The Dark Comedy "Ellay" Focuses on the Latinx Experience in Los Angeles
Our generation has been graced by an era of creativity where people of color and the queer community has had more opportunities to be front and center in the media. Even so, we still have a long way to go. With that said, there are many creators out there that are working to close the diversity gap in media.
One of these teams are the creators of ELLAY, Cruz Castillo, Sebastian Fernandez and Rosa Navarrete and their collaborators. ELLAY is an upcoming dark comedy that will focus on the experiences of the Latinx community in Los Angeles. We talked with Rosa Navarrete (Creator, Producer, Writer), Alicia Sixtos (Producer & Creative Contributor), Joanna Kawatra (Producer), and Cruz Castillo (Creator, Producer & Lead Actor) about ELLAY, culture shifts in Hollywood, and what they hope to bring to the table with their show.
Camille: Tell me a little more about Ellay.
Rosa: The originators were Cruz and Sebastian. They wanted to create a show to talk about the Latinx experience for creative people here in the city. And then in the process, I came in and began asking questions about undocumented people in the city, so not just people who are creative - they had a character in mind already and I jumped in to help develop her role. An LGBTQIA+ character is still being developed as we speak. We want to feature characters of the city who normally don't get featured or talked about in popular media, or they become sidekicks or side characters. We’ve had, you know, all these shows like One Day at a Time showing different perspectives that are more diverse, and we want to be part of that kind of spectrum of like, “Oh yeah we're your neighbors. And here's the millennial kind of experience to add to this collective consciousness that everyone is going through right now. Let's show our stories and let's show the transplant experience, POC experience, diverse experience; the not wanting to grow up - the Peter Pan aspect of us.
We want to blend all of these stories about our city and beyond, to show how different we all are but also blended in with little stories of people in the city that don't get honored, the stories that don't get shared in mass media, as we've experienced so far.
Camille: Right now we’re seeing more and more creators shift towards the internet to get these stories out, shows like One Day At A Time, which you mentioned. It seems like Hollywood is upset about it because the movement is getting more attention.
Alicia: Hollywood is definitely getting shaken up. The success in the new content is showing veteran Hollywood executives that they need to switch up the tired formula. Viewers are hungry for fresh content, new faces, more color, a different perspective. Internet platforms are slowly but surely opening that door for people of color and other people who have been kept quiet and marginalized for so long. You’re going to be seeing a lot more shows from a different perspective than what we’ve been fed since the beginning of film. It's an exciting time for new Hollywood. I’d imagine that could be frustrating for old Hollywood.
Camille: How do you feel about Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood people wanting to make it where Netflix shows and films can't win prestigious awards like the Oscars?
Alicia: These beautiful productions deserve a shot at prestigious awards. The studios have been in control of what stories are told for so long. They're the reason the Oscars are so white.
Rosa: It wasn't that long ago that Spielberg had challenged the status quo himself as a creative person. I think that this is kind of his turnaround moment where he's feeling what he had done to other people when they were like “This isn't real filmmaking,” but he was getting nominated and rewarded. This is just a transitional moment in our history for multimedia arts and film and he's a part of it in a different capacity now. I'm really excited about it.
Camille: If they're scared it means that someone's doing something right.
Rosa: Yeah exactly.
Camille: Let’s get a little more into what messages you're hoping to get across with the show, especially with the LGBT representation in particular.
Rosa: I don't identify as LGBTQIA, but I worked in the community through groups like Eastside Queer Stories of Q Youth Foundation, and all of the creative queer people I’ve worked with thus far have said that they are so over the story of the girl who's finding herself, or who's discovering her sexuality, asking am I this? Am I that? Alicia and her partner have been instrumental and kind of also been voices of advocacy for that.
Alicia: We have a queer, afro-latina character who’s got her shit together. We wanted to have a character that other humans can look up to. She's like the mom of the house. She’s been through a lot of shit which we’ll learn later in the show but the message we’d hope to pass is if you do the work to get past all that bullshit there are hopes and dreams that can and will be achieved.
Joanna: What I like about this character that we get to see her figuring it out. We’ll also get the see the dynamic in Latino families, which seems to be a little different. You know, bringing your friend around and they don't ask you who this friend is. You just know that she comes around often for family parties. That's kind of how the dynamic works. You don't miss it. It's very covert, between the lines. I would really like to shed some light on that.
