You find Latina talent in the oddest places: even in the middle of an offbeat sci-fi adventure that’s part of the Doctor Who universe, playing on a second-tier pay-cable channel that’s trying to make a name for itself. But that doesn’t make the performance any less interesting, or the actress herself any less fascinating in her own right.
Consider the case of Arlene Tur, daughter of Cuban-born parents, raised in Miami, and an actress and a model since her post-college days as a professional volleyball player. Arlene was born and raised in Miami, and she is fully bilingual–quadra-lingual, if you include her fluency in Italian and Portuguese, and though she was born and raised in Miami, her first big break came in a Spanish-language sitcom for Telemundo, Los Teens. She achieved an odd kind of prominence through her appearance in an early episode of Grey’s Anatomy, where she played a women with uncontrollable spontaneous orgasms, and shortly after landed a role in Crash, the short-lived but critically acclaimed series based on the award-winning movie, that ran for one season on the fledgling cable network Starz. The show may not have lasted, but Starz’ interest in Arlene did; she’s back again as the forceful ER doctor Vera Juarez in the American extension of the British cult-fave Torchwood (which, in turn, is both a spin-off and an anagram for another cult-fave, the BBC’s venerable and surprising Doctor Who). And this isn’t a one-shot. Dr. Juarez appears every week as one of the street-level investigators of “Miracle Day”–the first day of many when nobody–nobody–dies.
It’s great to see a strong-willed, intelligent woman-doctor who is also unabashedly Latina, barging in on medical experts to set them straight and rewriting the rules of triage on the fly. In an excellent interview with Arlene in ology.com. she tells how she researched the role at an actual ER and even shadowed a surgeon, because she has to learn about each new character she plays: “How they think, how they talk to patients, even when they are talking to patients. …It is very interesting to learn all the little tricks on the inside on what doctors are really doing when they are asking questions and how to handle all the instruments.”
Yes, it’s a little odd to find a Latina actress center stage on an American pay-cable version of a British show that stars a multinational gay musical comedy star and a Welsh woman…but talent is where you find it, Starz is trying very hard to make a name for itself with Torchwood: Miracle Day, on Friday nights at 10P. In the process, they’re making a name for a remarkable actress. Keep an eye out for Arlene Tur. Looks like the miracles are just beginning…
