Gina Rodriguez: I’m the happiest when I make romcoms

Golden Globe Award-winning Hollywood star Gina Rodriguez, known for playing as Jane Villanueva in satirical romantic dramedy series Jane the Virgin, believes an artiste should create an art that makes them happy, and in her case, it is the romantic comedies that bring absolute joy to her. She currently stars in Amazon romcom "I Want You Back".

The 37-year-old actor said she tried her hand at different genres with films like Alex Garland's Annihilation (2018) and actioner Miss Bala (2019) but she has come to a realisation that doing romantic comedies is what she enjoys the most.

“I love romcoms. I think it took me a really long time to be okay with making the art that I actually love to make. I always wanted people to see me in all these different lights and I wanted to be like, ‘Look, I can act like this and I can act like this.’ And then I was ‘But when I make romcoms, I'm the happiest’,” Rodriguez told PTI in a Zoom interview from Los Angeles.

She believes that it was her “ego” that drove her to experiment with her choices as an actor. “I believe that was a growing process. I had to get over wanting people to see me in all these different lights and shades, and really be confident that it was okay to do the art that I love. That's where I find a lot of joy in making people laugh and cry.”

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Gina currently stars in Amazon romantic comedy "I Want You Back", co-starring Jenny Slate, Charlie Day, Scott Eastwood, Manny Jacinto, and Clark Backo.

Rodriguez said she wanted to be a part of the movie, which currently streams on Prime Video, as it features characters that are inspired by the real world. “It was wonderful to see a group of people that looked a little bit more diverse as the real world. It was nice to be a part of that. And I want to be a part of just that. At the end of the day, what, we're all human and we all relate to the movie in different ways. But we all have a relation to it because we are human and at the most basic level, we all want love. I think this is what Jason, the writers, and Amazon did with the movie. They wrote about human beings and how they really look like in the real world.”

I Want You Back follows the story of Peter (Day) and Emma (Slate), two recently-dumped strangers who team up to sabotage the new relationships of their former partners. Rodriguez stars in the movie as Anne, Peter's former girlfriend who dumped him and begins a new relationship with Logan, her co-worker at the school where she is a teacher.  The actor said she got really "lucky" with the movie as she wanted to work with the film's director, Jason Orley, as well as writer duo, Isaac Aptaker & Elizabeth Berger.

"I got really lucky. When I first got the script and found out that it was Isaac and Elizabeth who wrote it, I was already very excited and anticipating something with a really strong script. They obviously exceeded my expectations because they are incredible writers. I was also a really big fan of Jason Orley, who had studied with Nancy Myers and I felt like he was taught by the queen of romcoms... So there was this really awesome opportunity to be in a script that was undeniable and with an awesome director," she added.

I Want You Back is produced by Peter Safran and John Rickard of The Safran Company, along with Aptaker and Berger of The Walk-Up Company.