Celebrity Interview | Entertainment & Film Industry - From Mexican Stages to Hollywood Sets: Mariana Trevino's Journey

Greg Staffa 0:01

You're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast, a Staffatarian look at entertainment and life with your host, greg Staffa. My guest this episode is the lovely Mariana Trevino, who can be seen in the current Apple TV series Stick. Thank you for joining us today.

Mariana Trevino 0:23

Hi, greg, thank you for having me.

Greg Staffa 0:26

From A man Called Otto and Stick. You've worked with two of one of the top talents of the industry. What's left? I mean, who else can you work with? You've done. Most actresses' dreams of working with some of the top talent. What's that been like?

Mariana Trevino 0:45

Yeah, exactly what you just pointed out. I mean, I'm very conscious of that. I was just talking about it in a previous interview. I was saying like I am so grateful that I have gotten to work with two of the best actors for me in my dream list actors for me in my dream list. You know my references, you know of my life for comedy and for just like heartfelt acting. You know luminous acting like Tom Hanks and Owen Wilson. So I I'm just really grateful. I don't know I must've done something really good.

Mariana Trevino 1:19

I was telling someone in my past life for this to happen, because it's any actor's dream and really, as you say, what's left in me?

Mariana Trevino 1:27

I'm like I'm so happy that this has happened, that I'm like okay, so I can like be in peace. Now, you know, from my acting points of views, no, I'm really grateful. I'm really grateful because the way we actors learn just to be acting with them and to be able to observe how they work, where their emotion is coming from, just being, because we actors learn from exposure to one another you know what I mean like also like just just exposing each other's souls, so to speak. You know, so to say. I mean it's just really enriching to us as actors and as people, because we work as actors, from my point of view, with what we perceive, with what our soul is able to catch from somebody else's soul. So just the exposure to them, in the sense of being able to have dialogues and looking to each other's eyes and have that kind of interchange, is just been really wonderful for me as a person, as an actress. Yeah, really enriching, and I'm just really, really grateful for that.

Greg Staffa 2:41

Now. You may be new to most audiences in the US, but you have been acting for a long time. Tell us what got you started in acting.

Working with Hollywood's Finest

Mariana Trevino 2:51

I guess it was. I was doing many other things before acting that have to do with the body, Like I did four years of dance and I was in a conservatory. I did some singing too. So I was like getting close and maybe perhaps unconsciously, preparing for my acting career, since I think acting encloses and englobes all those things. So I was just working myself towards that point and I was studying some singing in Boston.

Mariana Trevino 3:20

In actuality, my friends from Monterey, Mexico, where I'm from, had for some reason all gone to Boston to study there. They're musicians and they were studying like music production and engineering. Some of them were studying when my good friends was doing a piano career. So I went there for the summer following them and because I liked singing, and while I was in Boston I started realizing like okay, there's something else there for me. I don't know what it is. I didn't feel so much that I could stay there and do a career as a singer. So so I don't know, I guess it was just one walking through the streets of Boston and seeing, I think I saw a university, a campus that was there, and I saw acting department, something I don't remember precisely, but I think I saw a university, a campus that was there, and I saw acting department, something I don't remember precisely, but I think it was something that I saw somewhere in the middle of the streets in Boston that called my attention, that had to do with acting, and it just started ruminating, you know, and it was like I started getting the idea, and one of my good friends that was a trumpet player was like why don't you go to New York?

Mariana Trevino 4:26

It's right next door. There's many acting schools over there. Why don't you take a train one day and go to some of them and see what you feel, you know if it resonates with you? And so I did that and it did, and I stayed for the next four years in New York searching for that.

Greg Staffa 4:47

Most actors I've talked to have always had a shy childhood where acting when they discovered acting was an escape, to kind of get out of their shell. Is that what you found? What was it about acting that gave you the freedom?

Mariana Trevino 5:00

I guess it was as I was saying. It was like I did things always within the art world and I was, without unknowingly, you know, like preparing myself for the acting world, because I do think that in my case it was kind of like life led me there and when I started acting, when I saw the acting school, when I went in to see like the acting school, following my friend's advice, and I entered that world, I went to the neighborhood place house, I went to other schools and as soon as I crossed the threshold to the like the acting school and I saw some classes, I don't, I don't remember I was like, okay, I think I can do this, like my soul recognized itself in that kind of environment and I started taking acting classes and I was like I know this, I recognize I can do this. Something is like inside of me just wants to do it and thinks that you know I can express here, can find an expression, and I just stayed. It wasn't very rational, it's just kind of like a movement from your heart that just takes you, I guess, to the places where you need to develop, where you need to develop your learning and your growth. And it just happened like that to me with certain things in my life as well.

