JUST SISTERS
By Michael Quintanilla
On the surface, America Ferrera and Alexis Bledel appear to be complete opposites. They look different, come from different cultures and play different kinds of roles. But as they discovered while filming this month’s
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, they have a lot more in common – a love of Juanes, for starters! – than they ever expected.
As she and Alexis Bledel hang out in the lounge of Los Angeles’s Avalon Hotel, America Ferrera is recalling the moment she learned she was going to be costarring in this month’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants alongside the slim, blue-eyed actress who plays coolly elegant Yale student Rory Gilmore on the WB’s Gilmore Girls. “She was probably the furthest person from me that I could possibly think of,” says the voluptuous 5-foot-2 America, who became Hollywood’s unlikeliest star after her sassy breakout role in 2002′s Real Women Have Curves. But then on the day the two actresses met, “She started speaking Spanish,” America says. “And I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness- you speak Spanish? You’re Latina?’ Every preconception I had of who Alexis Bledel was…”
“Shattered!” Alexis breaks in, as the women burst out laughing. As it turns out, changing Hollywood’s perceptions- of what a Latina looks like, in Alexis’s case, and, in America’s , of the image of an ideal movie star- proved to be just one of the many qualities that bonded these mujeres during the nearly two months they spent filming Sisterhood, which opens June 3. The pic is based on the best-selling novel about four lifelong friends and the adventures they embark on while spending their first summer apart. (Alexis’s character, for example, falls into a complicated romance during her vacation in Greece, while America’s copes with her father’s pending marriage and soon-to-be stepchildren.) Not only are both mujeres bilingual (although, as Alexis points out, “Our grammer is not perfect”), but they also grew up with big family dinners and a fondness for “shaking it!” Alexis says. “We both love Juanes,” America adds, earning a squeal from Alexis: “I love Juanes! Even growing up, we went to Luis Miguel concerts, Julio Iglesias.”
It’s this idea of seemingly different kinds of women finding common ground that resonates throughout Sisterhood, which also stars Amber Tamblyn (of CBS’s Joan of Arcadia) and newcomer Blake Lively. In fact, the pants of the title are a pair of thrift shop jeans that- miraculously- fit all four of the characters, despite their different body types. Key to establishing the strength of the young women’s friendship is their ability to speak in shorthand- which even includes some Spanish. By having Blake’s non-Latina character (who gets sent to soccer camp in Mexico) joke with Americas about the “pantalones,” for example, “it shows how much they share and take from each other,” says director Ken Kwapis.
That’s a theme Alexis, 23, believes will resonate with audiences. “One of the really positive things about our generation is that we’re bling to race [and culture] in a lot of ways, because we’re all so mixed,” she says. Of course, in her own case, she still has trouble convincing others that she is, indeed, Latina. A native of Houston, Alexis admits that “most people think I’m Irish,” even though her father is Argentinean, her mother was raised in Mexico from age 8 and Alexis grew up surrounded by Latin traditions. “It’s the only culture my mom knows from life, and my father as well, and they made the decision to raise their children within the context they had been raised in,” Alexis says. “So we speak Spanish in my parents’ house, and my mom cooks amazing Mexican food.”
Alexis began modeling as a teenager, and it was in 2000, during her freshman year at New York University, that she went to her first acting audition- and landed the Gilmore Girls. Ever since, Alexis had been typecast in squeaky-clean teen roles (as in the 2002 feature film Tuck Everlasting), before breaking out as a manipulative prostitute in Robert Rodriguez’s recent hit, Sin City- a role that wasn’t as big a stretch as some migh think. “Alexis has such a respect for her privacy,” America says, “but she always manages to give you a hint of that crazy girl inside her!”
Now, if only she could get casting directors to consider her for Latina roles. “I have been dealing with this a lot lately,” says Alexis, who has gone up- and been turned down- for roles that are Mexican. “It’s a very delicate situation because 50 percent of why you get a role is the way you look; the other 50 percent is what you can do. But I would love to do a role where I speak Spanish, or a film from Latin America.”
In the meantime, both she and Alexis draw inspiration from the examples of the Latinas who have come before them, particularly Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. “They are women who work so hard and turn around and want to give back to us,” America says. “You have to take the little success you have and pull everone with you.” And then, referring to the eight years Salma fought to get the movie, Frida made, Alexis adds, “You can’t take no for an answer.” America nods. “The difference between people who are successful and people who aren’t,” she says, “is that the successful ones are the people who don’t give up.”
Now Alexis and America- in yet another show of similarity- are hoping to provide the same kind of inspiration to the next generation of Latinas. “I’m human; I’m going to make mistakes,” Alexis says. “But I feel a certain social responsibility in my work.” So does America. “I take being a role model seriously, because I realize in my life that there are people I’ve never met but who have influenced me,” she says. “I can only hope to be a positive influence.” So far, both she and Alexis are off to a good start.