In the Game at Last

‘For your consideration.”

That one phrase, as brief and subtly ingratiating as the maitre d’ at Indochine, filled the trade papers earlier this year once the conga line of little gold statuettes began dancing in Hollywood’s collective conscience. In the Jan. 10 edition of the Hollywood Reporter, that phrase was bannered across the seductively serene features of Elizabeth Pena, touted for a best supporting actress Oscar nomination.

Pena, nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and winner of a Bravo Award (from the National Council of La Raza) for her role in John Sayles’ “Lone Star,” was passed over by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her rich, humane portrayal of Pilar, a Mexican American mother, schoolteacher and lover, was a standout performance in a three-dimensional role, a Latin woman playing a Latin woman who isn’t a maid or the proverbial “hot tamale.”

It hasn’t been since the 1940s that so many actresses of Latin descent have been on the brink of major Hollywood stardom. They owe their rising profile to talent, years of hard work and an evolving zeitgeist within the Latino filmmaking community, if not in the rules of Hollywood itself.

“I think we’re at the advent of a period where we will once again have bankable Latino stars,” says Gilbert Avila, executive administrator of affirmative action at the Screen Actors Guild. “Young, talented performers like Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez who are breaking out in non-Latino-themed films have done their homework and are now ready to be co-stars and stars in big-budget films.”

What explains the growing number of roles for forthrightly Latin actresses who aren’t playing spitfires, domestics or even particularly ethnic roles? Is Hollywood’s lack of imagination about what’s sexy, profitable and what the public wants to see actually changing?

“We’re what’s changing,” Pena says. “We’re showing more self-respect in the way we handle roles and offers. I’ve seen actors fight to put flesh on roles, refusing to play a cartoon character.”

“I’ve had arguments with casting directors and turned down roles that reinforce the stereotypes,” says Constance Marie, the 28-year-old actress who ages 20 years playing Selena’s mother in the Warner Bros. biopic opening Friday. “It’s not easy, because I have to pay my rent, but if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

Salma Hayek, star of “Fools Rush In,” agrees: “There’s more of us who keep fighting. We’re working because we’re not letting what others assume about us define us. As long as we don’t let the big Hollywood machine rule the way we think, what we achieve isn’t limited by them.”

With the opening of “Selena,” a major studio project with Latinos in the key creative seats in front of and behind the camera, and the million-dollar payday for Jennifer Lopez as the slain tejano sensation, Latin actresses are more in demand than ever. Their bankability is unproven, but in Hollywood, as in politics, perception is reality.

But it is, ironically, Hollywood’s perception that is perhaps the biggest obstacle to all that promise paying off.

Lopez, 26, who is already benefiting from the buzz surrounding “Selena,” is an example of the industry’s enduring Catch-22 facing young women of color.

Lopez’s career had already been building steadily over the last few years with featured roles in big-budget studio products like “Money Train” and “Jack.” When it came to casting the hotly contested role of Selena, the beloved young singer who was slain by an employee in March 1995, director Gregory Nava knew exactly what he wanted.

“I like Latino casts for artistic, not political, reasons,” he explains. “Casting Jennifer gave me a head start as a director. She already had the heartbeat. Preview audiences love her for the same reason audiences loved Selena. It’s because she’s wonderful, her talent and humanity shine through--not because she’s Latin.”

Lopez’s management declined requests for an interview with the actress for this article, wanting to avoid having her characterized as a Latina actress. It’s not that Lopez doesn’t want to be known as Latin--she hasn’t changed her name or turned down the most high-profile Latin role in the biggest Latin-themed picture since “La Bamba.” It’s that she and her managers don’t want her to be limited by her ethnicity. The fear is that she will be locked in Hollywood’s perception as only Latin.

“She should absolutely be positioned as a leading lady and they should insist she do crossover projects, but she’s playing Selena, for God’s sake,” says actress Rose Portillo, who starred in “Zoot Suit,” the first Latino-themed film made by Latinos to send ripples through Hollywood.

“The problem is the belief that if she speaks out about being Latin as a Latin, she won’t be considered a leading actress and get to compete in the big leagues.”

“That whole mentality comes out of a mind-set people have of what it means to be Latino,” says “Selena” director Nava, between reel changes during a dubbing session. “We’re still very much pigeonholed as types, as opposed to individual talents. Actors, like writers, directors and everyone else, have to fight notions of what we should be like in order to be who we are. Our work and our talent is shattering these concepts, but they’re still out there.”

