Colombian actress, Natalia Reyes, recently spoke to Colombian magazine EL TIEMPO about her career trajectory; moving from theater school, to reality T.V (Colombian Popstars), to breaking into mainstream Hollywood with the upcoming tent-pole movie – Terminator: Dark Fate.
*All quotes are translated
““I don’t know if I have a voice here, but it’s her.” Those were the words that Linda Hamilton, the famous Sarah Connor (the mythical character of Terminator), told director Tim Miller, at the end of the audition in which they were looking for one of the protagonists of Terminator: Dark Fate (Hidden Destination), the sixth film in the saga. “
Diana Estrella Castilla – EL TIEMPO
Of meeting Linda Hamilton for the first time, Natalia Reyes stated:
“That first time I met her I think it was love at first sight for both of us, something instantaneous. She took my hands, hugged me and I felt so much support. I had a lot of connection with her, although that day they were seeing six more people for the role.”
Natalia Reyes
On any similarities shared with her character of ‘Dani Ramos’ EL TIEMPO says:
“Reyes, with acting studies at the Lee Strasberg School (New York), plays Dani Ramos, a Mexican with a very normal life who one day arrives at the factory where she works and realizes that a robot is chasing her. She does not understand why. She runs away and finds help in Grace (Mackenzie Davis) and Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). Natalia says that if something has equal to her character is that, although she is the youngest of her family, she is the most bossy, the one that organizes everyone, something for which she has earned the stubborn and stubborn fame since she was a child.
Diana Estrella Castilla – EL TIEMPO
At age nine she enrolled, without saying anything to her parents, to ClaraLuna, a musical theater school.
That allowed that since that age he was training as an actress and on a stage dancing.
“I remember a lot of a work called
Let’s paint a country .
It was very special for me because it was the first musical where I was the protagonist, ” she says.
From theater school, aged 16, Natalia moved onto reality T.V, albeit reluctantly…
“I was at ClaraLuna and my classmates started talking about Popstars . They told me “a reality ” and I didn’t understand anything. They told me “let’s go,” but I said no, that that was a number of people who were going to line up and that I was going to stay. However, I went with a friend. We arrived at the Sports Palace and there were a lot of people. I made the line and met Iván Benavides, who was one of the jurors, and in ClaraLuna we had just made a cover of a song he liked very much. Then, I said: “Ole, I sang a song of yours, Alba” And he told me: “Sing it to me.” I sang it and saw that he wrote down my number. When I went to the audition I was wrong, I forgot the lyrics, it was the song I know how to die , by Andrés Cepeda. I passed several stages, in the end I finished in the ten finalists and it was a super-enriching experience. That allowed me to somehow enter television.”
Natalia Reyes
Natalia’s first dramatic T.V role was in ‘Gangs, war and peace‘:
“That was very funny. Marlon Moreno played my dad. He was very loving, encouraged me and congratulated me. It was a very nice experience, but now, when I see the chapters, I feel a little embarrassed because I did a horrible over-performance, maybe because I came from the theater. Actually, I see that today and I don’t know how they chose me for the character.”
Natalia Reyes
Natalia’s big break came in the form of Sony Pictures’ Colombian telenovela; 2015’s ‘Lady, the seller of roses‘ – based on the life of Lady Tabares…
“It was as wonderful as it was hard. It was very important for me to have known Lady’s reality and then to have arrived in Manrique. Everyone had that vision of the commune, of the most dangerous place in Medellín, of the hitmen, and the truth is that the six months of recording there were wonderful. There are very hardworking and loving people, but of course, it is also a place that has been so plagued by violence and lack of opportunities and of course there is the issue, gangs and their sectors. That day of the shooting we were in a communal hall and the boys who were working with us on the scene were from the neighborhood next door and we were in another sector within the same Manrique, and there are those invisible borders that cannot be passed. Sure enough, the others arrived and we began to hear shots outside. Fortunately, it didn’t happen to adults, but it was a bit scary to be locked there in that room and listening to shots outside. Strong to face that reality that is what many people live every day.”
Natalia Reyes
On becoming the iconic and beloved Lady Tabares Natalia said:
“They told me I was casting to be Lady Tabares, and I said, “nothing to see”, I did not see myself there at all, I am not a paisa, I have not had a life similar to that of Lady and I did not seem physically either, but I really liked the story when I started to investigate it, I put the file and they chose me. I remember that the casting scene was the moment when Lady goes to Cannes with Víctor Gaviria to promote the film, she had some roses in her hands, and she was absolutely shocked because people were throwing the roses to the ground and it was what she lived, to sell roses, she didn’t understand why people did that.”
