Eiza González Reveals Her Last Meal and Reflects on Her Career Journey

I'm Eiza González, and this is my last meal. [bell] Every person has exactly two things in common. We all got to eat, and we're all going to die. Today's guest is an actor who you might recognize from Baby Driver, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and 3 Body Problem. She's got a whole lot more roles coming your way, including In the Grey directed by Guy Ritchie. And all that success is despite getting fired from Plaza Sésamo when she was just 5 years old. Eiza González, welcome to the show. Thank you. Of course. How dare you terrorize Abelardo Montoya on that set? What happened? You know what? You when you're a child, you're just a menace. I think that and that never went away from me.

I didn't realize that Sesame Street in different countries had different characters. Yeah. What are the differentiating factors between our Big Bird and your Abelardo Montoya? And how do they end up with such different names? Even in the Spanish language, they're different. Yeah. Like from Spain to Mexico is different. Like the Powerpuff Girls are like Chicas Superpoderosas. Like Home Alone is uh Mi Pobre Angelito, My Poor Angel. How do we come up with that? Pancho Contreras is Pancho. He loves extreme sports. Pancho. Is his thing. We didn't have an extreme sports Sesame Street Muppet. So bizarre.

Yeah. I guess that Mexicans love extreme sports. Maybe that's just popular in Mexico. you certainly did growing up, right? A lot of people don't know, but I used to race professionally motorcycles when I was young. My father was a professional motorcycle driver. It was really funny cuz I had this tiny little helmet with ears on it, and it was all pink, and all my covering protection gear was pink. And speed is something that I really loved my entire life. I think that translates in a lot of your movies. You tend to be going really fast a lot of the times in the A lot of cars, yeah. I do enjoy it. I

guess, you know, my brother's 14 years older than me, and so I always grow up I grew up and he was a Marine. And so I grew up with really incredibly masculine energy, and I didn't really have a strong identity as a young girl because I was quite ADHD and bizarre. So, I kind of adopted his personality for a very long time. Yeah, yeah. Well, uh have you thought about your last meal before? You know what? Weirdly, it's a conversation that comes up often. Interesting. I think also from Mexico, people have a ginormous interest in Mexican cuisine.

Every single time I bring up the fact that I'm from Mexico City, a lot of people bring up food. It's the first thing they ask. It runs the gamut when it comes to cuisine. You have like the street food, but also the infusion based on whether it's Mayan inspired or Aztec inspired, and then you have something more like a gourmet version of it. So, it's incredible, and then we eat crickets. So weird. Chapulines. Chapulines, yeah. Have you ever had it? I have. I accidentally They've only been featured on this show once, and it was cuz I did feed them to Hilary Duff. I thought she would be down with them, and she seemed really horrified.

So, if you ever run into Hilary Duff in the wild, maybe you can introduce her to chapulines and maybe with some mezcal more appropriately. it. I've done it. When we were doing the press tour of Baby Driver and we were in Mexico City, we were at this restaurant. It was like Lily James and Edgar, and it was sort of most of the cast, and I said, "You know, you guys have to eat them. We eat them all the time." And they were like, "Really?" And I kind of tricked them into believing that I've had them a million times. had them before? had them. I've not once tried it. Did you like the chapulines?

I did not eat them. I forced them all. watched them eat them? You never even tried it? They all ate them, and then they were like, "What do you think?" I said, "I don't know. I've never had them." Ready to eat? I'm very excited. [bell] A sub for the first course of your final meal on Earth, we have spicy tuna hand roll, the Takis with lime, and then the Jarritos strawberry. Wow, this is I mean, have you ever had a Jarrito? I don't think I've ever had the strawberry Jarritos. Not to be redundant, it's like a rogue one. Like, no one really thinks is a really good one, but it's always missing. You can't get it because it's the best.

That's my Well, hey, cheers. Let's start with that. Salud. I love a Jarritos. Mm. This kind of like the taste of my childhood. The glass bottle is so much better. Yeah, it's so much better, isn't it? I grew up in the border. My family's from a place called Caborca, Sonora, which is like a small town on the border of Phoenix. And basically there's I mean, truly on our little town, there's like two main streets. Yeah. And like the peak of our activity of the weekend was to get on the car and drive up and down those two streets and like wave at people. That's all we did.

