For Renata Vaca, the best part about Midnight Family is that it showcases a different part of Mexico City. The show, which focuses on Marigaby, a medical student by day and an unlicensed paramedic by night working with her family on their private ambulance, is now streaming on Apple TV+. Remezcla had a chance to talk to Vaca about the premise of the show, the way it portrays Mexico City, and the reality of the lack of ambulances in such a large urban area.
“I was blown away by the fact that Mexico City has 100 government-operated ambulances to serve 10 million people,” Vaca shared with us about the fact that is shared early on in the first episode. “I think it’s a crazy fact.”
And people like the Tamayo family are doing what they have to do to survive, of course, but “they’re also doing this to help people.”
For Vaca, it was really important to showcase that “paramedics and doctors are like heroes, they really can change someone’s life and save them if they do work when they have to because I think health is just a matter of time. If you can act fast, you can save someone’s life.”
The show also showcases Mexico City, especially at night, in a way we haven’t seen before. And that, for Vaca, made the show special. “I think you really can get a taste of what Mexico is and how being part of a family like this one feels like, the way they talk and the way they do things and what they eat and what they’re like. I think that you can really have a taste and a sense of what’s that like in real life. And so, for me, that was incredible,” Vaca shared.
Plus, she told us, there’s the fact that “I really love my country. So, I was very happy to be able to portray different incredible parts and a part of our culture,” and to be able to tell stories about “humans living things.”
Vaca also shared that this is the kind of story that is universal, telling Remezcla that “I think that people can connect, even if you’re not from Latin America, you can connect with these characters because they’re living things and they’re trying to be better.”
Almost as importantly, Vaca is excited to be a woman headlining these kinds of stories. The documentary the show is based on doesn’t have a main female character, but the show modified the story to have Vaca’s character, Marigaby Tamayo, at the center. “I’m very honored to be Marigaby. And I love that she can be strong, and sometimes she can put on makeup and go on a date, and have romance and that doesn’t make her any less strong. That makes her even stronger and with even more layers.”
So-called strong female characters look many different ways. On Apple TV+’s Midnight Family, Renata Vaca’s Marigaby Tamayo is learning, finding romance, dealing with her family, and also saving people. It’s all in a night’s work.
New episodes of Midnight Family are released Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
