Eva Mendes is a Girl In Progress

by Gladys Rios | May 9, 2012

This Mother’s Day weekend get ready to see Eva Mendes like you have never seen her before.

In the new movie Girl In Progress, Mendes stars as a young single mom (Grace) of a teenage girl (Ansiedad) who is trying to speed up the process to adulthood with a series of rite of passages, inspired by the coming-of-age stories she’s studying at school and the lack of attention she gets from her mom, who is juggling work, bills, and dating. As the plan starts to backfire, they both learn that sometimes growing up means acting your age.

“The fact that I’m not a mother works for this [role, because I don’t think Grace sees herself as a mother. She had her child and she had never lived up to the responsibility of it all,” said Mendes. And although Mendes had said before that she doesn’t want to have kids, she explains, “I like to be a little provocative when I say things, which is terrible. It's not that I’m against having children, nothing like that, but doing this film just brought back memories. Oh my god, if I do have a kid it’s going to be payback time and everything I did is coming back to me.”

One of the reasons Mendes is so excited to talk about this film is “to promote young talent.” This young talent she refers to is Cierra Ramirez, who plays her daughter in the film. “It’s exciting for me to work with someone that has so much hope and so much going for her,” she added.

On the other hand, Ramirez thinks it was an honor to play Mendes’ daughter in this film. When describing the kind of rapport they had on set, Ramirez says, “Our relationship on set was really... I don’t know, I think you [talking to Mendes like to stay in character throughout your entire...” But Mendes interrupts, “No, I’m just really that goofy! No, no, no. I’m really that obnoxious. [Laughs Te lo prometo, te lo juro. That’s me.”

For two weeks, Ramirez worked closely with director Patricia Riggen to bring Ansiedad, and the other characters within the character, to life. When asked about her inspiration, she says, “Growing up I’ve seen that kind of relationship between mothers and daughters, and it’s a universal thing, it doesn’t have to be with just Latinas. I’ve seen it in a lot of races, and I brought that to life, just feeding off of them and everything they had gone through.”

“It’s not a movie of the Latina experience, it's a movie of the female experience. Being a woman, being a mom, being a daughter, the conflicts and how to overcome and succeed,” explains Riggen. “It was important for me to make a film that could be seen by the audience of which this film is about, 13 year-old girls,” she added.

Working for a second time with the Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez, was a no brainer for Riggen, who will have him in all her projects, if possible. “I love him as an actor, because he has something mysterious, very enigmatic, and I love discovering all of the dramatic sides that he won’t explore anywhere else,” she said. For Derbez, mostly known for his comedic acting, jumping to Hollywood hasn’t been easy. “The hardest part has been the language, translating from Spanish to English without losing my essence, without losing being me,” he explains. Mission Impossible, his character in Girl In Progress is loosely based on himself, noting that he is “very shy” in real life.

During the moviemaking process, Riggen likes to integrate the music to the story instead of adding it in post production, reason why she asked Espinoza Paz, musician and composer of Mexican Regional music, to join this project, on what has become his film debut.

Raini Rodriguez, known for her role in a successful TV show, plays Tavita, Ansiedad’s best friend. She was excited for this dramatic role, a big switch from comedy which is her forte. She had nothing but great things to say about the rest of the cast and the director, “Patricia is very fun to work with. She connects with you on a personal level. She likes to sit down and really talk to you and help you figure out what your character’s like. She is a great director.”

Girl In Progress opens nationwide on May 11, 2012.