Over the last decade, Judy Reyes has become one of the best-known and least appreciated Latina actresses in Hollywood. Though she got her first work on TV dramas, from Law & Order to NYPD Blue, and even had a multi-episode arc on the award-winning prison drama Oz, Judy made her biggest mark in Scrubs, the quirky hospital comedy that lasted eight seasons on two different networks. It wasn’t long thereafter that she returned to drama, with a challenging role as a fiercely loyal and trouble mother in Gun Hill Road, in Without Men, and as an entirely different kind of mother in The Pregnancy Project–work that earned her a ALMA Award nomination this year. Now she’s about to move to Atlanta to begin filming on Mark Cherry’s Devious Maids, the controversial new series that will appear on ABC Family in the spring.
Meanwhile, Judy’s story is part of The Latino List II, HBO Latino’s powerful and fascinating documentary series. The first edition last year included intimate and revealing interviews with prominent Latinos including Pitbull, Eva Longoria, John Leguizamo and many more; the second edition–including Reyes, Jon Seda, and Soledad O’Brien, premieres Monday, September 24 at 8P.
Se Fija! had a chance to talk with Judy recently about her involvement in The Latino List 2, and the risks of revealing so much of herself. “I never saw the first one,” she admits, “and I felt so honored to be in this company. I did feel vulnerable, but Maria Hinojosa is a wonderful interviewer, and its put together wonderfully. I feel blessed to be part of it. It’s a terrific piece. I feel like I’m part of a little bit of history, actually…though afterwards, I did wonder, ‘Oh, shit, did I really say too much?’
Judy is well aware of the power that her story, and the stories of the other Latinos on the List, when it comes to changing opinions about Latinos and their culture, even among Latinos themselves. “People are always going to make choices about what they’re going to think,” she told us, “But the fact is that all Latinos have a couple of things in common: Language and, maybe, how they got here and the reasons that we’re here. We come from so many different places, we look so many different ways, but I think our stories open it up, get people to say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that,’ or “Wow, that’s hilarious.’ It doesn’t always have to be about gangs, or crossing, the border; it’s a opportunity in that regard. There are so many wonderful stories to tell.”
One of her own stories is about the differences and similarities within the larger Latino community. As a young adult, she says, she remembers talking with her father about his skin color. “Papi,” she said, “you’re black.” He immediately corrected her. “I’m not black,” he said, “I’m Dominican.” But she just couldn’t accept that. “But look at your skin!” she told him. “You’re black!,” then he said, niña stop being disrespectful.
She laughs when she recalls it now. “You can only take an argument so far with your parents before you exceed it, and then you’re going to get slapped,” she said. “But it’s a tweak in understanding that you figure out later: it’s a culture thing. He was trying to tell me it’s not as simple as color. The nuances I was trying to get through to him is, he was oversimplifying it to make himself different, and I was over-simplifying to say we’re not different, we’re all the same. It’s something we could have a conversation about now.”
What viewers will discover as they watch The Latino List 2 is exactly what Judy Reyes already knows: there are so many great stories in it, and so many left to tell. And does that mean there’s room for yet another Latin List? And another after that?
Judy Reyes already knows the answer to that question: “Absolutely,” she said. “Hell, yes!”
The Latino List 2 premieres Monday Sept. 24 at 9P on HBO Latino. It replays frequently there, as well as on HBO2 and HBO Signature almost daily for the next week or more. Check your own cable/satellite listings for times.