Mariana Trevino 6:21

I studied English literature in the UNAM, which is a great university here in Mexico. It's it's great because you pay nothing Like it's. It's crazy. You pay like three pesos for I mean it's like a jewel that we have as Mexicans here. That it's.

Mariana Trevino 6:35

And I studied literature there and when people ask me were you, was it very premeditated? I was like no, it was just a hunch from the heart and I got there. I loved reading. I don't even know how I ended up in the classroom. You know how I got all the papers to be accepted to the university. I was just one day sitting there and I stayed there for four years thinking I was going into like criticism, literature, criticism, to be a critic and writing my essays.

Mariana Trevino 7:01

And at the very end

Path to Acting Through Dance and Music

Mariana Trevino 7:02

of the career, theater, the theater world, which I had kind of forgotten, started pushing me back into that world. You know I started getting some strange calls from people I barely knew telling me we want you for a play and so it got me. You know, it kind of drew me back to the theater world and it was just not, I'm telling you, very rational. It was just movements from life and I stayed in that you know, in the theater and doing plays, until a sort of idea of what a career is came up. But much later in life, you know, for me so you're doing theaters, you're doing plays, yes.

Greg Staffa 7:43

And then I believe I read that you submitted a tape for A man Called Otto to audition and that the director absolutely loved you. What made you go from theater and plays to then something like A man Called Otto, because it seems like your career took a big jump in doing that. What was the motivation or the drive to take that leap?

Mariana Trevino 8:09

Yeah, well, it was a couple of years that led into that, because I started doing theater for many years after doing the English literature you know the major and I was just doing theater. Whoever invited me, I was there. I did a lot of characters. You know I was very just doing that and not thinking about anything else. And eventually I did musical theater, which I hadn't done before but since I had sung when I was like 15, 14. So I kind of did musical theater jump, which was very important in my career in Mexico because I got into a play that's called Mentiras. That was a musical from the 80s. There were a lot of, like, women singers that were super dramatic and super theatrical, with great songs, with great, great dramatic songs, and they did a musical, you know from these songs, and so I got into that and that was like a boom here in Mexico and I stayed in that play for three years and after that, since so many people saw the play, they started inviting me to movies here in Mexico and so I did the jump from theater through musical theater and I started doing movies.

Mariana Trevino 9:36

And later on they started inviting me for TV shows. I did another TV show which was great called Cuervos, club de Cuervos. I don't know if it was seen in the States, but it was the first show from Netflix outside of the US. It was like the experiment. I believe they did that and it was a boom. I did that for four years. Then that one thing led to the other and then came the audition for A man Called Otto. Years after that it was like, little by little, you know, having experience in all these other fields from acting, so you had the theater experience, you had the Mexico film experience.

Greg Staffa 10:20

What was it like going from that experience of Mexican filming to US filming? Was there a big jump? Was it a big? Other than the language was what was the transition like? Was it familiar? Was it all new feeling? How did that work? How does that translate?

Mariana Trevino 10:38

Yeah, well, I mean it was. It was nice to see how film is film everywhere in the world. You know there's something that is the same. I suppose I felt it like that in Spain. I haven't, I have not worked in many places in the world, but talking from the US and Mexico, there is a sort of thing that unifies the profession. You know the amount of professionalism, everybody doing their thing like a clock to make the whole logistics of what we're creating together work, and so the cruise are very similar in its dedication and in making the magic of what we're doing together. So that was really nice to see. You know that it's very similar.

Mariana Trevino 11:27

Obviously there's differences, because there's differences in culture, cultural differences, but it's the same language, you know it's the same cinematography. You know language from cinematography, you know the world of movies and of filming. And what was different, of course, for me was the language learning how to use my English, which I hadn't used for a long time, and just putting it into gear and trying to be truthful with it, trying to assimilate it into my inner reality as an actress and trying to work truthfully, speaking the language and you know, and using it and assimilating to, to my feelings and everything. So that was a but I think I I got into it and as the more you do it, the more you you know you get used to it and and and, um, and yeah, so that was the biggest challenge for me and the biggest difference for me, really one of the things I like about man Called Otto, and even Stick, is your.

From Mexican Theater to US Films

Mariana Trevino 12:31

Greg Staffa 12:31

has there's been an intimacy in your roles? As far as you know, you're not in a big group production. It's been you and Tom Hanks or you and the small group traveling together. It hasn't been like this big production. There's been an intimacy to it. Is that something that you find enjoyable? Is that something that draws you to these roles?

Mariana Trevino 12:55

Of course.

