(upbeat music)
- I'm Oliver Trevena, in studio for the Hollywood Reporter
joined by actress and activist, Diane Guerrero.
How are you?
- I'm great.
- [Oliver] Yes?
- Yes.
- [Oliver] Wonderful, wonderful.
- How are you?
- I'm great, I'm glad you're here, you're busy.
- Yes.
- You're always on the move.
- Mmhmm.
- Yeah, you literally got back at 5 a.m. this morning.
- I did, literally get back.
- And straight into work.
- Gotta get back to it.
- Cause that's what you do.
- Yeah.
- There's always something going on.
- Gotta keep it moving.
- Traveling series, books, memoirs,
it's happening, it's happening.
- Yeah, it's been an exciting time for me.
- It has, I think that's an understatement.
Massively exciting time,
but also, now, you're putting everything out there, really.
Is that strange, or is it like a weird moment
when you put a memoir out?
- Yeah, it's not the easiest thing to do.
- [Oliver] Right.
- I didn't even think I was going to do that.
I just started it by sharing an op ed,
and that was like one page
of something that happened to me and my family,
and I thought that was going to be it.
- Right.
- And the idea for the book came,
and I immediately said no because I didn't want anyone,
I think it was more I still was sort of ashamed
of sharing that much information about myself,
but also mostly because of my family.
I didn't want to put their information out there,
but I spoke to my mother, she said, basically,
a memoir is from your point of view,
from your experience, so I think that kind of
eased me a little
because I knew that if I didn't get everything right,
it's fine.
- Right, right, right.
It is your book.
- Yeah.
- And it's an incredible book.
The story is like, I was mind blown,
but it's just such an important message
to put across as well.
- Yeah.
- And yet, going through that whole transition,
such a young girl,
and then evolving into what you've achieved now
is inspiring people as well.
- Yeah, I'm really glad of how people
have received the book, especially young people.
To go to different universities
and speak to students has been a real pleasure for me
because, you know, I always sort of wanted
to be seen or viewed as sort of that academic.
And I also love school
and I think education is so important,
so it's really a blessing
that the kids have really related to it,
and also that was the reason why I wrote it
was so that someone
who was going through this experience could relate to it,
or could see that somebody also went through it
and made it out alive.
- Right, right.
- And also for the person that hasn't experienced this,
or doesn't even know a family who has been through this
and maybe...
- Right, I had no idea.
To be honest, I mean, I know immigration,
obviously I'm British, so I've dealt with my fair share,
but nothing like what your book portrays,
which I think is why it's so important
for you to do something like this.
- Yeah, I mean, it's just kind of giving you
an example of what family separation looks like.
- [Oliver] Right.
- And hopefully it'll give some people
an idea of what the immigration system looks like,
which, in my opinion, is broken.
- [Oliver] Right.
- Along with a lot of people's opinions, it's broken.
- I think it's fair to say it is.
- Um, yeah.
- Especially after reading your story,
if there were any doubts, read this book,
and you will for sure agree with this young lady,
yeah, yeah.
And then the first edition of the book
was released end of last year,
and now the young adult version is coming out,
in July.
- In July, yeah.
- Right, yes.
- So glad you knew that.
- I did know that, I did know.
Well, you've got too much to think of,
you're juggling TV shows, you're doing that,
I'm into doing you, I'll figure that one out.
- Thank you.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, it's coming out in July,
and it's for middle schoolers,
and it sort of gives you like just a little synopsis
of what the chapter's about, and it's really cute,
and I'm just so happy to bring it to all ages
because it's an important story.
And I recently saw a children's book about a similar story,
about a girl losing
her mother and grandmother to deportation,
and that's even given me some ideas,
about how can I turn this story
into a children's book as well.
- There you go,
maybe it's a TV show, maybe it's a movie.
- I mean, Lord knows I'm trying.
- There you go, that doesn't shock me either.
That doesn't shock me either.
And tonight's episode of Superior Donuts,
when this airs, is actually a storyline
that's somewhat familiar, strangely enough.
Your brother's being chased by immigration.
- Yes, so in Superior Donuts,
normally every week we tackle a certain issue.
- Right.
- So, whether it's race or police brutality,
or poverty, homelessness, whatever it is,
we do an episode of, and it's a 22-minute comedy,
so we...
- [Oliver] It's a funny twist on it,
it's a funny twist on it.
- It's a funny twist on it,
and you just kind of present the issue,
and so people can think about it.
- Right, right.
- And so, of course, immigration came up.
- As it would.
- And so, of course,
and then all the writers came to me
and it's like, is this right?
And so I, you know,
it was actually a good opportunity
to work on the script
and let them know kind of what was more real to me.
But, yeah, it was a really personal episode,
and I'm really proud of it.
I'm really glad that CBS took the initiative
to talk about a sensitive subject
as immigration.
It's not easy to talk about, yeah.
- Yeah, the show in general, as you mentioned,
it touches on these kind of important issues.
You catch yourself laughing,
but then you're like,
funny, but there's a lot of truth to that.
- Right.
- And then it makes you think, which is great,
because you get to laugh and think at the same time.
- Sure, absolutely.
In my opinion, that's what these stories should be about.
They should inform you as well.
- It's amazing.
How has that been on the show,
doing the comedy and stuff like that,
do you enjoy it?
Is it hard to keep a straight face?