Camille: What will you tell young media makers that you wish someone had told you?
Rosa: Oh gosh. Double Major. I'm being real. Get yourself a separate, not like a completely detached goal, but get yourself a separate major career path, because you'll need to supplement yourself as an artist in this country.
Alicia: Be exactly who you are. It's much more captivating than trying to be something or someone else. Embrace your queerness, embrace your culture, heritage, and color. Embrace your mental health. Take care of yourself. Once you accept all of that, life will be a little bit easier.
Joanna: This is not my background. But, I would say whatever choices life throws at you, it's not always a bad thing. And even though you may have your mind set in one arena, don't be afraid of those opportunities that come seemingly out of nowhere.
Cruz: I think my answer would be to find or form your collective. It takes a village in raising you. It takes a village in growing yourself. Surround yourself with people who are better at things than you because there's a lot of things you're always going to lack in and that's cool. Find people who are better with other things so they push you to grow.
Camille: What has been the most fun or gratifying part of working on the Ellay so far?
Alicia: The most gratifying thing for me was to see all of our networks come together and support this project when we did the crowdfund campaign. It was really great to see everyone’s interest in these stories we want to tell.
Rosa: I’m going to say the most fun for me was my first meeting with Cruz and Sebastian. I just got so excited about the stories. It was the nugget of the beginning and I was like, “Oh my God. This is where I know I can share my experience as an immigrant, a once-undocumented child in the city. This could be the space where that can happen.”
Joanna: It was whenever Rosa would hold the writer’s meetings. Those were so much fun. There was a lot of big ideas, big stories, and big emotions. They were always a lot of fun. I'm also really grateful to have met everyone here. I came to the team through Antonio, our Graphic Designer. We went to CSU Long Beach together. I feel like I just came into this project by chance. It’s been a real eye-opening experience because I've never done anything like this before.
Cruz: My gratification is really selfish. The other day my mom went to the hospital. We had a scare. It was just me and my mom growing up. I'm an only child to a single parent woman of color and she’s a badass. My mom fucks shit up. But she's getting older. You start to realize your mom's not Superman anymore. Your mom's mortal. You're sitting there and she was going through all the things, like “when I pass away this is gonna happen, and this is gonna happen. You need to do this, you need to that, remember the plans we talked about,” and I was like, woman I'm 30 man, you shouldn't be dying right now. You should be here another 30 years, what are you talking about? You should be here longer. It was just that scary. And while we were there she basically said I'm really proud of you for taking a story of stuff that you've experienced and stuff that has happened to you that's not been always good or positive bringing that together to make something that you want to tell other people. It’s not always happy, but it’s OK, you're not alone. Other people experience it too. It’s a weird situation because you're scared for your mom and then your mom is like. Don't be scared. I'm proud of you. I think that was a gratifying moment. You always want to hear your mom tell you she's proud of you.
Camille: What are your hopes for the show?
Cruz: My hopes are for people to see my friends that do awesome shit doing awesome shit. And for people that see this to be like, “oh well this is actually pretty entertaining. This is pretty fucking clever. This is a good story. These are good characters and they're all people of color.” These are my friends and this is what they can do.
Rosa: My only hope is to open eyes. It just baffles me how much Latinx people specifically buy so many movie tickets and we support so many shows, and yet we're not fully represented. So it's just to open more eyes in the industry and open more doors for other creative people who look like us.
Joanna: I want to see stereotypes broken up. Whenever I see a Latinx character. They're always a babysitter or they have a working-class job. It’s not inherently a bad thing but it's like the same jobs, you know? I'm really looking forward to seeing the stereotypes be deconstructed.
Alicia: It would be great if we could get it on Netflix. It’s the most accessible to marginalized communities in the US. We want to make a difference in the world. I think the biggest impact we could make right now would be there.
Camille: Last question. What are other ways that people can contribute to Ellay?
Rosa: They can share their skills. We're still looking for people who want to contribute their skills and talent. We do want to compensate individuals. It won't be an exponential amount and if they want to volunteer or donate their talents that would be ideal just because we want to make the first episode so kick ass.
Alicia: We could use more funds. If there are producers out there who want to help us out, match what we have, that would be absolutely frickin’ amazing. We could use another executive producer. If you can’t contribute financially but would love to help in some way, we would love it if you could follow our journey and root us on through social media. Our handle is @theellayshow across the board.
Learn more about Ellay by visiting their site here!