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AE:
So this film really spoke to you?
IL: I wanted to do a film in Spanish, that had been on
my mind. I had said, ‘The next film I do I want it to be in Spanish—I
don't know how or when.' So this film is in Spanish and it's so
cute, it's a cute story. The character works as a clown. She stands
outside of a car dealership passing out balloons trying to get
people to come in. You have her relationship with her best friend,
with her brother who just got out of jail who's trying to get
his life back, she has a niece she adores, there's a guy who she
has a crush on who works at the dealership. He basically uses
her at the beginning, but by the end he falls in love with who
she is because she's just so loveable and fun and she has these
dreams of traveling the world but she's barely making it here.
It's really heartwarming. It's about how you plan things in high school but things never turn out the way you plan for them to but it's okay, in the end she follows her dreams.
So I'm gaining weight for it now and we start in June for a few weeks near San Diego. So that's exciting. You try to leave it and it just keeps coming back to you, so you know something is your duty there.
And the film is great so I'll get to start working again on something I love. The people are involved out of pure love. We're all doing it for practically nothing and putting our hearts into it.
AE: It sounds very different than how you were feeling when you wanted to leave acting.
IL:Yes, yes, yes. Definitely.
AE: What's the film called?
IL: It's called Maquillaje, which in Spanish means “make-up.”
AE: Do you have any idea of when it might be released?
IL: I don't know. I'm assuming early next year because these guys are really on it. Their doing it all themselves and I just love that. I love watching people say, ‘Forget the business. I'm not going to wait around for them to call me or for them to finance the film. I'm just going to get what I have, raise what I can and do this because it's who I am and I'm going to put it out there whichever way I can put it out there!' So it all seems pretty organized, which is pretty rare in Hollywood.
AE: I read that you were up for the part of Carmen on The L Word.
IL: I was. And they kept me on hold for two weeks!
AE: I love Sarah Shahi on the show, but I could totally see you in that role. Have you kept up with her storyline this season?
IL: I kept up with it, but I didn't see the last three episodes because I've been traveling—I went to Mexico, the Caribbean, I just got back from London. And then my TiVo went out on me!
AE: What did you think of what they did with the character?
IL: Honestly, it came out differently than how I thought it would.
In the very beginning, they didn't even want to audition me because they thought---these are the words they used to my agent: “Iyari is too beautiful. We need androgynous, not pretty like that.”
Because the actual breakdown of the character, I remember it, said, ‘She's androgynous, DJ by night, PA by day, with a boyish look to her.'
So I don't even think they knew that I was on Buffy and they just saw pictures of me and my resume. But they didn't know my character on Buffy, they didn't know she was gay, I think. Which is great because they brought me in for the right reasons. They just knew, “She's worked and she's too beautiful.”
So
my manager sent them a picture of me with my hair short—they didn't
know I had cut my hair. So they said “OK, fine. We'll see her.”
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