I knew that [director/screenwriter] Catalina Aguilar Mastretta had an amazing take on the female psyche and the modern woman and the modern immigrant woman living in the U.S., and I really saw the need for a story told of our daily lives without being a statistic and without just trying to hit a demographic, and I felt that with this one.

I would get very frustrated reading scripts that were bilingual but maybe not bicultural.

The patriarchal society has made women believe, first of all, you're only valid and valuable when you're young.

I think Shonda Rhimes came to change television for women forever.

[Producers] promised me they wouldn't do that sort of "defining nature of my character is that Laurel is Latina [in How to Get Away with Murder] ." It has nothing to do with that. She just happens to be a Latina.

[Rhimes and Pete Nowalk] have definitely, from the pilot [of How to Get Away with Murder], brought forth a woman who is unapologetically herself, unapologetically flawed, and is as vulnerable as she is powerful. I'm grateful to be in that family.

Until they hired a Latina to write for Laurel [in How to Get Away with Murder], I was scared that she was going to fall into stereotypes.