The biz, goes the logic, requires an actress, especially an aspiring leading lady, to walk the fine line between personal identity and casting perceptions. Besides, managers, agents and publicists argue, after Evita, Frida and Selena, how many Latin legends are there yearning for development anyway? A breakthrough role is not a career.

“The Hollywood process is usually to stereotype minority performers,” says the actors guild’s Avila. “Performers who are very dedicated to portraying any role are concerned that playing a Latin or Latino will eliminate any other category of performance or roles.”

The distinction between actresses who are Latin and Latin actresses may seem subtle, but it’s the difference between a leading lady and Maid No. 2 in Hollywood’s notoriously myopic vision.

“Hollywood is the biggest problem, but it’s not the only one,” Hayek exclaims, moving to the edge of her seat. “We’re part of the problem too.”

Just before the Valentine’s Day opening of Hayek’s romantic comedy “Fools Rush In,” the Mexican actress, 26, sat on David Letterman’s hot seat. Arching her back and crossing her legs like a postmodern Charo, Hayek presented herself in the grand tradition of hot starlets dating to Theda Bara’s coiled asp pasties. The woman knows her market.

A few days earlier at a Beverly Hills bistro, Hayek proved to be an astute young businesswoman, insightful about the personal and professional traps of Hollywood. Although she learned English only five years ago after arriving in Los Angeles as the star of a Mexican television diario, Hayek is passionate and articulate.

“We all know there’s discrimination,” Hayek says impatiently. “Why talk about it again? Making excuses is boring. I refuse to sit here and say, ‘They don’t want to cast me, because I’m Mexican.’ Being Mexican doesn’t limit me. Having an accent limits me.”

Pena is also tired of Latino actors casting themselves as the eternal outsider:

“I hate reading articles about Latinos in Hollywood, because it sounds like we’re always bitching about the same damn thing. The question of typecasting and lack of access is a big yawn. Every time we project ourselves as a victim, the subliminal ‘them’ keeps us stuck in that place.”

“I’ve been in this business 11 years and most of that time couldn’t get seen for any role that wasn’t specifically Latin,” Marie says. “But living my life as a victim is not a comfy place to be.”

“I’ve been discriminated against, but I won’t complain about it,” Hayek says forcefully. “I don’t want to tell you how many times I was told I couldn’t be a successful actress in Hollywood. I was laughed at for six years. But if we’re only focused on the things we don’t have, we’re not working with what we do have.”

Actresses like Portillo may not have the same profile and opportunities as this new generation of Latin leading ladies, but they share the same attitude. Among performers who aren’t sitting at home sifting through offers, a growing number are also working toward future opportunities rather than lamenting past limitations.

“I’m optimistic,” says Portillo, now filming “In the Mirror” for PBS, in which she plays a doctor mentoring another Latino in the medical profession. “I was at an audition for a Latin role, and I heard all the same complaints about how hard it is. A lot of us are so tired of this conversation. Years ago it was needed, but we must stop talking, stop playing victims, ignore the Hollywood wisdom and get on with it.

“Dwelling on discrimination isn’t beneficial to me, to the culture or to the world of art. What’s beneficial is to do the work, be part of the change and focus on the way we want things to be.”

For a chosen few, focusing on the solution instead of the problem appears to be paying off. The women themselves are in demand, and the range of roles is growing.

Pena, who played the spitfire maid in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” stars as a TV reporter and the object of a politician’s desire in “The Second Civil War,” airing on HBO this month. Hayek portrays the gypsy Esmeralda in “The Hunchback,” a TNT original movie premiering tonight. Marie just completed a television pilot, and Lopez has already appeared this year opposite Jack Nicholson in “Blood and Wine” and stars in “Anaconda,” opening April 11; she has also been cast in Oliver Stone’s “U-Turn,” with Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton and Sean Penn.

None of these parts fits into the tradition of two-dimensional Latin roles. Each is the female lead.

“Revolutions happen one person at a time,” Pena says. “Honoring ourselves as human beings and becoming the best actors is the way to succeed. Hollywood’s notion of what roles we can play will have to change.”

