This past year, the [Cristina Rodlo](https://www.instagram.com/cristinarodlo/?hl=en) came out of the woodwork (Mexican film and television) and into the Hollywood limelight with three major roles: Sony’s _Miss Bala_ remake, directed by Catherine Hardwicke; Amazon’s _Too Old to Die Young_, a crime series directed by Nicolas Winding Refn; and AMC’s _The Terror: Infamy_, a horror/drama anthology series set in a Japanese internment camp during WWII. Not long ago, it would have been a fantasy for an accented Latina to star in serious dramatic roles, and culturally diverse film projects were nearly nonexistent. But now, Rodlo has made a name for herself playing strong, yet conflicted characters. FLAUNT had the pleasure of talking to Rodlo about her recent successes and life as a sought-after actress.
[**SIMONETT**](https://simonett.us) dress.
**You were in Catherine Hardwicke’s _Miss Bala_ recently, and you played a great, strong character. Now you are working on _Too Old to Die Young_ and _The Terror: Infamy_. How was making _Too Old to Die Young_?**
_Too Old_ was a great, and it was an amazing experience to work with Nick. When I first got the casting, I was so excited to get to act for him. I play Yaritza, who is such a powerful character. She is a vigilante. She’s married to a druglord, but still manages to make her way around to help women who have suffered with prostitution and human trafficking. She starts to kill all the bad men in the world.
**Yaritza is a badass. How do you feel that the majority of your work has you playing strong women?**
It’s great to play strong women. In art, you have to make an example and inspire other people, inspire other people to be better and believe in themselves. Most of my characters have that strength. They don't have to be similar. Yaritza and Luz, the character I play in _The Terror_, are completely different. But they are both willing to do anything it takes to be better, and in their own way make the world better. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to play those roles.
**Nicholas has captured you aesthetically with a neo-noir vision. Do you feel like there is a strong visual language you have been able to explore working with him?**
Nicholas to me is a genius, the way he sets up the camera and plans everything, I’ve never seen it before. On every shot he would take his time and really plan it, really see it in his head. You had to be so still in every shot, and he’d tell us, “Don’t move.” Everything you wanted to say would have to be in your eyes because you couldn’t move. You’d be in a still position, and you’d have to stay in that position for ten minutes, in every single scene. I learn so much from him. His vision is something not usually seen on the screen.
**What was the process of getting yourself physically and mentally prepared for this role? After _Miss Bala_, I’m sure you had to make changes to your body in order to get into the role.**
I knew Yaritza would be a soldier, so I started training a lot before going into set. My body changed completely. I trained with a trainer two hours a day. When I finally got to set, I worked on the stillness you need to have with Nick. Everything \[Yaritza\] is feeling, you need to be processing it in your body the whole time, and the camera is going to see through it. You don’t have to show it, you don’t have to move your hands or move your body, you just have to feel it inside.
It was very tough because we would take twenty to twenty-five takes every day. That’s the way Nick does it, and that’s the way he makes us better. He has his own way to do art, and it works. It’s not for everyone but it worked for me and he pulled the best out of me. The people who have seen the show—thank God—feel very attached to my character because I was completely involved with Yaritza. Even off set, when I got home, I would be thinking about Yartitza 24/7. She would be with me 24/7. I would be casting for something else while I was shooting _Too Old to Die Young_, and they were the most awful castings I’ve ever done because I couldn’t get Yaritza out of me. It was crazy. Ten months of crazy, being a character. I don’t usually take a character with me home, but with Yaritza it was impossible. She was with me the whole time.
**How do you feel like, with such an intense role, you have been able to decompress?**
It was very hard, because right after I finished _Too Old to Die Young,_ I flew out to shoot a movie the next day. I finished _Too Old_ on a Friday and started shooting on a Monday. I was in LA and went to Mexico because the movie was shot in Mexico. That weekend, I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone. I just needed to completely get Yaritza out of me so I could do this new character who was the opposite of Yaritza. I had to take the weekend to forget about her and get her out of me. I think I got her out, which is great, but I didn’t have enough time to process anything. I did that movie, had two weeks off, did another movie, had two weeks off, and then I went to Vancouver and shot _The Terror_.
