Peruvian to star with Sofia Vergara in Netflix’s “Griselda”: “She has zero roles for Peruvians in Hollywood” | Skip – Enter

Vanessa Benavente is almost an outsider. He fled Peru 34 years ago to escape terrorism. He studied in Colorado (USA) for one year and then returned to Lima. He returned to Marilyn Monroe’s country and soon moved to Spain. After some time, she got married and moved to Los Angeles, California with her husband, with dreams of becoming an actress. There she is divided between auditions, filming and at home with her daughters Olivia (age 5) and Amaya (16 months). All this, not to mention that he belongs to the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild. With a video call with Skip introducing her from El Comercio, she’s already used to the ‘Anglo’ language, so it takes a while to put sentences together in Spanish. The conversation begins with the Netflix miniseries “Griselda,” where she plays a Cuban woman.

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Her talent agency offered her a supporting role in two episodes of a Netflix series about the life of drug trafficker Griselda Blanco. Colombian Sofia Vergara, a four-time Golden Globe nominee for her work on “Modern Family,” plays Pablo Escobar’s most notorious drug lord during his time. In a scene with her, the Peruvian actress plays a waitress who interrupts a drug trafficker’s conversation at a restaurant. “At first, he was very friendly and welcomed me to the shoot: ‘May I be well’. But she is so focused that I don’t want to disturb her.R,” he comments. Benavente. The tension was palpable when the director insisted on continuing to disturb her for the sake of drama.

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“I exchanged words with other actors. They told me she (Sofia Vergara) is very funny. A colleague told me that at the time, she played a dramatic role that people weren’t used to seeing her in. So I felt a lot of pressure, I imagine.”, reveals Benavente, who plays a choreography of cameras that parallel his walk and Vergara’s entrance into the scene.

Amidst the reggaeton boom, the Peruvian overlooked one fact when she reviewed the script with the “Griselda” cast via video call: She didn’t recognize Carol G during the dialogue reading. The Latin Grammy Award-winning singer made her acting debut in the series, where she is Blanco’s employee. “As a forty-year-old mother, I didn’t understand who she was at first. She doesn’t look like just an actress. She had more energy and confidence than an actor. It seemed unique to me. And, all of a sudden, I realize and say…”, Benavente says with a surprised expression and elicits a laugh.

The series about the life of Christ, “Chosen”, brought Lanza and his Peruvian wife together in one set. They are among the cast approved by Angel Studios, the religious production company that released this year’s blockbuster and controversial film “Sound of Freedom.” “I’m not very religious, but I think there is something very universal in the message of Jesus, unity. (…) The cast of the series is very diverse, there are actors from all religions, I don’t know if everyone has a religion. Like the actor who plays Jesus (Jonathan Rumi) Some are very practical,” says Benavente.

What is it like to be a Peruvian actress in Hollywood?

“Peruvians have zero characters!” He laughs because Vanessa B. Well versed in the acting business in Hollywood. In 2020, he was also the assistant casting director in the Latin remake of the series “Party of Five”. Like any Latina actress who tries out Latina roles without being able to land a big movie role, this almost never happens. Peruvian nationality. “I remember a short film called ‘Face Love’ that I started with a director-writer friend, Gerald Fillmore. I was so excited to play a Peruvian character that he was writing the role for me. So the script was changed and I had to play a Mexican character,” she says.

If it is Marco Zunino and not Silvana Arias, Peruvian actress and producer, the equation of Peruvian actors in Hollywood would be null in Benavente’s experienced mind. “Here they talk about Money Heist (“La Casa de Papel”, in Spanish) and Spanish actors are highly regarded, but Peruvians, few in Hollywood,” warns the actress.

So the opportunity to act is pure gold. In the “Party of Five” series, Vanessa worked with director Rodrigo Garcia, son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Later, the first-born son of the author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” will join the production of the film, where the Peruvian received his first leading role, “At the gates”. Here she imitates the accent of a Salvadoran and immigrant mother. “In a big-budget production they would have given me an acting coach, but that wasn’t possible. I watched a lot of videos of Salvatores speaking on YouTube and interviewed others in person to learn how to interpret them. The improvising was terrible,” he laughs at the shoot.

As the actors’ strike died down in Hollywood, Benavente auditioned quietly and without the need for a special work permit. “There are thousands of jobs in filmmaking. Unbelievable. There are actors in Hollywood, but, for example, my neighbor in the condominium where I lived was a movie carpenter. Another did special effects for movies, and another had a dubbing and voiceover studio. “There are so many areas in the industry that move and one of them collapses, like what happened with actors and writers, and no one has much work,” he says.

Finally, he celebrates the SAG-AFTRA agreements with film production companies, which relate to the right to more consent for the use of his image with information and artificial intelligence of streaming broadcasts. Once that level is over, you can catch up on the movies and series you booked months ago, and at the same time, be with your family without leaving the country. And when we asked him if he would return to Peru, he replied: “My whole family is in Spain, so if I go anywhere, it will be there.”