Karla Souza: I also really pay attention to whether the script embodie...

When I was asked to change Laurel into a Latina for How to Get Away with Murder, I was terrified, because I thought, no one's going to know how to do this because the American take on my culture is never accurate.

Karla Souza

latina murder culture

This movie [Everybody Loves Somebody] is as much for the general market as it is for Latino audiences. That's a really exciting prospect.

Karla Souza

latino audience exciting

Sadly - and I think this is why it's so important that we do this more - I don't have that guiding light. You know, "Oh, that Sleepless in Seattle bilingual something," like, it doesn't exist. I don't have it in my memory, and that's why I thought it was important to make it.

Karla Souza

light memories thinking

[Everybody Loves Somebody] was a different take on that immigrant sort of life.

Karla Souza

immigrants different

[Producers] promised me they wouldn't do that sort of "defining nature of my character is that Laurel is Latina [in How to Get Away with Murder] ." It has nothing to do with that. She just happens to be a Latina.

Karla Souza

defining murder character

There's not enough of those inclusive projects where I feel like I'm interpreting a human being and not just a statistic or a nationality.

Karla Souza

projects enough feels

I think, especially with this show [How to Get Away with Murder], we have Viola Davis and Pete Nowalk as the showrunner.

Karla Souza

get-away murder thinking

[Rhimes and Pete Nowalk] have definitely, from the pilot [of How to Get Away with Murder], brought forth a woman who is unapologetically herself, unapologetically flawed, and is as vulnerable as she is powerful. I'm grateful to be in that family.

Karla Souza

pilots grateful powerful

I think Shonda Rhimes came to change television for women forever.

Karla Souza

forever television thinking

I think it's not an easy task because there's not enough Latino writers that are being given opportunities to write things - and I say this because I've been given a lot of bilingual movies in the past because of my career in Mexico, and they're like, "Oh, it's going to make sense for her to do this." A lot of studios want to hit that demographic, but they sort of do it without starting in the right way, which is having someone who knows the culture, and enjoys the language as well, to be able to write these things.

Karla Souza

writing opportunity past

I feel that the power that storytelling has to change people, to bring them together, to have that cathartic sort of experience, is something that definitely has helped my life be worthwhile and better.

Karla Souza

life-is together people

There's a lot of things, even the landscape that we show in the movie [Everybody Loves Somebody] of Ensenada in Baja is just spectacular. There's so much more - I wish we could have shown more, but I'm glad we didn't see the typical, you know, border-sombrero-tequila thing that we normally do.

Karla Souza

typical borders wish

The music in the movie [Everybody Loves Somebody] is very much hand-picked specifically because it's our history and our traditions. The themes are universal.

Karla Souza

theme tradition hands

I felt really strongly about this script [ Everybody Loves Somebody] because, like you said, it's a very specific way of life.

Karla Souza

scripts like-you way

Our society really needs to take a better look at what we're selling, because I think women being empowered will be as beneficial to men as it is to us.

Karla Souza

men needs thinking

There's a lot of lies out there that we should catch and that have taken me a lot of time to sort of see, and reading up on it and getting educated on it. I'm reading a book that's about how images of beauty have hurt women along the decades. It's a very educating but infuriating thing to see, how we don't have equal opportunity because they're demanding so much more.

Karla Souza

reading hurt lying

In the movie [Everybody Loves Somebody], the sister tells my character, "No, don't you want to be with someone?" I think the family - especially in this movie - they know that the reason that Clara doesn't want to have an emotional, intimate relationship is more because she was hurt so badly from heartbreak that she's then being closed off and cynical.

Karla Souza

emotional hurt character

I think that, for sure, we as women should try and realize that it's more about having someone to share.

Karla Souza

realizing trying thinking

[The main character] is in a forever-growing process. I feel the movie [everybody Loves Somebody] did that very well and not finishing off as "a woman's life ends when she finds the right guy".

Karla Souza

guy forever character

I told my friend - we were working on a movie together - and he gave me a script and asked me to give him notes. And they were all male characters, and I said, "You know what would make this character more interesting?" And he asked what - and it's this road trip between three guys, basically, one older man, one 30-year-old and a 13-year-old mechanic. And I said, "If you make the 13-year-old a girl, and you make her an Indian-American mechanic." And he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Yeah, don't change anything in the script about him, and just make it a her."

Karla Souza

girl character mean

I also really pay attention to whether the script embodies a full female character or if they're just wanting a two-dimensional objectified woman. So I also have that aspect to take care of as well.