While on the red carpet with E! News, Gina Rodriguez spoke to old friend Nina Parker about her rise in Hollywood. When Gina began speaking about her upcoming projects, including a Sony-produced action film slated for a summer release, she turned the conversation to the industry’s lack of roles for Latinos.
“Yay Sony for putting a Latino as the lead, because apparently people do that,” she said. “I mean, we do make 55 million plus in the country. No big deal. You should throw us in a movie or two. It would make sense. We do buy one in every four tickets, every single weekend, and make sure that your movies do well. So it would do you a service, and not only a service, it would be, I don’t know, integrity.”
Gina’s words speak to a larger conversation happening in the film industry. For the past few years, award show season has brought conversations about diversity to the forefront, as actors from communities of color continue being passed over for roles and nominations. The same day of the award, The New York Times published an article titled, “After #OscarsSoWhite, Hispanics Seek Their Hollywood Moment,” which details how Latinos are attempting to create their own movement to increase their visibility in film and TV. As Gina noted, Latinos make up around 18 percent of the population and buy account for 23 percent of the moviegoing audience, yet, in the last decade they only represent a measly 3 percent of speaking roles.