Mariana Trevino 12:56

No, it's, it's.

Mariana Trevino 12:57

I find it so enjoyable and it's part of, you know, the the, the deep gratitude that I feel for the opportunity to to make such intimate scenes, as you say, in Otto, with Tom Hanks and in stick with the cast and with Owen, and having these moments of intimate interchange and being the recipient of these actors who I admire so much. You know of their emotion and their dialogue, and having you know and having the pleasure and the you know, the honor as an actor, to listen to them and having this interchange. So, yeah, this is great, this is a great. I'm very conscious of what that is and the gift that that is and I just try to cherish it in the moment. I try to make the best of it in the moment and try to be really open hearted myself as an actor when I'm put in those positions, you know, within the project, I try to give my best but open up my heart, you know, and just try to be a good player for them and to give them back what they're when I'm receiving from them.

Greg Staffa 14:16

Yeah, and what was it like working with tom hanks? I mean meeting him for the first time, even as a young actor that's new to the us industry. I mean that has to be a huge. I mean I'd be nervous. Uh, what was that like?

Mariana Trevino 14:31

yeah, well, yes, of course I was really nervous, and the same with, you know, with with the owen, and of course, you know, you, you're like, okay, uh, what's this gonna be like? I'm, I hope I do my best, you know, but they were just so gracious, both of them, I have to say so, welcoming tom and owen, when I, when I arrived on the set, that I was just, I felt immediately at, you know, at ease in the sense of like, okay, I feel welcomed and I feel, you know, such a nice warm thing that they're giving me, that you know, I'm going to be fine and I'm going to be safe. And yeah, I felt that with both Tom, both in both um, with both Tom and Owen. With Tom we had a little bit more time. When I arrived to the project, we went for dinner, you know, beforehand, with Rita and Tom and we talked a lot and in the case of Tom, he he like turned around and he saw me and he called my name and he hugged me and that was like something really really special and welcoming and he was always super warm. And with Owen as well, I mean the same thing. He hugged me, he said Mariana, but with the stick.

Mariana Trevino 15:47

I arrived late to the filming because I lost my passport right before having to travel. It was like a big drama here All my visas, my passport so I was like, oh my God, am I not going to be able to make it? This is super stressing, but so I was running a little bit late. But when I did arrive, everybody was rooting for me to get there and really was very.

Mariana Trevino 16:12

When I arrived, everybody was really nice, like, oh my God, you're here, thank God. And Owen was like this and he was just so sweet, uh, from the first moment. And, yeah, I was very grateful for that because it really makes the difference and it really makes the difference during filming that the person who is leading you know the, the, the main actor who's leading the project and who's like the driving force energetically. And you know the, the, the main actor who's leading the project and who's like the driving force energetically, and you know with their own what who are leading. This is um is giving that off. And in both cases that they were, you know, tom and Owen were just so like I'm saying so gracious with their own energy and making sure everybody was feeling okay and making us feel secure and safe and joyful to be there.

Greg Staffa 17:00

Honestly, Now, peter, who plays your son Santi, how much time do you have to get to know him, to kind of get that mother-son relationship kind of felt? Is that something that, just as an actor, you just jump into it? Was there a time that you?

Mariana Trevino 17:17

two got to spend together.

Mariana Trevino 17:19

Yeah, no, we didn't, because I arrived late and we didn't have time. He kept writing me some messages to a phone that I had lost so I was not getting those messages. He's like I wrote to you like 10 messages and I'm sorry it was another phone so we didn't have that time beforehand, but it was really. I'm telling you. Everybody was so open in the set of stick, jason and Owen and Peter and the? Um.

Mariana Trevino 17:47

The welcoming was immediate and as soon as I got there he hugged me and he's like mommy, you're here, okay, and we took our time to talk because we weren't immediately going to film a scene together. They were like something else. And so during those moments that we had together on sets, we just talked about the character and we talked about the moment and we talked about the scene that we were about to film and I guess we just connected immediately that we were about to film and I guess we just connected immediately. And after that, of course, me and Peter did an effort to hang out, you know, outside of what we were filming on our own time, to go for coffees, to keep talking about our relationship. We also did that work like outside

Intimate Scenes with Tom Hanks and Owen

Mariana Trevino 18:30

of the set and we grew to have a very close relationship.

Greg Staffa 18:34

One of the things I like about Stick is that it's a golf series but it's not necessarily about golf, much like Ted Lasso was a series about football or soccer, but you didn't have to like or even enjoy soccer to enjoy the series. Going into it. Did you have any idea about golf?

