Actress Gina Torres Explains Why She Felt Trapped Being A Latina Woman In African American Roles
Afro-Latina actress Gina Torres is opening up about her struggles in Hollywood and how she often felt pigeonholed when it came to the kind of roles she was offered.
The Bronx-native, who is the daughter of Cuban parents, says that as an actress she felt like she had “no place” in the Hollywood world, in a conversation with Suggest.
“There was no place for me as a Latina, and then as a Black woman—I didn’t identify as a Black woman, because for me it was cultural. Because, of course, I present Black, I am a Black woman. I am also Cuban,” she shared. “When you’re here in the United States and they ask you to be in a box, and you don’t fit into the box…culturally, it was different. It was not one that I identified with. But to work, to survive, it was something that I had to learn.”
A graduate from the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts made her first on-screen debut in 1992 in an episode of Unnatural Pursuits. She has also had roles in 9-1-1: Lone Star, Law & Order, Suits, Bones, Riverdale and more.
For Torres, she practiced what she explains as a "jedi mind trick" to fit into the industry when it came to accepting roles as a Latina woman.
“To then learn to be whatever ‘Black’ was, and then feel like I was alienating that other part of myself, that Latina self,” she shares. “To keep myself from just being sad all the time about not being able to fully experience and express the entirety of myself.”
The 53-year-old will next co-star in the Netflix film romantic comedy feature The Perfect Find alongside Gabrielle Union and Keith Powers.