Yeah. But at the corner of those two streets, there was this ice cream place where they did two of the most amazing things ever. Which is it's not Takis, but they would do nachos and they would open them and they would do the craziest Mexican mix you've ever seen. Like pico de gallo, they put they mixed um queso crema. They would put the craziest And then you would just eat it in that bag and then a Jarritos always with it. And so that just brings me Drinking Jarritos brings me back to Sonora immediately. As soon as I taste it, it's like I'm 14 years old again. Did you call those Tostilocos or like Dorilocos? Cuz that's what I Tostilocos.

Growing up in Southern California, I mean, you're sort of just so much of the culture that you're consuming is Mexican culture. So my ice cream man also in Yeah. Rancho Santa Margarita in Orange County had Tostilocos. Yeah. And so I just have such And sometimes gummy bears, which I never liked in there. Are you my brother? Are you my long-lost I think that's why I Mexican. I'm very impressed. so much. I want to ask about Takis because This is you know, the best hangover food you could ever have. This and chilaquiles, obviously, but they because you know,

spicy just food as accelerates your blood. And so when you're hungover, you're like Is that the Is that real hard science? No, I don't know if that's a hard science, but I have decided that I believe that. And so therefore, hangover by default. And it has to be with limon. Which is the other part. Like we call them limon, lime is lemon and lemon is lime for you guys. Should we pop these open? Yes. Okay, do you put the lime directly in the bag and shake it? We also have a bowl if you want to empty them out.

Excuse me, what do you mean? What That is the most un-Mexican thing I've ever heard. get you chopsticks. Yeah, I was going to say, don't touch the lemon. Um no, we definitely do it. And sometimes, you know, depending on how you like it, I like to leave my lemon inside of lemon, lime, however you want to call it. This was like I dreamt of getting five pesos in Mexico cuz there was like a lady that sat outside of my school and she would have like a couple of chips and always Takis and so I would beg my parents for five pesos so I could go get this. You can put Valentina. Have you ever heard of Valentina?

You have a comically And all the bottles of Valentina are this big. They're humongous. Just the thing is this We have one in the fridge. Blaine, would you mind getting the giant comical bottle of Valentina in the fridge? that's some OG. There you go, that's Valentina. Oh my god, thank you. So that's I mean, if you weren't having enough spice, let's continue. We just We didn't get this for your meal, by the way. We just had this here. Okay. This is incredible. Try this. You have to try them both. What is Oh my god. They have to be drenched. because I feel like the lime cuts the spiciness out of it. So it makes it more eatable, I guess.

I think Takis um maybe permanently changed the world palate. I think it really did. Oh, good. Let's see how you feel about Valentina in this. I'm very impressed that you can eat this. Most people would get raging diarrhea from one of these. Hey, the night is young, you know, we still got probably another hour and a half sitting here eating. We'll see. Especially when you get all the dairy in the mix. You'll chase it with a little spicy hand tuna. This is insane. Incredible. When you were on Lola y Eras una vez, you used to have an old lady that would come with a folding table and set up a little shop with like Takis and cigarettes and candy.

Was this a regular like in between takes for you? Oh, yeah. Is that how they get the children to work so hard? Yeah. And then I wonder why I was so chubby. I was just like eating away. Like did not hold back. She was my girl. I'm curious working on the telenovelas. You did more than 500 episodes of television before you turned 18. What did you learn? Really? Yeah. Did I? I believe so. That's crazy. What did you learn from doing that sheer amount of volume? I mean you did 225 episodes of Lola in one year?

It's all like a big blur. Sure. Yeah. You know, being exploited as a child is all a big blur. No, it was really great. You know, those experiences are so formative and at the time you don't realize, you know, you're just happy and excited to be there. I couldn't believe that I was getting an opportunity. I couldn't believe that someone saw Mhm. a talent in me. You know, when you're a child, you're just a little kid with dreams and you can't really tangibly see it becoming a career and so it was incredibly it never felt like work. It just was so exciting and I didn't have to get woken up in the morning like I was a

full-fledged independent child and cuz I was just so eager to go to set and so eager to learn something new. I mean listen, you're not doing like the top quality acting and it's like a crash course in performance because you don't I went to school only for like 7 months before that of acting school cuz I had convinced my mother to let me drop out of school to become an actress and I don't know what made her make that decision cuz she's crazy. But I just was like grateful that I got the opportunity and so I never really paid attention of how much I was filming or whatnot. I was just trying to learn and but I definitely look back and there's bad habits you can pick up from those things because you are on a rhythm that you