Mariana Trevino 18:56

No, no, no, I didn't. The only echo was Lee Trevino. You know that they kept asking me if I was related to him throughout my growing years of my life when I went to the States everybody was like, are you related to Lee Trevino? So I always think that he was like the precursor of, you know, my silent mentor leading, leading me to to this series. So that was my only reference.

Mariana Trevino 19:23

I played some golf when I was a kid. We went to South Padre Island in Texas as kids because it was so close to Monterey. We used to go there and there was a little golf course that, actually, talking to someone that lives in South Padre, told me that it was recently stripped and I was like, oh my God, I wanted to visit it again. It was my plan and it was actually a golf ball. The little house, you know was a golf ball and it was like really, really cute and we went there and played as kids. But that was my only experience with it really.

Mariana Trevino 19:58

But just getting into the seat when I, when I working in the series and learning about the sport and thinking about the sport and watching it, watching it done, because Peter, of course, got really into it. He practiced a lot, owen as well. Every time, you know, between scenes he would go off in his golf cart and just play. I think they both really got into it and I just loved, I fell in love with, like the idea of golf. You know, to dimension, the kind of philosophical aspect of the game you know, analyzing it, thinking about it in those conceptual terms and how it parallels life in many aspects and, yeah, everything that it entails in the sense that it's a challenge about you with yourself. You know you are competing with other people, but it's you with your inner capacity of making a strategy. You know it's. It's just much more introspective and contemplative as a sport and the fact that you have to walk through it. You're not running like another sports. You know you have to walk through this like route and you, you know it's just really interesting symbolically.

Greg Staffa 21:16

Now your role. Your role is one that I think many shows could have chosen to either write out or not have, but you're along for the ride, yeah. What was it about the role that drew you to it?

Mariana Trevino 21:31

Um, well, I love the idea of being able to to play a Latin American mom. You know, a Mexican mom, um, because, because I draw experience, obviously, from my, my own life, and Latin American moms and Mexican moms are very. They do everything for their

Golf, Stick, and Playing a Mexican Mom

Mariana Trevino 21:53

children. You know, they're very much like for their sons. They do a lot of sacrifices. I mean moms all over the world.

Mariana Trevino 22:00

But Latin American moms tend to be really overprotective sometimes, which is the case of Elena too. They're very protective of their kids. They don't know somehow sometimes when to release their kids into their freedom and you know, they keep them too much beneath their wings for some time. And this is something that Elena learns along the way. I love that she gets to witness this trip towards self-discovery that she sees in Santi.

Mariana Trevino 22:30

But moms, mexican mom, like my grandmother in Mexico, she was, she had seven in my dad's side. She was like this matriarch. You know all her kids. She was a widow very early in her life and she did everything to have her family, you know, take off and the kids were always my father and his brothers and sisters were very grateful. Always there was a lot of effort put into that. So so I love that. I love being able to do a character that pays attention to what a mom goes through. Also, as a mom, you know the thin line that sometimes is between of education how much do you have to be there for your kid, how, when to let them go, when to keep accompanying them and when to keep protecting them from the world. Because at this age, you know, the teenage years, are very vulnerable, very delicate threshold into like adulthood. So so I love that in this show I get to do this character that is in that place in her life and in Santi's life, in this changing, pivotal changing place for both of them.

Greg Staffa 23:46

And that's one of the things. In my review I said that Stick was a really really good series. Felt that there was a couple of things that kept it from being a great series, but still a really really good series. Felt that there was a couple of things that kept it from being a great series, but still a really really good series. I liked that your character wasn't just along for the ride, that she's actually given some very good storylines that we'll see coming up. She is given some meat to work with. She's not just the mom doting along, and so I really enjoyed that.

Greg Staffa 24:15

There's some storylines that get left unattended, but I'm hoping for a season two that can wrap things up. But I also think some of the writing was a little bit short in connecting the dots. I think it was one of those things where you have a connect the dot puzzle and you can skip a couple of dots and still see that it forms a bunny rabbit. But there's a couple things I wanted to see that weren't fully connected, that hopefully in season two they they connect a little bit more. But you were given some great storylines. There's some very funny moments with some of the the characters that I won't reveal who. But um, you have some great scenes coming up that I think fans that have enjoyed seeing the first couple episodes of you will very much enjoy what you're given to work with and that you weren't just kind of tagging along as mom but you were given some real substance to that, without giving away any scene or any particulars of upcoming stuff. Was there a particular scene that was most exciting for you to film?