Because the cast is hilarious. - They're hilarious, yeah.
- That chemistry is brilliant, yeah.
- It's hard to keep a straight face sometimes,
but it's been great.
I've never done a sitcom before.
- [Oliver] Right, right.
- I've always loved old-school sitcoms,
like Happy Days, Taxi,
Oliver and Shirley,
I was always watching those shows.
I mean, it was TV Land,
obviously, I wasn't there when they were on,
but I always had this fantasy
of being in one of those shows, and now I am.
And I'm with Judd Hirsch from Taxi,
which was one of my favorite shows too,
so I'm learning a lot.
- Right, right.
And going back, obviously,
Orange is the New Black, Jane the Virgin,
it's an eclectic mix of characters.
Do you enjoy that challenge,
going from show to show?
- Oh, absolutely, yeah.
I love playing different characters,
I love telling different stories
from different perspectives.
I just hope I can continue doing more.
- You will continue, you will continue.
- Yes.
- You haven't stopped,
and yet, when I read,
you studied something completely different in college.
- Yeah, I studied political science and communication.
- Yeah, yeah.
- But, it's sort of all coming full-circle.
- [Oliver] You're making it come full-circle,
it doesn't tend to do that in the world of acting.
- No, well I guess not.
I mean, I always said, I always try to say yes to myself,
that's sort of my message in the book,
is giving yourself the chance to try something new,
something that you've always been interested in.
- Right.
- And so, now with the book, and doing the talks and stuff,
it has given me the opportunity,
so much so that I actually did a docu-series,
I did an episode of a docu-series called America Divided.
I got a chance to be a journalist for a week.
- [Oliver] There you go.
- And I never thought that I could do something like that
and look at me, I'm doing documentaries.
- So it really is going full-circle, it really is.
- It is. - It really is.
- It really is.
- So what's next, then?
What would you like to do, if you could do anything,
anything next, any role next, that kind of is in your mind,
oh I'd like to play that?
Anything pop to mind?
- Well, I mean, right now I'm just
working on seeing how I can take my story
and making it into a film.
And there's just so many angles that I can take it,
I've already tried to make it
into a series that didn't quite work.
However, I'm still very passionate about the story,
it's very relevant in my mind right now,
so I think I'm gonna be working on that.
- That's it, that's such an important message.
- Yeah.
- Gotta keep pushing it.
- Absolutely.
- That's it.
So, this isn't gonna be the first
we're gonna talk about this,
I'm sure you'll be coming back with a TV show and movie.
We're gonna wrap this up with THR's Top Five.
- Okay.
- Five easy questions, I'm hoping they're easy.
- I hope they're easy.
- If they're not, you can just say no, not doing it.
- Pass.
- You can pass, but I'll think of something else.
- Okay.
- So, you won't get away with it,
there will be five, whatever happens.
- Okay.
- TV show that you watched as a kid
that you wish you were in?
- Eureka's Castle, but they were puppets.
- Okay.
I never saw Eureka's Castle.
What?
Explain this to me, cause this is
more than just a question now.
- It's like a puppet show.
- Like Sesame Street?
- It's like Sesame Street, yes.
- Okay.
- And there was just a big dragon,
and a castle, and they were just like really funny puppets.
- Okay, Eureka's Castle. - Yes.
- I'll check it out.
One actor who inspires you?
- One actor that inspires me.
Uh, Penelope Cruz.
And I actually also named my dog Penelope Cruz-Guerrero.
- That's great.
That's great.
- I love her.
- Yeah, yeah, clearly you do love her.
- Yeah, I do love her.
- One word to describe your journey as an actress so far?
- Challenging.
- Challenging?
- It ain't easy being breezy.
- From knowing your story,
I probably would've guessed that.
- Just a little challenging.
- If we would've done that like, you know,
card game the way you turn it away and you have to write,
I think we would've got that one.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, we would've got that.
Last show that you binge watched?
- On My Block.
- [Oliver] Okay, On My Block?
- You haven't heard of it?
- [Oliver] No.
- It's on Netflix.
It's a young show and it's young, new, fresh faces,
but they're all kids of color.
- Okay.
- And it's, I'm so proud watching that,
because I haven't, before Orange is the New Black,
I really hadn't seen many shows
where it had brown and black kids
going to high school, like living a normal life.
And this show does a good job of representing
kind of like, a day in the life
of these high school students.
- [Oliver] Okay.
- And it's really exciting to watch
and I'm very proud.
- I'll check it out. - Yeah.
- I think maybe between that and Eureka's Castle,
that's my weekend.
- I don't know if you're going to like the lineup.
- Well, I'll give it a go.
- Maybe not Eureka's Casltle if you have, do you have kids?
- Oh no, I'm doing Eureka's Castle.
No, I don't have kids.
I have a dog.
- The dog will love it.
The dog would love it, perfect dogs,
Eureka's Castle.
- Yes.
- You've been through so much and so strong,
do you have a favorite saying or quote?
I wondered, I wondered what you kind of, you know,
if there's a thing that you live by.
- Yeah, I mean, my aunt would always say,
everything in this life, you can fix, except death.
That's morbid.
- I think it's a perfect way to wrap it up.
We're both still here,
so we can fix whatever just went on for ten minutes.
- Absolutely.
- Perfect.
- No, we can.
That's the message.
Thank you.