Natalia Reyes
From Lady, the seller of roses Natalia went on to star in Pájaros de verano ‘Birds of Passage‘ (which is 95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), the film represented Colombia in the 91st edition of the Academy Awards in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.
It was Natalia’s husband who sent off an audition tape for Terminator: Dark Fate:
“But it was right there, in Tierra Bomba, where she [Natalia] lives with her husband – the Spanish businessman Juan Pedro San Segundo – who long ago sent a video audition for a role that, until then, she did not know. When She passed the first filters she learned that it was to be one of the protagonists of Terminator: Dark Fate.”
Diana Estrella Castilla
On the experience of first seeing a Terminator movie, Natalia said:
“Yes. I was very small when I saw them. When the first one came out, I wasn’t even born; Then, I saw them some Sunday in a television replay and I remember that it was very surprising to see that world because it was true that by the time, since it had been many years before the premiere, the effects were still impressive. In the second, when I saw Linda Hamilton in this character of Sarah Connor, I was surprised to see that she was a superheroine, a strong woman. One thing that at the moment was not common. Right then, when they chose me, I saw them again. The truth is that they are very good, incredible movies and I understand that they are milestones of the cinema. James Cameron has always been visionary in everything he has raised and I am very proud and grateful to be part of this saga.”
Natalia Reyes
Terminator: Dark Fate director, Tim Miller, called Natalia to personally give her the news of her casting…
“That call … I was in Cartagena with my husband and my parents, when I see his call coming in. We had a month of comings and goings between castings. There was already a great anxiety on my part, and he calls me. The truth, when I saw his name on the phone I kept thinking: “Could it be that the gringos are so decent to call me to say: thank you, divine, you didn’t get it.” Then, I answered and said: “Tell me that you are not so decent and that you did not call just to say no.” And he told me: “No, on the contrary, you will be occupied for a good few years. Welcome”. When I met him and saw that he had really looked for this character, that thousands of people had sent the audition and that he had taken the time to watch all the videos and that I had been chosen among so many people, I felt as if I had won the lottery. He is a supremely intelligent and hardworking man. He has been dedicated to this film for three years. Passionate about the saga and the special effects. It is very easy to work with him, he communicates what he wants, how he sees the plane, the character, the pose and the voice. Tim is fantastic.”
Natalia Reyes
On her first meeting with Terminator legend Arnold Schwarzenegger…
“My first meeting with Arnold was in Budapest. We had already started filming, and he arrived later because he had had an operation last year with an open heart. When he arrived on set we were in rehearsals inside a water tank. I was soaked and came to greet us. When I see him coming, this way of flesh and blood, live and direct, I told him: “I want to hug you, I want to greet you well”, but I was wet, so I really couldn’t hug him or greet him well; but he was very kind, he knew who I was and my character, he had read the scenes we had the next day and he said: “Well, get ready that tomorrow is our turn”. He was very dear. The next day, seeing him looking at me and making a scene with me was something I didn’t believe. I turned around, looked and thought: “Where is the camera?” I never expected this.”
Natalia Reyes
EL TIEMPO asked Natalia about James Cameron’s involvement in TDF:
“He is supervisory. Someone who has always been at the forefront of many things in their themes, in the effects, in everything. At the same time, he was working on Avatar, but he was very present and aware of the scenes, the dialogues and the characters. He was very above the whole process, very perfectionist, very detailed. It was an honor to work with someone like that.”
Natalia Reyes
On Terminator: Dark Fate’s production…
“In general, the scale of production in every way, the budget, the number of people who work behind the scenes, were 600 people, which you don’t see here in a production. The professionalism of each person; The specialization in each of the parties is impressive.”
Natalia Reyes
When asked if she gave the cast of TDF any gifts, Natalia stated:
“Yes. I brought books by Gabriel García Márquez to Linda, she is a super-reader and she likes Gabo very much, so I gave her a hundred years of solitude , that she had already read it a thousand years ago, but I wanted to read it again. Tim always gets coffee, because he loves Colombian coffee. I brought a wayu backpack to Mackenzie that he loved when he first saw it. They are super-invited to Colombia, everyone wants to come. Hopefully after the tour we can coordinate it and they can come.”
Natalia Reyes
“How do you feel right now?”
Diana Estrella Castilla – EL TIEMPO
“I am happy and very anxious for all the voltage that I have had to live in this last year of travel, movements, attention and a lot of strategy. It has been an intense year, but I am happy and looking forward to the premiere and this may come to light and people can enjoy the movie. A very long world tour is coming, I am very excited about that because it is something I have never lived.”
Natalia Reyes
Source: eltiempo.com