it's discombobulating. You don't have a minute to sort of stop and think, "What am I doing?" dangerous things is when you fall into those patterns, you're just you're sliding down, you know, this world pool and unless you have the inertia to make you stop, you just keep going down that route. Correct. And you're just a child and so you don't have the sense of discernment of being able to recognize whether that's a positive thing or a negative. You're just Sure. incredibly excited and eager. And so I think that once I moved to the US, it what was my strength became my weakness. And so I had to really work to undo those bad habits and you know, there's certain performances I

look back and I'm like, "God, that is brutal." You transition from a different country and stylistically, people are looking for different things in one place to another and one thing is knowing that exists. You know, I knew that there was a style of films, but I just didn't know how to make those. And so I just had real desire. But I like watch some of my performances on from Das Boot and I'm like, "This is probably some of the worst acting of all time." But I was nervous. I didn't know the language. You know, English was my second language. I'd never acted in English before. I had to really learn to be compassionate and easy on myself because I was just learning and I was doing the best I could with what I could do at the

moment, but it did it became this like undoing of bad habits from melodrama and becoming of more of a naturalistic actress in America and that's very different. I mean, stylistically night and day. Yeah, yeah. Uh dig into the sushi, please. It's it's getting cold. Um Takis and sushi, I don't know that these have been eaten. I'm sure they've been eaten together before. Definitely not at this table and definitely not by me. Where does sushi bring you in your mind? You know, sushi was something weirdly very popular in Mexico. My best friend growing up in elementary school, Sakuya, was Japanese and then her father had come to Mexico to become a chef in

one of the biggest Mexican chains called Suntory. He was a chef, so I would eat a lot of their food at her home and I became utterly obsessed. And so I just developed this passion for Japanese culture in general. Um anime was huge. I started one of like where I recognized that I had an artistic drive was through drawings and anime. So her and I would draw a lot of anime and I was really I'd watch this network called Locomotion which would play It was kind of like an adult swim, but it had all these Japanese animes from like your typical Ranma and uh Sakura Card Captors to Cowboy Bebop. And I was just genuinely obsessed with Japanese culture. So I don't know. I've always really loved anything Japanese.

I love that. I want to go back to something you said earlier when you were like, "I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that you were sort of working that much as a kid." It seems like there's kind of a lot of gray areas, which is one of the taglines of In the Gray. You're sort of working with this team that exists in moral gray areas. Do you think you have more or less clarity on your life looking back in terms of what was right and wrong? I have less clarity. I think that at the moment I felt really strongly about what was I doing and why was I doing certain things, but in hindsight I think you are a child and you're at the mercy of adults. Really old adults, too. I mean Yeah. older

men making decisions for you and sort of those decisions become, you know, your life. And I'm just reminded that I'm really grateful for having such a good mother around me that time. My mom was like a beast. You No one effed with her. Yeah. She wasn't a stage mom. She wasn't a mom that was like, "Go do this so we can make money out of you." She was just like she could see that I found happiness in the craft and you find yourself in this confusing place where like do you either support it because that brings them joy but also it could be dangerous territory. So, I don't know. I think about it sometimes if as I would let my children do it and I'm like, "No way." To your question, I look back at it and I'm like

I there's a lot of gray area. There's a lot of gray stuff that I wouldn't necessarily know how to describe or experiences that probably have shaped some trauma throughout my life. Like you never really know. You're kind of on this tightrope doing a highwire act it sounds like, you know. Everyone's watching you on the tightrope. And judging you and have an opinion about who you are, your identity, how you look, how you don't look and that becomes really jarring when you don't have an identity of your own and you're portraying a character and at the same time you're developing yourself and finding who you want to be fully. It's I have a lot of empathy for anyone that has gone through that

experience. You see all these, you know, amazing artists in this day and age that have transitioned from child stars to ginormous musicians or movie stars and I know what that experience is like and only people that have lived it know what that feels like. It's dark. It can be really dark but also makes you very advanced in the way you see the world if that makes sense. [bell] As if for the second course of your final meal on Earth. This is the main attraction. These are the chilaquiles that are this and then we have an oat milk iced latte from Blue Bottle. Oh my god. And of course all the Valentina you can drink.

