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i’m sitting in a yoga studio-slash-coffee shop on highland, waiting for actor Ismael Cruz Córdova. There are all the requisite signifiers: wood-slat chairs, Insta-inspo quotes on the walls, expensive juices, soothing new-agey chords thrumming out of well-hidden speakers.
Córdova walks in dressed in all black, wearing a thick coat and pants. A subversive burst of orange peeks out from the lining of his coat. I mention how pleasant the cool winter weather is, and he asks incredulously, “You like this kind of weather?”
“Yeah, I love it,” I reply. In LA, a brisk day is as much a novelty as sunshine in Seattle. A chance to break out the fall/ winter looks, to stay inside for once.
“Well, I grew up in Puerto Rico, and it was hot and it was always hot and it was humid and that’s the way I like it. There’s very little clothing needed—beach weather all the time. That’s me, so you can have all the winter weather you want. It’s yours.”
When he was young, Córdova moved to New York to pursue NYU’s theater program. Like his acting, Córdova lives his life by jumping from one extreme to the other. Having ordered a Blood Orange-Carrot-Ginger Kombucha, he plays with the foil seal, gently ringing it around his fingers, smoothing it out on the table and folding it again.
I ask him about how he adjusted to the weather and grocery shopping, since grocery shopping in New York is a less- than-pleasant experience in the winter. He thinks about it for a second, his bright green eyes flicking over the greenery in the open-air seating area. “I went and spent my first winter there and my first snowfall ever there and the first coat weather and everything. It was beautiful and exhilarating and traumatic. But for the saddest reasons I don’t think I have memories of grocery shopping. When I went there I was so broke. I remember all my parents could contribute was six dollars a day for me to eat. So my grocery shopping was going to Wendy’s around 6pm and getting six items from the value menu, and that had to last me until the next 6pm. The first three months I got skinny—cheekbones on fleek.”
He laughs, bringing humor to a difficult situation. He does that a lot during our time together, approaching tough subjects with a light touch, always ready with a small grin and a hearty chuckle.
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necklace.
I’m talking to Córdova at a time of great change for the actor. After years of shorts, commercials, a couple roles in TV shows, and smaller parts in film, he’s officially “breaking in” with two of his biggest roles to date. In the first he plays David Rizzio, courtier and constant companion to the Queen (Saoirse Ronan) in the Josie Rourke-directed Mary Queen of Scots. The film explores the intertwined paths of two unapologetically powerful women in a patriarchal age—Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I, Queen of England (played by Margot Robbie)—as they vie for power and control. It’s a full-fledged Hollywood period piece, taking liberties with history to provide a more inclusive take on the often all-white biopic. On the heels of his role as Rizzio, he will hit screens as Lino, the leader of a drug cartel, in February 2019’s Miss Bala.
Let’s get one thing straight: Córdova and I have a few things in common. We are both indecisive about ordering drinks. We are both Aries. And we are both ambiguously brown. We don’t forget that. It would be hard to do. I understand how difficult it can be to try and forge your way into traditionally “white” spaces. So, how did he manage to overcome tradition and typecasting in one of the whitest genres in film? I ask Córdova about the implications of being an “afro-boricua” from Puerto Rico, acting in a period piece—but not as a servant, immigrant, or “savage,” but as a character.
“There are very few people who don’t have a fairy tale story in their mind that they would like to inhabit. Unless you’re talking about something very specific, and usually about struggle that relates to immigration or slavery, most of these stories are usually heavily cast as all white, so I was very discouraged as well. I didn’t realize that that was one of the dreams that I had kind of let go. When Josie \[Rourke\] approached me to do this I couldn’t believe it,” he says, barking out a laugh that seemed to surprise even him. “They sent me an audition and I thought, ‘I need to do this. I need to do this.’ It’s so important to me, because... I mean, I’m fulfilling the dream.” His green eyes gleam, and I can sense the culmination of a journey, from Puerto Rico to living on six dollars a day in NYC to breaking through to the big screen.
The word Afro-Boricua slides off his tongue as he talks about his home. “I’m culturally Puerto Rican, and I think it definitely affects the way that I view the world. There’s so much music, so much rhythm, the weather, the language as well. It’s like a heightened sense. Everything is at ten. The pavement is hot and the sun is sunnier and the wind is windier. This is all poetic, but I don’t know if there’s a scientific explanation. Home is home, and even if you weren’t born there, I think genetically you’re from there and somehow we have to be wired to respond to that. I think I bring that to my acting. You know?” I do know. Córdova has worked tirelessly to achieve recognition, for himself, for his community, and for minority actors to come. For the next Córdova, perhaps landing a role in a Hollywood period piece may no longer seem like an impossible dream.
* * *
Photographed by: [Jennifer Rovero](https://www.instagram.com/camraface/?hl=en) At Uxe.
Filmed and edited by [Jason Bergh](https://www.instagram.com/jasonbergh/?hl=en)
Stylist: [Shalev Lavan](https://www.instagram.com/shalevlavan/?hl=en) At The Visionairies Agency.
Groomer: [Daniele Piersons](https://www.instagram.com/danielepiersonsbeauty/?hl=en) Using Baxter Of California At Art Department.
Music by [King Conduit](https://www.instagram.com/kingconduit/)
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