We finished that a month ago, and I was exhausted. I have never been that exhausted in my life. I had to go to the beach and forget about everything. So I went to the beach for seven days and I finally relaxed. I processed everything I had been through, everything my characters had been through. The best way for me to get out of the character is to read, and to read about something that’s nothing like what I have been doing. I started to read a lot and forget about all the characters.
**I can’t imagine having to inhabit something for a year, and the work that goes behind it. When people do a movie, it doesn’t take up ten months, so I can only imagine how much more intense of an experience shooting a series is.**
Yeah, it obviously was a great experience, doing a show, and then movies, and then another show. But we don’t even realize, as actors, how tired we get until we finally stop, sit down, and have nothing else to do. We feel our bodies and say, “Oh my God.” The tension I had after shooting _The Terror_ was insane. I’m still processing everything, everything I went through with Yaritza and Luz. It’s a lot. After watching _Too Old to Die Young_, I was like,”Wow, I don’t even remember that I did that.” You are so into the show and the process that you don’t even remember what you did.
[**SIMONETT**](https://simonett.us) jumpsuit and stylist’s own shoes.
**I want to continue by talking about your other role in The Terror. What’s that character based on, and how is that character different than what you did in _Too Old to Die Young_?**
_The Terror_ is about the story of what Americans did to all the Japanese-Americans in the US after Pearl Harbor happened. It’s about the internment camps and how they pooled all the Japanese, even though they were Americans, into those internment camps. My character is Luz, who is studying to become a nurse. She is madly in love with a Japanese-American. At that time, they were not allowed to mix race, so they were secretly in love. Then Pearl Harbor happens, and he is sent to an internment camp. She has to make a decision: go with him or stay? There is more to her situation than her being madly in love, but I can’t say because that would reveal a lot of the story.
Shooting _The Terror_ was so different from shooting _Too Old to Die Young._ First off, there were six different directors. In _Too Old to Die Young_, everything was directed by Nick. It changes a lot, because even though everyone tries to stay on the same path, everyone has a different vision. And the stories are completely different. _The Terror_ is based on a true story, but it is also a horror story. My characters are opposites too. Luz is a young girl who wants to become a nurse and is very naive. She is young and wants to fall in love, nothing like Yaritza, who is a vigilante trying to help people and kill all of these men. Complete opposites.
Everything was different, but everything about _The Terror_ was great. The production value was amazing and the directors were all amazing. The actors were amazing as well. We all need to hear about this story because it is history. They don’t teach this in schools. Americans don’t know this happened. We are telling the true story, so we are excited to share this and do it right. Most of the cast is Japanese and Mexican—that doesn’t happen with a big network studio, or on a prime-time show. We knew we had to do it right. You could feel the heart every single day on set. Everybody gave their all and did everything they could to make the show.
**That’s very powerful. It is something that something that doesn’t get addressed that much, the way that identity in American history is very Eurocentric. It’s amazing that now we are speaking about that topic in our history and films are becoming more indicative of our modern, diverse way of life. Is there anything else you’d like to say?**
Just to add to what you were saying—definitely the industry is changing. This show could never be done five years ago. And that’s great, that we are finally opening up and recruiting Latinos, African-Americans, and Asians in lead roles. I’m very happy and very excited to be in this moment in the industry because I think great things are finally going to happen. We all have to stay together and help each other, and we all need to create better stories that touch people's lives.
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Photographed by: [Karl Richter](https://www.instagram.com/cynical_smiling/?hl=en).
Styled by: [Ally Nikoltchev](https://www.instagram.com/allynikoltchev/).
Hair: [Eddie Cook](https://www.instagram.com/eddie_cook/?hl=en) using Oribe at [Tomlinson Management Group](http://www.tmg-la.com).
Makeup: [Melissa Hernandez](https://www.instagram.com/melissa.hernandez/) at [The Wall Group](https://www.thewallgroup.com).
Photo Assistant: [Devin Kasparian](https://www.instagram.com/devin.pdf/?hl=en).
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