Just in case. Double it up. My god, this looks incredible. Uh yeah, tell me about your love of chilaquiles. Nothing makes me feel better after a hangover than chilaquiles. Right after you eat it, you're just done. You have no hangover. We did make these from scratch. We did a roasted tomatillo, poblano, and jalapeno, and serrano salsa with a little bit of onion and cilantro. I sauteed the chips in there, add a little bit of queso fresco, crema, sunny-side up egg, and some avocado. This is incredible. Good job. I could die. I could eat chilaquiles every day for the rest of my life. And I'll be super happy. you get to.

Mhm. Oh my god. Mhm. This is so good. The thing that I find so beautiful about Mexican food is that there is so much ancient history in it. Oh yeah. Chilaquiles are likely more than a thousand years old. Uh-huh. The chilaquiles it's it's a pre-Hispanic Nahuatl word. Mhm. Right? The first tortilla was made 10,000 years ago. Like, this is a dish that connects you to something very ancient.

We were able to make food out of scra- like nothing. That was the concept of Mexico. You know, you feed the land, you grow the land, you love the land, the land gives back to you. Um and till the day that's kind of our mantra in Mexico. We give back to the soil. It's not a It's not a country that was built on big monetizing companies making this, that. I mean, I remember when I moved here the farm-to-table thing was like a concept, and I was like, "Well, isn't that the norm?" Yeah, yeah. And I think that really struck with me when I realized that it was actually not the norm. Mexico has blown up in the world, and nothing makes me happier than sharing lists of restaurants, places, bars, food. Because also, we're just

talking about food, but there's the whole drinking part of it all, as well the history of how we make mezcal, the way that we make tequila, the years that it takes, the work we work the soil, you make it with like chicken on the soil, and you're like making holes in the floor, and that hasn't changed. Like, years of generations have passed and they could have made it, you know, a fast machine and somehow it just maintained like a labor of love. It's families and generationally passed to the other one to maintain La Mezcaleria or the tequila place and it's just really enriches the soul. It reminds you that life is about that. It's not about getting the nicest car or the nicest just building this

something historic with your loved ones, you know? You are in a movie that's coming out that takes pretty much that exact thesis in life and that is I love boosters directed by Boots Riley who is a very politically radical director in a way that I love because he doesn't waver from this sort of anti-corporate, anti-consumption, anti-capitalist message. Correct. And you play a character who has the job of really explaining some heavy philosophical concepts. How much reading did you do going into that role? Well, I felt a lot of sort of responsibility because as you just said and you described perfectly Boots. Boots is someone that subtly drops mad like, you know, knowledge. Violeta is the representation of a rebellious, you know,

soul that really believes that capitalism is taking over and we need to stop it and we have to honor humanity again and she believes in the faith of humanity and honoring people and the cherry on the top obviously is that she's like incredibly knowledgeable about science and she's just this stoner geek. I've been cast in some roles that I never thought I would. I somehow I end up a lot in the science world and I don't think I necessarily scream scientist. Well, I'm curious what you think that means because I mean you started certainly in America a lot of your career playing like the femme fatale archetype, the sexy vampire, sexy robot with blades for arms, sexy bank robber.

But then like now, two of the last roles that I've seen you in you're explaining dialectical materialism and nanotechnology. I guess do you think that's imposter syndrome or do you think there's something, I don't know, kind of unscientific about what you play? The other way around. I think that the sort of presentation, immediate presentation is sort of something that it probably was projected onto me versus me choosing to do so. And when you're just starting your career, you're just

grateful getting the opportunity. Yeah, yeah. Man, [clears throat] like I just I'm like I know zero other Mexican actresses at the time that had crossed over and had a successful career like Salma and Choosing your roles seems like a real like luxury and privilege, frankly. Oh, I still don't get that. Yeah, sure. Luxury. I think that a lot of people don't talk about that. I think as a Latin woman it's really hard and it doesn't matter how many years in the career I hear from other pi- you know, women that have opened the doors that were they're still having to create those opportunities for themselves cuz people are not necessarily giving them to them. So, when you find directors that, you know, like Jay Blake said when

he gave me I Care a Lot or Boots giving me this or Benioff and Weiss offering me Three-Body Problem, you're just sort of incredibly honored and grateful that someone is seeing something outside of the stereotype in you or allowing you to expand and I've always found that interesting when it comes to specifically Latin women. I find it that it's been harder for us to sort of break through that conceptual idea of think that it's gotten better over time? Like have you seen a noticeable difference versus when you started your career in America in 2013 versus now? I think the industry has been forced to listen to audiences. I think that it's not I don't think necessarily Yeah, I don't think they were like

wanting to. They were obligated to listen to audiences and now you have Twitter and threads and people can voice their opinion about what they want to. And they're listening and so I think forced well audiences engaging with people of color and watching more interesting TV shows and blowing up movies like, you know, Sinners and movies that really are making a difference in mentioning timely subjects. I think that a lot of my peers have done an amazing job choosing the right jobs to change it. I really admire all the actors that are making a ginormous change because it is a community activity. It's not something that you individually can do.

