and I didn't want to watch
anything depressing, and there's a lotof depressing stuff out there. So I
went up my parents, Like Isaid, live across the street. I
went over there. It was Christmastime and my mom just had hallwork on
twenty four seven, and I noticedthat people. It seems like only why
people are allowed to fall in loveat Christmas? So rich white people,
(38:27):
rich white people are allowed to falllove nobody. So I went to Amazon
January and I said, guys,I don't know what it is, but
I would love to do something centeringblack brown and LGBT communities around the holidays
and Love, Trauma Free, WarmInviting centered on a family, and they
(38:49):
said, how quickly can you doit? So it was like out of
the gate. It's the fastest productionthat they've ever done. And we're hoping
news will be coming soon of whenwill be premiering, but it's you know,
the family is warm and has moneyand looks beautiful and their house is
beautiful. I remember Constance Marine andBenito Martinez, who are better in Latino
(39:12):
actors have been working forever, havebeen in everything like have worked for so
long, and our beacons of talent. They walked into the house and they
both got emotional. They're like,we can't believe that we have characters.
They get to live in a housethat's nice. Wow, and so have
you finishing that. We've finished shooting. We're impost right now, almost done,
(39:34):
and I'm just so excited. Wehave a story where a young man
is bringing home his boyfriend for thefirst time and the family's going to meet
him. No coming out story hekeep out a decade ago. Nobody cares.
They're excited to meet the boyfriend rightlike it's all love and warmth and
fun conversations and you know, centeredon love, and I'm just thrilled.
(39:55):
And the cast is mostly Latin X, but we also have two leads that
are API, one lead that's trans. So it's nice to also have leading
characters leads series regulars, not thesixth character or the one episode, right,
It's centered on these people, andso this is really the most modern
(40:16):
love. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And it's very
inviting and lots of fun and soyeah, so check it out. Check
it out when it comes out.Oh, I definitely will. What else
is on the horizon, Oh mygod, so much stuff. I mean,
Amazon has been such a wonderful creativehome. I'm working on the Horror
of Dolorous Roach, which was apodcast that Daphne Rubin Vega had done with
(40:38):
Bobby Kennivally. It was very popularpodcast and so Amazon Audible bought it with
Blumhouse and we've shot the pilot andwe're waiting to see what happens with that.
Starting what's the premise. The premiseis Sweeney Todd. It's Sweeney Today,
but set in set in modern NewYork City. So Justina Muchado,
who was in one day at atime, who I adore who was the
(41:00):
most talented actresses working today. Jinaplays Dolores Roach and it's very clever.
Aaron Mark, who is the playwrightand the writer of this pilot, he
wanted to sort of talk about theprison industrial complex and also about communities of
color in prison. She basically thiswoman goes to prison. She takes the
fall for her boyfriend who's a potdealer, and she takes the fall and
(41:22):
goes to prison for sixteen years,and then she gets out and now pot
is sold in like the Apple storebasically right like now you go to apples.
So now that white people have pot, it's like super cheesy and totally
fine, but she gave up halfof her life for it. As but
then the Sweeney todd of it,which is they have revenge and then do
(41:44):
people get cut up and put intopies? This time it's empanadas. So
it's really fun and dark and she'sabsolutely brilliant. So I have that and
then some animated projects that I'm thrilledwith, and I have one called Verona
that's Shakespeare in high school. Ohyeah, I want to talk about that
for a second. Yeah, tellme about that. I'm so excited.
(42:07):
Well, I went to grad schoolin England, so I'm like proper drama
school trained and I know all theShakespeare plays and they're wonderful. But I
also remember being in high school andreading them and it's so daunting that language.
