Back in March, Chilean actress Daniela Vega became the first openly transgender performer to present at the Academy Awards in its 90-year history. Her breakout film A Fantastic Woman directed by Sebastián Lelio won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and propelled her burgeoning career towards international recognition.
Now, the fantastic woman herself is headed to television with two upcoming series: a crime thriller set in Chile where she’ll play a police detective solving gender-based crimes and Netflix’s revival of a beloved LGBTQ show from the ’90s.
First off, Daniela Vega will be joining the cast of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City playing Ysela, best friend to one of the author’s iconic characters Anna Madrigal (to be played by Jen Richards), in this new adaptation of Maupin’s queer work set in 1970s San Francisco. Other cast members will include well-known Hollywood names such as Ellen Page and Laura Linney. The Netflix series will shoot later this year aiming at a 2019 release and will consist of 10 episodes.
Produced by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín (the director-producer duo behind Neruda, No, and Jackie) Vega’s Latin American show La Jauria will be deeply influenced by the “Ni Una Menos” movement, which fights against gender-based violence and has been around since before the American #MeToo efforts manifested as we know them today.
Its hard-hitting plot begins in a private Catholic school known as Santa Inés where affluent families send their children. The well-regarded institution is suddenly in the public eye when students organize a protest denouncing a professor believed to have assaulted a female pupil. Spearheading the fight is young activist Blanca Ibarra, whose involvement proves life threatening when she goes missing without a clue. Later, as authorities search for her, a grotesque video where multiple men rape Blanca emerges.
In response, officers Elisa Murillo (Daniela Vega) and Olivia Fernández (Antonia Zegers) form a task force exclusively dedicate to solving gender-based crimes. Not only are they working against the clock to find the abducted young woman before her captors murder her, but the team is simultaneously uncovering a much intricate web of violent acts. The role is totally on brand with Vega’s outspoken personality as a defender of human rights within in the transgender community and beyond.
Argentine director Lucia Puenzo (XXY, The German Doctor) will serve as writer and showrunner, and will direct some episodes. Other helmers will include Chilean directors Sergio Castro (The Mud Woman) and Marialy Rivas (Young and Wild).
The eight-episode series will begin production in January 2019 and will likely debut later that year.