“I’m very impressed and excited to see these women breaking the mold,” Nava says. “Huge barriers exist for Latinas on every level, not just for actresses. Success affects how things are perceived.

“People are right to complain that only 2% of characters on TV are Latino, but we can’t just complain. We have to act positively and look in ourselves to do work that makes the point.”

These actresses are not blind to the obstacles or uninterested in changing things now that the scripts are piling up. They are simply refusing to allow themselves or their careers to be defined by them.

They also refuse to be defined by the Latino watchdog groups that speak out against typecasting and the lack of opportunities in Hollywood. While the media embrace every ethnic casting controversy, and protests against Latino invisibility in film and TV erupt with regularity, an increasing number in Latino Hollywood choose a less confrontational path. It’s the work that will make all the difference, they say. After all, they are actors, not activists.

“I’m not qualified to start an organization or go up to the presidents of the studios and tell them I’m furious because they overlook our beauty,” Hayek says. “It’s good there are those who do, but my contribution is to put my heart into my work and show everybody we can do it and, hopefully, inspire actors who’ve been told they can’t.”

“There’s a role for groups whose job it is to make a lot of noise,” Marie says. “The squeaking wheel gets the oil, but if all we do is squeak, we become victims.”

“I believe in creating change from within,” says Jackie Guerra, 29, a vivacious and direct former union organizer-turned-actress making her feature debut as Selena’s sister. “While we have to create and nurture our own and stick together, we still have to work with everyone else. We have to have a collaborative, not a confrontational, attitude. Staying true to our experience and perspective is the change.”

“Selena crossed over being who she was,” Nava says. “What a lesson for us all.”

Still, Hollywood is slow on the uptake. Just ask Jennifer Lopez’s managers, or the actresses themselves.

“The hardest thing is to be seen as someone who is simply part of the larger culture,” Guerra says. “There are a lot of shades of womanhood between the whore and the maid. Every Michelle Pfeiffer role isn’t about being a WASP, so why should every time we go out for a role it has to be about being Latin?”

Guerra, whose sitcom “First Time Out” aired on the WB network last year, is on a professional roll.

“Until we’re playing Jewish roles, Italian roles, WASP roles in mainstream movies, anyone who casts Marisa Tomei as Cuban,” as she was in “The Perez Family,” has got a lot to answer for, Guerra says.

“I think the next step is to get to the point where casting is not about the color of our skin but about us being good actresses,” Marie says.

Beyond Hollywood’s resistance to casting Latinas in non-ethnic roles, Latina actresses have previously not even been considered to play Latinas in high-profile, big-budget pictures.

Casting Anglo actresses in Latin roles has long been justified in Hollywood as a name game. Whether Tomei in “The Perez Family,” or Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and Winona Ryder in “The House of the Spirits,” name actresses supposedly translate into box office. (Possibly not by coincidence, both of those films were major box-office disappointments.) The usual line is that there are no name Latina actresses. All that is changing.

“I won’t name names, but Warner Bros. was talking to other types to play Selena,” Nava says. “When I made ‘Mi Familia,’ the studio, New Line, wanted to cast non-Latinas because there weren’t any Latin names. I said no, and I fought hard. It was Jennifer Lopez’s first film, Constance Marie’s first film. Now everyone’s going crazy for these actresses.”

While a high-profile failure like “House of the Spirits” reveals the frustration behind the name game, the history of the Frida Kahlo project floating around Hollywood for years, at one point as a Madonna vehicle, reveals the shift in the politics and economics of casting. Initially not a single Latina was seriously considered for the part of the Mexican painter. Hayek has recently expressed her interest in the project.

“These performers are making a name for themselves and in the process breaking barriers for others,” says the Screen Actors Guild’s Avila. “The more a film or a star is bankable, the more Hollywood returns to the formula to find more stars and more money.”

Where Margarita Cansino was transformed into Rita Hayworth to become a Hollywood star, actresses with names like Lopez and Pena are flouting the stereotypes and placing themselves in contention “for your consideration.” Their presence not only affects the politics of casting but promises to change the face of Hollywood as well, creating opportunities for other Latinas.

“Everything’s changing now,” Nava says. “These actresses have reached this point because, like Selena, they don’t see the barriers. They are bold, positive and going for it. They’re not burdened by the junk us older Latinos are. They won’t be typecast, because they don’t see themselves that way.”