Yvonne DeLaRosa has been busy since she wrapped Los Americans last year, along with Esai Morales, Raymond Cruz, the much-missed Lupe Ontiveros and many others. The series is still available here online and is still being seen by literally millions on the L.A. Metro bus system, and it’s recently been nominated for an Imagen Award. (Yvonne is no stranger to the Imagen Awards; she received one in 2009 for her role in the play 8 Ways to Say I Love My Life & Mean It.)
But that was a year ago. Since then, this American-Colombian actress, producer and writer has appeared in episodes of GCB and Law & Order: Los Angeles, and she recently appeared with Lou Diamond Phillips in A&E’s contemporary western Longmire. She is also teaming up with renowned director and producer Dennis Leoni (Resurrection Blvd, Los Americans) to produce and star in Adam and Eva, an original comedy series about a conservative American who accidentally marries a Mexican girl. “It’s a very timely comedy,” she told us during a conversation at the NHMC Latino MediaCon. “I think it’s going to appeal to the America we know today: a multicultural America that wants to know more about Latino culture, an America that is ready to embrace a multicultural marriage.”
DeLaRosa’s own story is “crazy,” she says, “but crazy good.” She was born and raised in L.A.–“I could see the Hollywood sign from my bedroom window”–and has been acting since she was a little girl. (“I was a bear in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and when it came to my broken little chair, I actually cried real tears. They all stood up and applauded.”) Yvonne attended Hollywood High, earned a B.A. in Directing and a Masters in Screenwriting from UCLA. She was also one of the last students of the legendary acting teacher Jeff Corey, who trained the likes of James Dean, Jack Nicholson, and Robin Williams. “You learn a lot from your mentors and your teachers,” she said in a recent interview. “For me, I just really believe what I’m doing–for me it’s happening in that moment. If you’re able to do something completely and believably, it’s in you…so I guess I’m a murderer. Don’t piss me off, I keel you,” she joked. And acting, she says, teaches you about yourself as much as anything else. “What have I learned about myself? I’m very tapped into my emotions, and sometimes in normal life I had to learn to control that. In real life, I think I try to stop myself from crying at every second.”
So with so much experience in all the media–feature films, TV episodics, online webisodes, and so much more–what does she enjoy the most? “I enjoy all of it,” she says, “but I love doing features. It’s like joining the circus, and I’m definitely a carny at heart. When you’re in a movie, you’re in the circus. It’s fun: you get to know the crew, get to work on the character and really live it, whereas TV is really fast–which I love, so when I’m in more of a Zen mode, I prefer TV. It’s like: you get the script, you go to the set, you go to your trailer, you rehearse for a second (sometimes), you come back and shoot it and move on. It’s very exciting…but sometimes I like to join the circus.”
“My family is my biggest motivator…”
And through all the roller-coaster ride of succeeding in this slightly insane business, what motivates Yvonne DeLaRosa? She has no doubt about that: “My family is my biggest motivator,” she told us. “I don’t talk about it enough, but honoring my family, my mother and my grandmother. Not so much proving to them, but showing them, “Look at all our sacrifices, all your effort, all your work, all those full-time jobs, being a single Mom–my mother worked two full-time jobs to support me and my sister. I want to honor my grandparents, too, who left Colombia to come find a better life here. I mean, wow, if that’s not enough to motivate me, nothing will. That’s the fire that drives me. I’m not giving up. If they didn’t, how can I?”
When you ask Yvonne DeLaRosa what her plans are for five or ten years down the line–acting, directing, writing producing–she immediately says, “All of the above,”…and you can’t help believing her. “When time and opportunity collide, you’d better be ready,” she says, “Because they will collide; your time will come…and you better be ready. And I am. I am ready, and it’s happening.”
You can keep an eye on her through her own site, on Twitter at @Yvonne_99, or through a pretty cool fan page on Facebook at iloveYvonneDeRosa. And you can listen to the complete Tony Sweet interview (complete with a psychic reading!) on Global Voice Radio, right here.
Photos: Angela María Ortíz S.
