First-Time Actor Yalitza Aparicio Brings Alfonso Cuarón's Memories to Life in Roma
Entertainment
Roma has been the talk of this year’s festival circuit, from the ones in Toronto and Venice to the New York Film Festival last week. It’s also quite literally the talk of Colonia Roma, Mexico City, the district in which the movie is set. Alfonso Cuarón’s latest project—his first in five years, following its Academy Award-winning predecessor, Gravity—is the director’s most intimate work yet. A semi-autobiography, built almost entirely on memory—Cuarón’s, and those of his nanny (and second mother figure) at the time, Libo (Cleo, in the film)—Roma is a deeply personal look at the struggles of women in a middle-class family in Roma, Mexico City, during 1971, a time of heightened political unrest.
For Cuarón, the film was about coming “to terms with the elements that forged” him, he told the audience in Toronto. For the viewer, it’s about recognizing that “existence is nothing but a shared experience of loneliness,” he said later at the New York screening. The film, fittingly, rolls out like a string of vivid recollections, shot in 65mm black-and-white. The actors seem as equally taken aback by the events unfolding on screen as the viewer—an intentional choice on Cuarón’s part. He and executive producer David Linde were the only ones who read the script throughout the six-month filming process. The actors never held a physical copy and were only made aware of scenes and plot advances on the day of shooting.
So when Aparicio’s character had to dive into a roaring ocean to save two children and later give birth in the movie, she says the process felt visceral as a first-time actor. Aparicio, a 24-year-old pre-school teacher from Heroica Ciudad de Tlaxiaco de Oaxaca, plays the role of Cleo. Two years ago, at 22, she put her life on pause, learned Mixteco, and helped tell the story of the woman who helped raise Cuarón and his siblings while her own life was being put through the wringer. We met on a Sunday at Essex House to talk about what it was like to have Roma be her first acting experience, her thoughts on the film being labeled as feminist, and what cultural aspects of early 1970s Mexico remain the same. Our conversation has been translated from Spanish and lightly edited for clarity.
JEZEBEL: When and how did you meet Alfonso Cuarón, and how did he convince you to play the role of Cleo?
YALITZA APARICIO: I met him in Mexico City on the penultimate day of castings. We were told that the movie would be shot in Mexico, but they never said who the director would be—which, honestly, wouldn’t have helped because I didn’t know who he was. I looked him up and I still didn’t think it was him because he’s so much skinnier now! In fact, I was hesitant to go to the casting because I thought it could’ve been a trafficking scam. My family feared I wouldn’t come back, so my mom came with me. After the final casting, I met Marina De Tavira, and Cuarón asked us if we had time to work on his movie. I laughed and said, “Well, I’m not doing anything, and I need the job.” I had just finished college. Plus, the first time I met him, he was so amicable and made everyone around him feel like a longtime friend. So that security of knowing he was a good person convinced me as well.
He then told me, ‘Now, you’re going to discover how her story unfolds.’ I lived it as if it was my life.
And how did he explain the film’s synopsis and plot line to you without a physical script?
He simply told me it was a very personal story. He said, “It’s my life. I’m going to take a risk to make it and we’ll see how it comes out.” There was no script. He told me, “We’re going to tell Libo’s story.” Libo and Cleo are one and the same. He then told me everything he knew about Libo’s story prior to where the film kicks off—where she came from, her origins, how she arrived at his house when he was a child, and her relationship with her family. He then told me, “Now, you’re going to discover how her story unfolds.” I lived it as if it was my life.
You were Cleo.
I was. Plus, everyone called me Cleo because it’s so much easier to say than my actual name [laughs]. I submerged myself in her character as if it was my own.