I think it's not an easy task because there's not enough Latino writers that are being given opportunities to write things - and I say this because I've been given a lot of bilingual movies in the past because of my career in Mexico, and they're like, "Oh, it's going to make sense for her to do this." A lot of studios want to hit that demographic, but they sort of do it without starting in the right way, which is having someone who knows the culture, and enjoys the language as well, to be able to write these things.
Karla SouzaIn the movie [Everybody Loves Somebody], the sister tells my character, "No, don't you want to be with someone?" I think the family - especially in this movie - they know that the reason that Clara doesn't want to have an emotional, intimate relationship is more because she was hurt so badly from heartbreak that she's then being closed off and cynical.
Karla SouzaWhat I do feel with the different scripts that they give me where I feel like this is done for one of those reasons, I share my point of view. I don't just say, "No, thank you." I say, "I feel that this represents Latinos in a wrong way, in a bad way."
Karla SouzaI felt really strongly about this script [ Everybody Loves Somebody] because, like you said, it's a very specific way of life.
Karla SouzaWhen we see society telling women that they have a certain time, that they make women compete with each other, the older generation competing with the younger generation. They've made us believe that there's not enough men out there for us or that we're only hired because of our looks and not because of our abilities.
Karla SouzaI should have asked for credit - but he has no idea how amazing it is that a character that was written as a boy can be equally written for a girl. It's like you said, just write a character as if it were a man, and then turn it and make it into a woman. It's like, we're human beings, after all.
Karla SouzaThere's a lot of things, even the landscape that we show in the movie [Everybody Loves Somebody] of Ensenada in Baja is just spectacular. There's so much more - I wish we could have shown more, but I'm glad we didn't see the typical, you know, border-sombrero-tequila thing that we normally do.
Karla Souza