[bell] And so for course number three of your final meal, we have the penne alla vodka with chicken. Please dig in. So we sauteed a little bit of shallots, a little bit of garlic, lit that on fire with the vodka, toasted it up some fresh tomatoes and tomato paste in there, and then just a fresh crispy chicken breast on top with some basil. Wow. Bon appetit. Bon appetito. I could eat forever. I wish I could just live to eat. I know. Do you think you'd get tired of it though? Do you have there's some sort of uh no? I think there's some sort of philosophical angle there. get tired of eating? It's like the greatest thing on Earth. I don't even think sex like lives up to it.

No. I really don't. Well, I just think sex you need to eat in between sometimes. could totally live without sex. Sometimes you need to go to 7-Eleven in between to get a couple of taquitos on the rollers. I could never quit food. Like I could never I could quit anything. Food, it's just we don't deserve it. Someone posed this question to me. Not just food, but sex or sauce. I mean, if food above all. This food. I agree. Traveling the world is only fun cuz you're eating. Mhm. Because truly if you think about it, it's like uncomfortable.

Agreed. But what soothes the process is food. That's why you started a very successful acting career just so you could get your traveling around the world and eating funded. And I love that for you. It is the best. I think I was 18 the first time I moved outside of Mexico and I lived in Argentina for 4 years. And I experienced living in a different country and tasting new food and experiencing different culture and it I never stopped realizing from there on that there was the most amazing part of our job. I mean, learned so much from different cultures and different people stylistically how they work in a different place.

You really traveled the world a lot with Guy Ritchie cuz this is you've now done three movies with him in I think about 3 years is when they've come out. I mean, you traveled all over doing the Fountain of Youth as well. What do you think it says about you that you've had so many repeat collaborators? You're obviously somebody that people really want to work with. It's the never-ending imposter syndrome. You go into these sets and I think it's taken me a while to believe that I'm worthy of being part of it. I think there's internally my own stuff and then obviously my own I think that no one really gets the

opportunity to fully believe that they're being able to be part of this world and we go to these sets and work with our idols. And you can never fully process that, I think, because we're all children. Like that's what I tell people when like, "What's like Hollywood?" I'm like, "We're all the same we're just children obsessed with make-believe and just excited to like put on in a costume and say words and with the people that you looked up to. So, Guy Ritchie being one of them. Sometimes people get the chance to see you and he saw me and that was very meaningful and I had the chance to do that with other people and in this movie specifically I repeat with all my co-stars and with him I worked with Jake, I've worked with Henry and I

worked with Rosamund. Yeah. So, it was a really beautiful feeling to revisit a set with people. You see it a lot with other actors. You see Emma, you know, Stone repeating over and over again. With Viggo, it's like you it's fun. It's fun when you sort of get the chance. It feels like high school. You're like playing believe and like what are we going to play like today? Like it's just fun. Yeah. Your life seems like it's really been this form of contrast causing change. We have a bit of a surprise. I'm curious if this Subway turkey sandwich with pepper jack cheese and extra chipotle southwest sauce jogs any memories on where you

might have been while eating this. Oh. And what was going on in your life? God. Well, I ate this for years and years on end when I moved to LA. This was like my go-to. By the way, I think Subway is the I love you, Subway. I could eat Subway forever as well. Uh I know there's one person alive to buy Subway, that's me. You're [snorts] holding up the entire 30,000 Subway economy. When I just moved to LA, Mhm. I was it was the only time I've had a roommate, my roommate. It was me and her. Her dog was named Taquito. Subway was right behind our apartment.

Like it was the one place and obviously like I wasn't spending thousands of dollars in food. I was just like saving up money to make it in Hollywood. And so Subway was my go-to food and like af- after every failed audition, um or a hangover, of course, that's why I brought up that I'm an alcoholic. I wasn't alcoholic. I would always like eat Subway, but it would got to a point that I just ate Subway 24/7. And once I like moved up in the world and I was able to like afford my own apartment and whatnot, I still kept this tradition of going to Subway after my auditions and no matter what, failed or successful, I would eat my turkey, pepper jack, extra chipotle. Yum.

