Rebellion is in our nature. When 16 year-old highschool dropout Yvonne Di Mauro (who would later become Eve Mauro, actor in Jason Statham’s newest action flick, A Working Man, and guest on the 21^st century’s most beloved television series—CSI: Miami, Dexter, Ugly Betty, and Bones) received a small severance check from her job in Atlanta she knew it was her only opportunity to take a chance on herself. “I had nothing. I had a suitcase, one of those suitcases that doesn’t even have a roller, just a big square, blue suitcase” she recalls. Luckily the PennySaver Magazine led the teenage Mauro to Los Angeles, where she rented her first bedroom on Rodeo from a lady named Miss Evelyn Smith.

A starry-eyed teenager, Mauro naively thought she’d be living out her Hollywood dreams on Rodeo Drive. Instead, she found herself on the other, lesser known, Rodeo, in South Central. This meant little to the girl empowered by the fleeting rebellion of adolescence. “When you’re younger, you believe you can do so much more. When you start thinking ‘Why can’t I do this?’ or, ‘Why can’t I do that?’ it hinders you from moving forward.” Mauro didn’t tell her family she was leaving, “It wasn’t the first time I had just dipped out and not said anything.” Despite taking that risk, she mentions with a sense of pride that “it was the best move I probably ever made because had I thought about what everyone else was telling me to do, I wouldn’t have done it.” This pivotal moment in her life started her journey to the silver screen. 

As a young woman on her own in Hollywood during the early 2000s, Mauro was thrown to the wolves. Her spirit got her to LA, but she had to play an entirely different game to stay—some things weren’t accepted at the time, she says. “I had a big tattoo on my stomach that I got when I was 15 years-old. It was a naked fairy. I had my neck pierced. I wasn’t the tallest girl, I’m 5’7 and they [the agency] lied to say I was 5’8 and at that point, you always lie to get your foot in the door.” And despite being an Italian-American woman, she was scrutinized and perceived to have ethnic name and complexion which barred her from certain roles and auditions. She fought her way through unjust Hollywood standards, but not without sacrifice.

Resilience and persistence was in her blood. Her father, Sicilian immigrant Antonio Alfio Di Mauro, was a restaurant and nightclub owner who changed the landscape for LGBTQ communities in Atlanta by opening up male strip clubs and nightclubs, which even hosted queer icons like RuPaul. “My father did whatever he wanted. He was opening a door for LGBTQ people,” she says. Her father’s carefree ethos carried into her personal philosophies of self expression. “If you’re not apologetic for the way you are, it does help other people. I think it’s harder for people than we know to actually express themselves.”

From there, Mauro describes her career and life as an echocardiogram: “In order to make it, you can’t flatline. There’s no flatlining because you don’t have a pulse, so you’re constantly going up and down.” Her first job was in Madonna’s “Hollywood” music video, for which she sported a maid outfit and a bright red lip. From then on the “I made it!” moments came in waves—she’s a sea of “great work” and “some really shitty jobs too.” Mauro embraced the ups and downs, reminding herself, “I don’t have parents who are going to pay my bills. I’m going to take these jobs and they might not be the artistic expression I initially wanted in this industry, but that doesn’t mean anything.” Mauro’s takeaway from this experience? “We don’t all have the same life, we have to navigate out lives to who we are and make our own fucking blueprints.” 

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Rolling with the tides catapulted Mauro into the world of action/sci-fi features. Her most recent project, A Working Man, directed by David Ayer, co-starring Jason Statham and David Harbour, topped the box office. A Working Man flips the genre’s male-villain archetype on its head. The action-thriller sees Mauro’s character, Artemis, helm a human trafficking ring being pursued by Statham’s protagonist, Levon. Not being shy to challenge convention, Mauro knew immediately that she could sink her teeth into this role.

She approached the character through examining traditional roles of power. “People don’t think that there can be femininity and power in the same boat,” she says. So, she challenged herself to create a nuanced character that possessed both. Director David Ayer encouraged the cast to carve out an astute understanding of their characters by thrusting the cast into improvisation on day one. Instead of spelling it out, he would create a point of connection for the actors: “He would say something and it would make me think about something completely unrelated to the scene and then call action—but that thing doesn’t just disappear,” Mauro explains. “You’re delivering lines, but it’s right there at surface level, and you can’t let it go.”

Mauro’s connection to the present moment underpins her storied life. “I try not to live in the past or the future because it’s almost insane living with something that no longer exists but the memory that I hold for everything still resonates with me,” she explains contently. “When those memories come—those smells, those reminders, those beautiful things—I like to feel it in that moment but I also have to let it go. To live in that is to become a victim of your past.” While reminiscing on the past, a spirit of self-expression, and a hope for what’s to come encapsulates the Eve Mauro of right now, it’s her dedication to the present that creates the human being that transcends the story. 

Photographed by Estevan Oriol

Styled by Miso Dam 

Hair: Tanya “Nena” Melendez

Makeup: Selena Ruiz

Photo Assistant: Rene Casamalhuapa

Location: Eve Mauro Artist Loft

Flaunt Film: Eve Mauro

Directed by and Bolex 16mm: Estevan Oriol

Edited by Javin Romero

Additional filming by Rene Casamalhuapa