Judy Reyes isn’t an unfamiliar name – to our communities or fans of TV in general. Reyes, who played Carla Espinosa on the popular sitcom Scrubs, is returning to serialized TV with the new ABC procedural High Potential, where she stars alongside It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Kaitlin Olson.
Remezcla had a chance to talk to the Dominican-American actress about the difference in genres, what people expected from her coming out of Scrubs, and why Selena Soto, the Major Crimes Lieutenant in the show, is such an interesting character.
“Right after Scrubs,” Reyes shared, “everything that came in my direction… a lot of people thought, after having me known as the sassy nurse or the sassy waitress, that was all I could do. And I’m very self-conscious about that.”
For Reyes, she didn’t want to be defined by one type of character, even one as beloved as Carla. So everything that came after, from Devious Maids to Claws, she tried to make each character her own. “I’m one of four girls and my mom. So, whatever it is that I’m in, one of the biggest lessons that I learned in acting was to use it.”
This conscious decision to put herself into her characters is what makes characters shine. “Wherever you are, whatever you know, wherever you come from, you have to add the dimensions just so that you can be remembered, let alone be different.” Of course, some characters will require it more than others. “It’s a unique opportunity when you get something that’s completely amazing in its own way. But I’ve also learned just use what I had for stuff that didn’t have that much.”
This is very important in television, particularly in a procedural like High Potential. For Reyes, the challenge is “to make it real.” And if you do that, “oftentimes what happens, in my experience in television, is writers start to write around what you bring.”
Reyes is very aware that people like her, Gina Torres, Justina Machado, and Constance Marie have been carrying representation on their shoulders. And that their roles have opened a lot of doors for younger Latinas. “And now we get to play all their mothers, and we get to play the Chief of police and stuff like that,” she remarked. “That’s a blessing, no matter how you put it.”
And when it comes specifically to her character of Selena Soto and why we should be watching High Potential, Reyes shared that Soto “is a woman, she is in charge, and she bears the burden of having to prove herself and be taken seriously on a regular basis, even in her environment.”
“That’s a challenge, it’s a challenge to carry on a daily basis, but you have to use your resources. And I think that’s the exciting part of playing Selena for myself, the wonderful humor and the levity that comes from being able to relate to this,” particularly in a show with a diverse cast that centers a female character. “It’s been a really productive environment for us to be able to create things,” Reyes shared.
For more on Judy Reyes’ Selena Soto, High Potential premieres on ABC on September 17th and will air weekly on Tuesdays after that.
