{"id":92007,"date":"2019-06-28T14:25:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T18:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/tales-of-the-city-actor-garcia-talks-anna-madrigal-trans-representation-and-a-secret-from-barbary-lane-interview\/"},"modified":"2019-06-28T14:25:26","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T18:25:26","slug":"tales-of-the-city-actor-garcia-talks-anna-madrigal-trans-representation-and-a-secret-from-barbary-lane-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/tales-of-the-city-actor-garcia-talks-anna-madrigal-trans-representation-and-a-secret-from-barbary-lane-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Tales of the City\u2019 Actor Garcia talks Anna Madrigal, Trans Representation and a Secret From Barbary Lane [Interview]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Tales of the City\u2019 Actor Garcia talks Anna Madrigal, Trans Representation and a Secret From Barbary Lane [Interview]<\/b><\/p>\n

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Today, fans of the original Tales of the City<\/em> can stream the first installment on Netflix. The streaming giant added the original PBS miniseries<\/a> to its offerings just weeks after launching a reboot of the iconic series.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll recognize many faces appearing in both the old and new versions, including stars Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis, but the latest incarnation of the series is notable for its embrace of diversity, inclusion and representation. Righting one of the original series\u2019 most glaring flaws, the new Tales<\/em> introduced a generation of Barbary Lane residents that is more diverse in terms of race, gender and sexuality.<\/p>\n

Among those new residents is Jake, a trans<\/a> man<\/a> navigating his sexuality and relationships, played by mononymous non-binary actor Garcia. Tales<\/em> marks the young actor\u2019s first major screen role.<\/p>\n

We spoke with them about the experience, the importance of representation and one secret they have from Barbary Lane. Light spoilers follow.<\/p>\n

Check out what Garcia had to say below! <\/p>\n

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Congratulations on the new Tales of the City<\/em>. Your story in particular was so impactful.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

Had you seen the originals or read the books before joining the project? How familiar were you with the material?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had no familiarity. As soon as I got the audition, I started doing research on it. That\u2019s how I found out the history behind it. When I booked it, my agent gave me the first book. I started reading it, I got maybe halfway through the second book, but then school started, and I didn\u2019t have as much time to read for pleasure. I plan on reading the rest of them. Hopefully I get to them this summer.<\/p>\n

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What are some ways you and Jake are similar, and how are you different?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m not a nurse, I know that much. And that\u2019s pretty much the biggest difference, to be honest with you. I\u2019m really honored to play him. I got the audition, I read the description , and I was like \u2018Holy sh*t, someone wants to write about ME!\u2019 Not in a specific sense, but in a sense of how I feel and what I\u2019ve been going through. It really gave me this assurance that I\u2019m not the only one \u2026 A lot more similarities than differences!<\/p>\n

Do you have any memories of seeing queer characters that really affected?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Growing up, I don\u2019t remember being impacted by many. There was this movie Thirteen<\/em>. It\u2019s about 13-year-old girls<\/a>. One of them is a badass, the other one wants to be her friend, she wants to be just like her. They develop this friendship. They get really high one day, and that was one of the first queer kisses I ever saw. I took that as truth. Fast-forward to my freshman year of high school and this girl<\/a> I was dating at the time asked if I had ever seen Boys Don\u2019t Cry<\/em>. I said no, and then there I was watching Boys Don\u2019t Cry<\/em>, not being really thrown off by it. I later learned that wasn\u2019t the best representation of queer people, but, again, I took it as truth. Like oh, people like that exist. A lot of people learn things from the media and what they watch. There\u2019s that statistic that\u2019s like 80 percent of people got their knowledge about trans<\/a> people from the media. So, when you have trans<\/a> people misrepresented, that\u2019s going to affect how people view us and treat us. <\/p>\n

Then you have a show like Tales<\/em> that does it well. They talk about queer people, but not just as their identities. I\u2019m not just a trans<\/a> person. That\u2019s not all I am. I have feelings, I have relationships. Tales<\/em> does a really good job of talking about queer people as people, and not just as these weird boxes we have to check off. We also know the original Tales<\/em>, but we\u2019ve seen it, and we know that story. We know what it means to be a white, gay<\/a> man<\/a> in San Francisco. But what does it mean to be a trans<\/a> person of color or a queer person of color? What does that story look like? Even within queer people of color, we all have different backgrounds and cultures. How do our backgrounds and cultures play into our queerness? <\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a lot of discussion about the importance of trans<\/a> actors playing trans<\/a> characters. Can you talk about the importance of that as both an artist and a viewer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I\u2019m hearing more often than not is that we don\u2019t want straight people playing queer people, because it\u2019s inauthentic. I\u2019m still struggling to figure out how I feel about that specific idea. Because what is acting? Because the queer community has not been given many roles, when they cast them the problems come into play. I read this article about all these Latinx movies and all these white people playing these Latinx characters. There were like twenty something movies on this list! That\u2019s insane. That\u2019s lack of representation and diversity within the industry. We already know who\u2019s dominating the industry. We already know that story. It gets frustrating as a trans<\/a> person when you\u2019re trying to get your foot in the door as an actor, and you want to be treated as such. They want to write the roles, but they don\u2019t want to give it to you. You can\u2019t want to write about it and then not include us. It becomes that weird thing, like are you writing about us because it\u2019s in right now? Because it\u2019s cool? If you leave us out of the room, out of the conversation, you don\u2019t really care about us. You don\u2019t really care about being inclusive, you don\u2019t care about being an ally. You\u2019re just doing it to benefit off us in this capitalistic way. I think that trans<\/a> people right now need to play trans<\/a> roles, or, depending how they identify, can also play cisgender roles. Once we are no longer being killed at an alarming rate, living in poverty, being attacked by the government, once we have all our basic human rights, THEN it\u2019s like who gives a sh*t about who plays what? But we have much longer to get there. <\/p>\n

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Did you have any conversations with Olympia Dukakis as two actors both playing trans<\/a> characters?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had talked about it with some of the EPs on the show, and the argument was that she\u2019d been grandmothered in, she\u2019s reprising her role. It already has a cult following, it already has a history before I was around. The older gays<\/a> love Olympia, they love Anna Madrigal. It\u2019s exciting for them to see that. Then you see episode eight with the flashback, and it\u2019s done properly. Jen Richards is playing her, and she\u2019s a phenomenal trans<\/a> actress. It\u2019s wonderful to see that care was put in, and I don\u2019t think that anyone on Tales<\/em> has any bad intentions. It\u2019s all done with rhyme and reason, and I support it. All the care that was put into making the show, all these writers and directors that are part of the queer community, it\u2019s all done with care. There\u2019s nothing that I ever read or saw or heard that made me cringe once. Tales<\/em> is telling multiple queer stories across the spectrum, but that\u2019s still not all of them. I\u2019m interested in all the other queer stories that are going to be told because of Tales<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Tales<\/strong><\/em> is a story all about secrets. What\u2019s one secret from Barbary Lane you can share that viewers wouldn\u2019t know otherwise?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know how that person carried Olympia inside the house [in the final episode]? That ain\u2019t me, gurl! Hell no! Are you kidding me? I would have to get a personal trainer to carry her from her chair into the house, into the bed, no way. That was not me!<\/p>\n

You can stream the original Tales of the City and the new reboot now on Netflix.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The post \u2018Tales of the City\u2019 Actor Garcia talks Anna Madrigal, Trans Representation and a Secret From Barbary Lane [Interview]<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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‘Tales of the City’ Actor Garcia talks Anna Madrigal, Trans Representation and a Secret From Barbary Lane [Interview]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n