I love that so much. Do you view your life in sort of different eras? Because when you came to America, you're eating all this Subway in that apartment, it was because you had like a really public traumatic breakup. And even when you started acting, it was when your father passed away in the motorcycle accident. And you hadn't had any acting experience before that. Mhm. From the outside looking in at least, it seems like you've had these very traumatic events, and then that sort of activates you in this way to where you just zoom forward. Is that because you're trying to not look back? I don't view weirdly my life as traumatic. And therefore, you know, that's trauma itself. You just live it and you're in survival mode and sometimes in

interviews like if I could people, you know, you could change something and I go, I wouldn't even change my father's death. And that sounds really dark if you think about it, but it just makes you it like builds you. It's the foundation of the human that you become. You're the way that you deal with adversity and the way you try to progress process things. And so Sure. But it's also given me the strength to put up with a very grueling career. And everyone sees the you know, this interview and the talk and the ha and he and no one talks about like the dark side of when you're not getting opportunities or you don't have money to pay the rent or you're like chasing a dream and you dropped out of school. Like I think

about it all the time. I'm like, my mom is a lunatic. I dropped out of school. What if this didn't work out? I would be really in trouble. I wouldn't have But also Shiri, like what if it didn't work out? Because I think your mom maybe had faith. I mean, your mom, you know, was pregnant when she was 18 in orthodontic school. And you I mean, like there was I'm sure so many what ifs in her own life that she's shown a mirror on and said, well I think you've just nailed it in the head. I think it is faith and having faith is the most important thing. And I think that in a world where all not really seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, I think faith and belief in yourself is the most important thing.

And I don't shy away from the that I realized that I was very lucky that things worked out for me because it could have gone really badly. And with the whole world watching. Tightrope. world and also an insane Mexican media. It is. And that's why I admire anyone that chases their dreams. I really do. And when you see them celebrating them and being proud and maybe sometimes cocky and conceited about it. Like sometimes you have to. You know what I mean? Sometimes you have to hype yourself up and like believe it because we are living in a world that everyone's trying to knock you down with humbleness or like make you feel like you're not worthy of

something. And we live in a hyper-aware world. Back in the day, you're sort of living your career and trying your best and you didn't really have a sense of what the other sounding voices outside were thinking about you. Now you just got to open Twitter and got humbled real quick. I deleted all social media from my phone. I'm free. Oh, it's so nice. It's so crushing because ESPN app that I scroll through constantly now. That's it. With I don't think that you can be a creative human being if you're highly aware of what's being talked about you. I just don't think you can be in this creative flow and create art and be free of yourself. And so I do feel a lot of empathy for us and for the people

that are like following and starting their careers in this environment because I still when I was doing Lola and I was doing all my soap operas and even when I started here I didn't really have that. I wasn't really looking at what the Twitterverse was thinking about or the letterbox or the this and that. I just was doing things and I was thrilled by that. And now everything is a you know if the announcement came out or this came out or the review came out, it's not about the art anymore. And I think we got to just like shove that away. Be creative, do whatever the hell you want to be doing, and I really think you have to be courageous and push through and like push away from the trauma and let that go. But it is hard, you know.

I never know if I should let that trauma go or sort of keep it in my back pocket as something to fuel me, but I don't think you can let go of trauma. I don't think that's a real thing. It's in your backpack regardless. It follows you forever and it like flares up like in the most strange random places. I find myself flaring up in the most bizarre ways and really taking in a beating to be like, "Wow, I didn't know that was in me." But it's beautiful. I think trauma is beautiful. I think that adversity is beautiful. I think that being someone that pushes through and it's messy. And it's okay to be messy, too. I think that

again, life is very complicated and so and we're living in a very crazy time. Yeah. I had something that a therapist said to me once cuz I was sort of going on my own rehearsed spiel about I'm grateful for my traumas because that's what's made me blah. And she kind of had to stop me and go like, "Have you ever thought that you're successful not because of your traumas, but in spite of them?" And I just broke down and started It's true. Cuz it was the first time somebody could sort of Like recognize it. and say, "You're You're okay to let down that guard." That I'm sure she'd seen a thousand times before. Do you ever feel like you're able to let that guard down?