Now, when I went to college, I really got to get in
there and learn and like understand I'mcatameter. And initially it was like,
what would be a cool piece ofsource material that could also start a conversation
(42:30):
with young people. Right, Soit's the pilot episode. Everything I do
is give me Latina led. SoLatina Led. It's the city of Verona,
which is like near Miami, soit's like the south, very very
wealthy Latinos, which Miami has afair share of. And the oldest daughter
is basically Lady Macbeth, the secondoldest daughters basically Ophelia, and the youngest
(42:54):
daughter is Juliet. And we seethese girls go through the storylines of the
traditional plays over the course of theseason and how it plays in modern day
life, and we really feel liketalk about all the world as the stage
and we're merely players. Never isthat truer than in high school. So
it's fun to play on those tropes, to play on you know, our
(43:15):
lady Mabeth is trying to get herboyfriend to be the star quarterback, right,
so like all of those little littlethings, and then hopefully again starting
conversations so that kids can think ofShakespeare in a different way. I can't
wait. And then you have GlowingUp. Glowing Up is animated. That
one's based on Emma, So it'sa young queer blogger, makeup blogger who
(43:36):
is Latino and Jewish and he isjust setting people up and making them beautiful.
So it's lots of fun. Thatone was like a teen adults animated
show for celebrating queer kids. Soundslike a party to me. So much
fun, so much fun. Ihope they all go. I hope they
all get picked up, because Ithink they're all up. I hope they
all get picked up because I'm alreadythinking about what could happen. I want
(44:00):
to see them, and they soundlike they'd be great places to lend to
our newest issue. Yes, agreed, we already have some of that built
in. The Lady Macbeth character struggleswith weight issues, and that's already built
into that one. Actually if youwere going to talk to your thirteen year
old self, what's the one pieceof advice you'd give to her. I
(44:21):
wouldn't say anything, to be honestwith you. I think I needed to
go through everything I went through toget to this point. I needed to
go through every struggle. And Iwouldn't have wanted to do anything differently.
And I fear that saying anything toher would have made her do something different.
I would have maybe just sat inthe moment and observed what that was
to be that age and remember.But I think, like you know,
(44:44):
while we're here, I think we'resupposed to learn stuff, and we're supposed
to find people, and sometimes yourdifficult relationships that are a lesson that you
need to learn through that relationship.I was telling somebody the other day,
and I'll share it with you becausethey seemed tickled by it. They were
talking about an old friend of minewho nothing bad happened. We're just not
really friends anymore because life, youknow. And they said do you miss
(45:05):
him? And I said, youknow, I think of him as a
wonderful guest star in my life.You know, he was a wonderful guest
star and he was here and hecrushed it in the episode and then off
he went, and it's all good. I still think wonderful, loving things.
When he's not a series regular.You got the series regulars, you
got the guest stars, and yougot the co stars in your life.
And some people just come in toyou know, have a lovely moment and
(45:27):
exit and give you what they need. And so yeah, for me,
I don't think I would say anything, and I would say that, Like
my husband was reading something the otherday that I think really touched me that
I think touches on this. Whatwould I say to myself question? He
said, instead of asking ourselves whatwe would have said, right, because
we can't do that right. That'sit's a question that like we have no
control over that. Maybe it's moreinteresting to think of you're ninety years old
(45:52):
and you get to live being fortysix again, because I'm forty six.
So if I live every day thinkingI'm actually ninety getting to do this again
at forty six, how am Igoing to live my day? And I
thought that was really powerful. Iwas like, oh, honey, I'm
so glad you should that. Ithink that's really cool because I can't be
twenty again. But I am fortysix, so like, let's do this
(46:13):
right, Like, what can Ido today? He's a twenty first century
philosopher. Well, he read it, but he is pretty brilliant. I'm
not gonna lie. He's a prettyday. Well, thank you, thank
you, thank you. It's ajoy. I want to be a regular
and your series of life. Thankyou and thank you. I'm that tenacious.
(46:36):
But yeah, and I look forwardto seeing you again soon in the
Human in the Human, as wesay, I know likewise likewise, Hey,
thanks for tuning in and coming byand sitting down in a huge thank
you to Gloria for joining us today. Come back next time where we'll be
sitting down with Emmy nominee and iconicGrey's Anatomy Miranda Bailey, also known as
(47:02):
the brilliant actor Chandra Wilson. Welook forward to seeing you then. You've
been listening to On the Edge,a podcast series from the Creative Coalition hosted
by Creative Coalition CEO Robin Bronk.For more information on how you can protect
funding for the arts and harness thepower of the arts to promote social good,
(47:23):
visit us at the Creative Coalition dotorg.
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