[MUSIC PLAYING]
GINA RODRIGUEZ: Acting is just like boxing.
It's mind over matter.
You can't give up.
If you get knocked down, you pick yourself up.
You have to believe that you are going to win,
or you get your butt kicked.
My dad started teaching me to box when I was three years old.
Not too many people expect a cute little girl
to know how to box.
I guess I'm kind of a fan of breaking down barriers--
you know, knocking down stereotypes-- small and strong,
beautiful and fierce.
My dad used to always look in the mirror and say,
today is going to be a great day.
I can and I will.
So I do it.
[LAUGHING]
Come on, Pops.
[LAUGHING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Growing up, I never saw myself on screen.
I wasn't in TV shows.
I wasn't on the cover of magazines,
and I sure weren't on the billboards.
And I would drive around with my pops,
and I would be like, Dad, that girl is
so beautiful on the billboard.
And he would say, yeah, that's one type of beautiful.
You're another type of beautiful.
I'd be like, Dad, whatever.
You crazy.
You crazy!
I always knew I wanted to be an actor.
I left home at 16 to follow my dreams.
But often, I was offered the same old cliched role
as a Latin maid or a pregnant teen or a gangbanger.
I didn't want my ethnicity or skin color
to limit me to the same stories that
had been told a million times.
It was crazy growing up with arroz con gandules
in the house and my grandmother speaking
Spanish and me responding in English,
and then going out into the world and eating hot dogs
and hamburgers, and almost shying away from my culture
and trying to assimilate, because it
felt like that's what was going to be acceptable,
and that's what people understood.
You know, that visibility and that relatability on screen
is necessary for one to feel like they deserve to be here
and they deserve to be part of the larger
conversation in society.
But that was my experience.
I didn't want my ethnicity or skin color
to limit me to the same stories that
had been told a million times.
So I just said, "no, thank you" to any role
that was a stereotype.
I didn't get into this industry for the money.
I definitely did not become an actor
so I could buy Louis Vuittons and Chanel bags or Jimmy Choos.
But don't get it twisted, I love me some Jimmy Choos.
I became an actor to change the way I grew up.
I have two older sisters.
One is in private equity, and the other is a doctor.
I never saw Latinos working in private equity,
let alone being the CEO of a private equity firm,
or doctors--
just as we don't see little girls boxing.
I kept my nerve.
And I waited for characters that were
like the women I saw in my household--
strong, educated, fierce, independent women, women that
were not limited by anything, nor would they
allow limitations to stop them from following their dreams.
They were always trying.
And on "Jane the Virgin," I get to play
a strong, smart, independent, funny romantic novelist
and teacher.
Yeah.
SPEAKER: Yeah?
GINA RODRIGUEZ: With these incredible people.
SPEAKER: Yeah?
GINA RODRIGUEZ: And I get to kiss Tyler Posey
and dance with Britney Spears.
SPEAKER: Don't talk to me about that.
GINA RODRIGUEZ: Oh, it's starting.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I want to use my art to make sure
that little girls, the next generation,
get to have role models on TV, in film, on the cover
of magazines, and on billboards that look
like them, that represent them.
As for me, when I was younger, my father used
to whisper in my ear, you could be anything you want to be,
Gina.
You could be the president.
Who knows?
Maybe one day I will.
[MUSIC PLAYING]