Yeah, it's hard for It really is hard for me. I You know, it's it's experiences harden you and I think that becomes challenging to any individual and you really start getting older and you're more set in your ways and instead of being more malleable. But I think that's what I like about our career is you are forced to continue to be malleable and if you're not, then that's kind of the death of your career because that feeling itself, that act itself is what fuels growth as a performer. And so, I just I'm grateful that I always can fall back into the craft and I can always go back to acting cuz it reminds me that you can't harden yourself in a specific way. You have to consistently keep it moving.

And art lets you be that vessel. And so I'm really I always say it, my career has really saved me over and over again. It's a double-edged sword, you know, it's it's both so brutal and there's days that I can't pick up myself from bed and like I don't believe in myself and I don't think I can do it and I think I'm a fluke. I'm a impostor. I don't know how I've made it this far. And then there's days that I'm like wow, this job really has given me purpose in life. And so it's just I think, you know, I can only talk about my personal experience, but everyone could probably feel that way if they're getting the chance to do in a career that they're passionate about. And so I'm I never take for granted my career.

I really will endlessly thank anyone that thinks of me to be able to keep on doing it. [bell] Aiza, for the final course of your final meal on Earth, we have the chocolate fondant, the lava cake, and arroz con Please dig in. This is a fresh meringue cake with ganache baked in the center. And we run about a 78% success rate on it being molten. Okay, here we go. And this moment is wow. Yes. Look at this beauty. This is so naughty, you guys. You really chose correctly your job your day job. you and I both figured it out pretty solidly.

Mhm. Oh my god. I like watching other people do food dances, but I feel creepy now. do it? I'm just like I'm going to hear. This is where I really stop being Mexican and really start being white. Yeah. It's I'm just here. It's the off time. They're laughing cuz they know. off time for sure. I just You need to have a little food dance. It's not You're not eating good food if you're You're dancing. Did you know? So that leads into single a single stoic white guy fist pump, you know? So good. like That's so American of you.

Listen, I just had a go bro. When was the first time you had chocolate fondue? It must have been with my best friend that I was telling you about Zakiya cuz they did it at that restaurant and it was like very fancy restaurant and I was like this is what life is about. Especially as a kid, this is like the most exciting thing that could possibly happen. Do you Have you had arroz con leche before? I have. I'm a huge fan. We did this fresh. We boiled the rice in the milk, added a little bit of cinnamon, a little bit of lime zest actually just to sort of set it off.

Oh my god. That's how we do. Mhm. See that we get you a little dance. Yeah. Kind of like give the hips a little bit. Woohoo! It's so good. I want to ask you about a clip of you that went viral from Hot Ones where you were able to cry on command through one eye. And that was spectacular, but I'm curious the context behind it cuz you said that there's like a 5-year period where you didn't cry and couldn't cry. And it was only through acting like at that high pace that sort of allowed you to find that emotion again.

Was there something in finding that emotion acting that allowed you to grieve in a way? 100%. I truly Again, that's the beauty of the craft. Um And I always love watching. I remember when I was young I'd watch The Actor's Studio a lot. Um and I wanted to go to that school and I eventually made it into Strasberg. But it started from there where I would watch actors explain what were they experiencing while creating a character whatnot and sometimes it was completely the opposite where as comedians were having, you know, they're making a comedy and but they're sort of grieving something really dark that had

happened and they would bring up the death of a parent or a death of a loved one, and I always I remember finding that confusing. But then, if I applied the same rule to my life, I think about my beginnings, and I was doing, you know, optimistic, fun, childlike characters that are fun and happy and sassy and all these things, but I was really in a dark, dark, dark place. Like, I was dealing with heavy, heavy depression over my father's death. It was really hard for me. I dealt with a lot of bullying when I was young, and I never really was able to process that.

Um that was categorically a big, big catapult into why I grieved through performance, and obviously it has exacerbated once my father passed, and I really, as you said, I couldn't cry, I couldn't deal with emotions, and but that guided me to push harder. You know, I was like, this is not going to limit me. I'm I'm not going to be limited by what I'm experiencing in this moment, cuz I can come on the other side. And I don't know, I'm 12 years old. How do I know this? I don't know, but it's the I really find incredible children. Children are incredible. I always think about it, because when we're older, we are set in our ways, and we sort of deal I find myself dealing with things way worse now than I was

