MELISSA BARRERA AND HER NEW SHOW 'VIDA' ARE BRINGING DIVERSITY OF ALL KINDS TO THE SMALL SCREEN

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Sometimes, all you need to do is listen to the universe. At least that’s how Melissa Barrera explains her newfound success, having trusted it when it pulled and pushed her onto a path few would have the courage to take. Now it’s brought her to the role of her career: As Lyn in the new Starz show Vida, Barrera is reflecting her Mexican culture and its unique relationship to our own in one of the most relevant and culturally rich new shows of the year.

Born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, Barrera fell in love with acting during her formative years when she auditioned for The Wizard of Oz in middle school. “There’s something magical about musical theater troupes that is very alluring; it seduces me,” says Barrera. “So when I was in the gang, I was like, This is what I want to do for my life. I don’t want to get off the stage, I don’t want to lose the warmth of these people and the passion we all have for signing and acting and dancing.” When she graduated from high school, she left Mexico for NYU, where she envisioned a new life on Broadway. “I thought that was going to be my life, I thought that, I’m going to go to New York, I’m going to graduate, I’m going to audition and book something on Broadway, and that’s going to be my life forever. And then life happens.”

For Barrera, that meant moving back to Mexico, a step she admits a part of her always knew would be the case. “I would lie to you if I told you that it happened naturally because I always kind of saw it as a possibility and a necessity,” she offers. “Being in New York as a student and not being an American citizen, it’s really hard to book a job and you can’t work. I had seen my older friends struggle with that after they had graduated. You either have to go back or go back to school and figure out a way to not get deported, basically.” Instead, she saw a better option in getting an artist visa by making a name for herself in Mexico, though even she couldn’t have guessed how that would unfold. During summer break after her sophomore year, she kept auditioning as a way to practice and shake off any nerves, but she ended up landing a role as a singer on a reality show. “I was like, Maybe this is a sign, maybe this is the path I’m meant to take. I always believe in making the most of opportunities that are presented to you, so I was like, Let’s do it.”

Soon she landed roles in telenovelas, often regarded as the Mexican counterpart to American soap operas. It was a far cry for a musical theater student, but Barrera approached her new projects with the same kind of openness she’s always exhibited. “It’s all been flowing, going from one thing to the other,” she explains, “learning about the different genres and discovering the magic in each of them and the beauty in each of them, what’s difficult about each of them.” That attitude pushed her to prominence in the genre, and though “serious actors” might look down on those forms of entertainment, she’s quick with a retort: “I’d like to see any of them try to do a telenovela with forty scenes a day, shooting six days a week.” Eventually, she decided she needed to grow as an actor and she moved to Los Angeles. Fate lent its hand once again and, only a month after she arrived, she landed the part of Lyn in Vida.

Vida revolves around two sisters, Emma (played by Mishel Prada) and Lyn, who reunite when their mother unexpectedly passes away. The women are forced to return to their roots in East LA and, while they decide what to do with the property they’ve inherited, they’re forced to confront their cultural heritage, past relationships, and their mother’s “roommate”—who is revealed to have been her wife. Barrera brings life to Lyn, the more charming and positive force of the two women and slowly reveals the nuances of the character across the first few episodes. “There’s this person that she presents to the world with this confidence, like, I have everything under control and I go with the flow and nothing fazes me and I’m very adaptable and malleable, and she tries to make everyone think that’s who she is,” Barrera explains. “But in reality, she’s very lost. She has no idea what her value is. She only sees herself through the lens of whoever is looking at her, so what they see in her is what she transforms herself into.” Lyn has a strong desire to be liked by everyone and it’s immediately apparent in her physical and sometimes empty romantic entanglements, but Barrera still sees the value of that trait in a female character: “How she is empowered with her sexuality and her body and how confident she is in that is something that I feel is very positive. I hope everyone who watches can see that it’s a good quality in her. Women who have agency over their bodies are powerful.”

In fact, Vida smoothly touches on nearly every socially progressive issue which people have been demanding in entertainment. The show revolves around women, minorities in America, and LGBTQ issues—which are still underrepresented in America and often completely absent in other cultures. “I feel like the queerness is the most fascinating part of the show because in the Latinx culture it’s still very much taboo,” Barrera says. “Especially for women because we don’t talk about things. We’d rather just not discuss. It’s still very much a topic that needs to be discovered.” She recognizes that it isn’t simply about having token characters on screen, but really showing their depth and complexity in a way rarely afforded to minorities, something that Vida dives right into. “Having these Latinx women being so open about their sexuality and having it there unapologetically will maybe make audiences uncomfortable, but I think that’s a little bit of what has to happen because you have to see that this is reality, that these people are out there and they’re just like you. Their sexuality or their gender, the way that they identify, is a part of them, but it doesn’t define them.”

The show also directly casts a light on gentrification and the loss of cultural identity. Scenes about the subject are blunt and confrontational and feel like a response to the way Mexico and Latino people have been spoken about in politics and the media. “Latinx are very brave, in the sense that we’re not going soft on things. We call things for what they are and right now with the political climate and all of this negativity towards the Latinx community, it’s so important for people to watch the show and understand the struggle and understand the reality and also to realize by watching these characters that they’re so much like any other person,” Barrera insists. “They will be able to see a little bit of their story in the story of these characters and they will realize how much more alike we are than we are different.” Those problems extend further when there are two cultural identities that people are forced to balance. “I think of it like being in limbo. You’re not Mexican enough and you’re not American enough. So where do you fit in?”

For Barrera, Vida was an opportunity to visit all of this, even physically. She took research trips to East LA and found that, having lived in Mexico City for the last five years, it felt just like home. “It was a smooth transition, coming to a set where almost everyone spoke Spanish, all the cast is Latinx, all the writers are Latinx, the creator is Mexican,” she says. “It felt like the universe was telling me like, ‘Ok, we’re going to make it really easy for you, and we’re going to give you this gift called Vida.‘” It’s reassuring to see that her cosmic approach to life has led her to this fitting culmination of her identity between Mexico and America and can take her anywhere from the screen to the stage to the recording studio next. “I feel like every single thing I’ve done in my life, I’ve learned something from it, and I’ve kept something from it,” Barrera adds. “That’s what’s prepared me for the moment that I’m living right now.”

Vida continues on Sundays on Starz.