For director Patricia Riggen, directing the Prime Video film G20, starring a big name like Viola Davis, is a big deal. The director, who is best known for the 2007 film Under the Same Moon and the 2011 Disney Channel original film Lemonade Mouth, sat down with Remezcla during the film’s junket in Rio de Janeiro and discussed what it was like working with Davis—who is also a producer in the film and picked Riggen to direct, and why Manny is the opposite of the Latino stereotype.
“It’s awesome to be given the opportunity as a Latina in the U.S., to be trusted by Viola, to make not just a movie with her but a big action movie like this one,” Riggen shared. Because Riggen knows she’s stepping into a place not many other women like her have. “That’s not even a feeling, it’s statistics. There are hardly any women who have directed action movies, and there are hardly any women who have starred in action movies. So, Viola really set out to have to make her company to develop projects where she could do roles that are normally not offered to women, to women of her age and to Black women.”
And she’s paying it forward. “In pursuit of that, she also is helping the other side by choosing a woman and a woman of color.”
For Riggen there was a special interest in making the movie she made with Davis not just one about kicking ass, but a good one. “There are so many action movies, and I don’t care about them. I turn them on, and I’m like, okay, next, what makes me care about an action movie? And I think of the ones that I love, The Fugitive, right? Die Hard. I care about the character. So, it was very important for us, for me, to appeal not just to the male action audience, but to the female audience.”
And Riggen says that female audiences just want to care about the character. “I think women love the movie because Viola really elevated that drama to a very profound place.” Which is the benefit of having an actor of her caliber.
But for our community, there’s also something very particular in seeing ourselves in the movie in a way that doesn’t just follow the same stereotype, which Riggen wanted to particularly point out. “The head of the Secret Service in this movie is a Latino. His name is Manny, the actor is Ramon Rodriguez. He’s good-looking, fabulous actor, and it was very important for me as a Latina to start changing the roles and really give, you know, Latinos, portray them in movies the way we really are, which is awesome.”
“So, I want all Latinos to come and watch the movie and see how cool it is and start changing the perception that the whole country has of us Latinos.”
G20 is available to stream now on Prime Video.