when I was younger. I had so much more fire in me and maturity to see further down the line. Maybe it's ignorance, maybe ignorance is bliss, and there's so many opportunities yet to meet. But I do find that children deal in the most amazing ways, and so I love that the craft allows us to explore and dive into different areas of our lives and tip our toes and use it as a catalyst to process emotions. It's I mean again, how lucky are we? Not a lot of people get to do that and now I'm like a crying machine. Now I cry about everything. When I get to work with kids, you know, and in Three-Body Problem in the next season, I work with a kid and he's just

it's amazing to observe cuz it brought me back to when I was a child and I was him in his age and I was living exactly what he was living and I was just it's it's magical the transition of life and the process of life and how you kind of can come back to who you were before and recognize it in other people and see wow, I was once that little person and he might not be able to explain a lot of things, but he's so full of life and ideas and creativity and so earnestly living and I I don't know. Sometimes I kind of dabble between like would I ever leave or allow my children to do this career and I'm like, hell no. And then I'm like, absolutely. This is like the most amazing career. Again, I wouldn't change a thing.

Yeah. We ask everyone in the show, what do you think happens when you die? What happens when you die? You just die. You're just gone. Hasta luego. Was that all of your uh Bye. Was that all of your philosophy or is that something that came I've just had a lot of death in my life since a very from a very young age. A lot of death, you know, within 1 year four people died in my life. Like all my grandparents and my father. And that was such an early stage of my life and then it just kept happening for a lot of my life and I think that it's something, you know, I think about death every day. I don't know if you think about death every day. There's

people that don't. I'm flabbergasted. I revisit a lot like my dad died at 42. Mhm. When my dad died and I was young, I thought that was so old. I was like, he is so freaking old. He's so old, that's totally normal to die. Now I'm so close to that age. Well, not so close. Close-ish. Like 15 years old. Like a little bit close-ish-ish. And I think, "Wow, holy cow, like 42 is so young." Like he lost his entire life and that just gives you so much perspective about things. And I'm like, at 42, he you know, he didn't see me grow. He didn't see He didn't even know what an iPhone was. Like it blows my mind sometimes. I'm like, he didn't know what an iPhone was.

He never saw it. And it just goes to show that life is just this magnificent experience that we get to do. And we're all, again, I repeat, we're in this massive consuming world, where we're like, "And the next thing, and the next job." And I catch myself like, "And the next thing, and if the next job, if the And we're just so consumed by it. And we're not realizing like right now, right now, this is amazing. We're here. Like I'm having a conversation with you about food and like my history and where I come from and my family and my tribe.

Yeah. And that's all that matters. And then you die. And then nothing mattered. And so, that's my thoughts about death. Like the aftermath, who gives a You ready to go on the lightning round? Yes, oh my goodness. Who's the one person, dead or alive, you don't want to share your actual last meal with? Dead or alive? Yeah. My dad. What song do you want to be played at your funeral? Uh some like deep trap. Like I wouldn't want to people to go down and like party and just be like some Bad Bunny, probably.

Tortillas de maíz o tortillas de harina? Maíz. Who's your dream eulogizer at your funeral? Mmm, wow. Bad Bunny might be cheaper cuz he's not performing. Yeah. So I think then the rates would drop. He'd be like, "Mommy, Mommy, ya tu sabes. Dale. Who's sexier, Jafar from Aladdin or Jack Skellington? Wow, I see what you did there. Hmm. You know, Jafar really awakened some dark thoughts in me. Jafar was my sexual awakening. But I was like my like first love was Jack Skellington, so it's hard.

What's your biggest fear? My biggest fear? Death. What did Christoph Waltz's face taste like? Rich. What's your greatest regret in life? Biggest regret? Not continuing my singing career. Hmm. Finally, is uh are you happy? Not really. But it's okay. That is okay. the best answer. And maybe the closest answer that I would be able to give. Is it truly I mean you are absolutely refreshing. Uh what a wonderful time. I could geek out about Mexican food all day. Thank you for being here. If you want to deliver your last words to that camera right there.

Dale. In the words of Pitbull, Daddy Yankee, and all the greats that came before, check out In the Gray in theaters May 15th. I love Boosters 522, both only in theaters. Yes, only in theaters. the theater. Go to the theaters. Watch original movies, original movies. We need more of those. Please support original stories. And someone subsidize the Raisinets industry. The Raisinets are going to die unless we buy them at movie theaters. I don't like Raisinets. It's okay. They can die. The perfect way to elevate all of your meals, the Last Meals Bar Set is available now at mythical.com.