Many of us have longed for the day when actors of color can simply exist on screen without every role being explicitly tied to their race or ethnicity. While those opportunities do exist, they still aren’t the norm. Seeing a Latine actor step into a role that could just as easily be played by anyone else remains surprisingly rare.
But actress Melissa Barrera believes it’s time for more Latine actors to be considered for those kinds of roles.
In many ways, Barrera has been carving out a path for herself that resists being pigeonholed into Latina-coded roles, particularly after Vida and In the Heights. Over the years, we’ve increasingly seen her move into horror and thriller projects, starring in films like Scream, Scream VI, Bed Rest, and Abigail, as well as the Netflix series Keep Breathing and even the rom-com-horror Your Monster, where her characters are less explicitly tied to ethnicity and more driven by genre than identity.
This spring, she returned to her musical theater roots, starring as Rose in Titaníque, the Broadway musical parody that blends Titanic the movie with the music of Canadian superstar Celine Dion. The show opened at the St. James Theatre in April. Barrera, an NYU Tisch School of the Arts alumna who studied musical theater, believes it’s time for film to embrace the same kind of normalized cross-racial casting that theater has long made possible.
“I think that’s why I’ve always loved theater so much. Theater has always felt a few steps ahead of other entertainment forms in inclusion and diversity,” Barrera tells Remezcla. “I remember growing up and seeing a Black Belle in Beauty and the Beast. I remember seeing a Latina playing Jasmine in Aladdin, and it always kind of felt like there were more possibilities and there was more room for people like me in the theater. I always felt like I belonged. There was space for me and characters that weren’t necessarily Latino, but people were always open to that.”
In Titaníque, Barrera plays Rose, the character famously portrayed by Kate Winslet in Titanic. On stage, she wears a curly red wig so natural-looking you might think it was her real hair if you didn’t know her. But if you do, there’s something special about knowing that the character is being played by a proud Mexicana.
“It’s funny because I saw the show twice. I saw it on Broadway, maybe two and a half years ago, at the Darul Roth. And then when I was shooting Copenhagen Test in Toronto, I went, and I saw it in Toronto,” she says. “And I never saw myself in the show. I just saw it. I was deeply entertained and in awe of this incredible show that is seemingly very silly. But there’s a genius to the pace—like the quickness of the comedy and just how pop culture-y it is. It’s full of Easter eggs.”
The show exists in a parallel universe where Celine Dion (played by Marla Mindelle) was also a passenger on the Titanic and witnessed what really happened to Jack (played by Constantine Rousouli) and Rose. The musical doesn’t just feature the film’s anthem, “My Heart Will Go On,” but also a range of Dion hits, pop-song covers, and plenty of timely puns and jokes.
“I think that’s why I loved it so much and that’s why it has a cult following now,” Barrera says. “It’s got its own fan base that has kept it running for so long. But I never saw myself as Rose, and it wasn’t until I got the call from my agent that was like, ‘Hey, you know Titaníque, they’re auditioning for Rose. Would you be open to auditioning?’ And I was like, ‘Wait, could I be a Rose? Could I be that Kate Winslet character?”
After giving it some thought, Barrera figured: why not? She was also inspired by the team’s openness to casting someone who wasn’t necessarily white and by their focus on simply finding the right person for the role. Still, it wasn’t until she landed the part that she realized just how significant it was for her to be playing it.
“You know my friend Linedy Genao, who is currently playing Myrtle on Broadway’s Great Gatsby; she’s the one who kind of made me see how big of a deal it is to have a Latina playing Rose,” Barrera shares. “And how that will make other girls, maybe other Latinas that come see the show and see me playing this character, just tell them that they also could at one point, that they could play any character that they want.”
There’s something really powerful about audiences seeing a Latina woman at the center of a grand love story and musical without the story revolving around immigration, struggle, or stereotypes. Instead, it’s a comedic musical around an iconic film that leaves audience members laughing and feeling joyful.
“Especially in this country, I think our community has been going through the wringer and made to feel less than and made to feel like we don’t belong. Some people like to say that the arts don’t save lives, but I think that they do, and I think that they can,” she says. “Someone who is going through dark times, seeing a story on screen or on stage that feels like theirs, can do a lot for that person’s life.”
There has been a small shift in Hollywood, with more actors of color being cast in roles that weren’t originally imagined for them, but it’s still far from common. Barrera believes it begins with the creatives.
“I want to say that the industry is beginning to understand it, but I don’t think it’s the industry that’s understanding it. I think it’s us. I think it’s the creatives. The artists, the writers, the directors. They’re the ones understanding that it’s really about the heart of the story and how similar we all are [with] our wants, needs, and desires as humans,” Barrera says before adding. “There’s still resistance. We still have to fight for those places and roles. I have been denied auditions for certain roles because I’m Latina. Because they’re so set on casting Caucasian.”
Barrera believes part of the problem is that Hollywood still tends to view Latine audiences as a singular group rather than a community made up of different cultures, languages, and experiences.
“We don’t like being pandered to, and we don’t like being told what to like and what not to like and who to support and who not to support,” she says. “We’re so diverse within ourselves that we don’t really have one thing that unites us, and we don’t even have a language— you know what I mean? We have Brazil—[so] we [also] have Portuguese. So, it’s not like a single thing.”
For Barrera, the goal isn’t simply more representation — it’s representation that reflects the complexity of who Latines actually are.
“That’s the kind of representation that I always seek in the roles, and the stories, and now with my production company, the kinds of TV shows and movies that I want to produce are the kind of representation that is actually pushing the boundaries of the spectrum,” she says. “We’re just allowed to exist in all our complexity and our nuance, and we don’t have to remind you every other sentence who we are, where we come from, the language we speak, or the food that we eat.”
That vision extends beyond acting. Recently, Barrera announced the launch of her production company, which aims to champion underrepresented voices both in front of and behind the camera. The company marks her latest step into producing and developing projects that reflect the kinds of stories she feels are still missing from the industry.
“I think the most important goal that I have is to create a safe space for a lot of people that don’t feel safe in the industry or that have been attacked, censored, or blocked,” she says. “I want to create a parallel lane where we’re able to tell stories that perhaps other companies don’t dare to tell or get uncomfortable with. I want to give opportunities to new artists.”
Beyond creating space for underrepresented voices, Barrera also hopes to champion emerging talent at a time when she feels Hollywood has become increasingly reliant on already-established names and viral personalities. “I want to go back to the time when the industry was creating superstars, allowing them to really use their voices and create these strong, long careers that I feel like the industry doesn’t do anymore,” she says. “They don’t want to give opportunities to new filmmakers and new actors, and I want to do that.”
But creating opportunities is only part of the mission.
“I also want to build something that stands for something. Yes, entertainment is entertainment, and I want to entertain people, and I want to create as many summer blockbuster movies that are popcorn movies as well as the small indie that premieres at an amazing festival. I want to do it all,” she says. “But I want it all to mean something, and I want to give back. Because I think that the artistry has been diluted and artists are always meant to be a reflection of the world and to help it become a better place, or at least serve as a mirror and be like, ‘Yo, what are we doing?’”
It’s an ambitious path, but one that signals where Barrera is headed: toward stories that entertain, yes, but also create more room for people to exist on screen in all their complexity — without needing to justify who they are.