Mariana Trevino 25:19

Well, yeah, I mean, I think that also, like, much like in life, like the connecting dots aren't very visible all the time. You know, some, some of them aren't visible and and you know, they're like in the surface and we learn how to detect them sometimes. But some of the connecting dots are underlying and you know, and the characters are just starting off in this like adventure, you know, in this like trip that they're embarking themselves into the like this embarking in this like voyage or journey of self-discovery, and like any journey of self-discovery, some things are up for, you know, as I was saying, some things are visible, some others are not, but they're all there. Like I love that this, the writing here in the show is like has that, has that underlying emotion and underlying movement, tectonic movement of things that are about to happen, but that don't things that are said, but others that are bite back, you know, and that you don't say it.

Mariana Trevino 26:29

Specifically, elena has a lot of moments when she's very outspoken and she has the inner tools to be able to express herself and what she's feeling, but other moments when she's she's just she, she doesn't express what she's feeling, you know, she's just like, okay, I'm going to bite that back, and not even consciously, because that's how we work, you know, and I love that Elena has both these things, and I think all the characters go through these moments when it's like, okay, I'm not, I don't know what's going on with me and I'm not even conscious of what I have to say or do in a particular moment. And as to what you were asking, I'm sorry, what were you, what did you ask at the end?

Greg Staffa 27:07

Without giving away any scene details. Was there anything particular that you like? What's something that you're excited for people to see coming up? That was fun to film.

Mariana Trevino 27:21

I think, just I think there are a lot of things, fun things coming up. I think there's an emotional thing that starts and that continues to grow as the series unravels, and I think that we as spectators very much go with the characters in this trip emotionally as well. I'm hoping that happens because that's like I'm hoping that the people are like with us in this trip. You know, yeah, I'm just excited for people to get there and and be with us in the moments where it's crucial for each character what's going to happen. I hope people are there cheering along with us or not, in whatever happens next.

Greg Staffa 28:05

Elena really stands out as the surprise, I think, of the series. The way that her character goes and how things are formed took some turns that I didn't expect and I and I absolutely loved them and we can't go into detail, but, um, thank you. There's some things that happened to her growth wise that really were surprising and enjoyable and I think elena of all of the people has the biggest arc as far as growth and development. I mean, sante and them have their story, but you can kind of guess where that is going to some extent. But I think Alina is the biggest surprise, I think where she goes and that journey was probably really surprising. And that journey was probably really surprising. There's a couple of surprises that I didn't see coming, that I really enjoyed and didn't think would happen, but I was like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. Yeah.

Mariana Trevino 29:08

Was that part of what drew you to her. Yeah Well, thank you. Much like golf the sport that you think your ball is going to get exactly where you're planning and you're calculating that it's going to go there's always an element of unpredictability where you don't know how unpredictable human nature is going to act. You know, you think you can predict, you know, but then it doesn't. You know it doesn't fit.

Mariana Trevino 29:42

With that predictability, there's a lot of elements in the circumstances, in the exterior, elements that just take the outcome into another direction, and I think the series works with this.

Mariana Trevino 29:54

And so I think that, yeah, I take what you say like that you didn't expect some things of Elena, which is great because, yeah, I mean when, once we go into a voyage, which with a bunch of people we don't know, I think that every trip, every journey for everyone taking a car and just hitting the road going anywhere, for every life is really crucial, because every trip confronts you to yourself, every trip makes you look into yourself and changes you.

Mariana Trevino 30:31

You know how people say like. You know they challenge our view of ourselves in a different circumstance, in a different ambience, you know, and and we get to surprise even ourselves with things that come out contents, inner contents that we hadn't allowed even ourselves to come out, for us to deal with it, for us to be confronted with our own pains, with our own grievances, with our own sense of of, you know, grief and and, and I think that this trip makes every character just kind of um, open up to others and to themselves, and

Elena's Surprising Character Arc

Mariana Trevino 31:13

I think that that's, I think that's really really nice to witness and act themselves, and I think that's I think that's really really nice to witness and act as an actor, you know.

Greg Staffa 31:20

So my final question and I ask this of everyone is when it comes to actors and actresses, we say Mariana who starred in A man Called Otto, mariana who stars in Sticks. But when you get up in the morning and you look in the mirror, splash of water on your face. Who is it that you see?

Mariana Trevino 31:40

Good existential question, just like our series, that it's very existential too. So I see, I, I see myself, I just see, like this woman who's who gets up every morning, who gets up every morning and tries to make sense of the things that she has to do every day, take responsibilities, try to connect the dots of all her actions and and just the life of the adult, you know, every day is like full of challenges and responsibilities that have to be tended to. And and yeah, I just, I just, you know, try to make myself. Um, how, how can I put this? I try to, I try to not lose contact and not recognize myself in the things that I do, that's, in acting wise or in my everyday life. So I try to everything that I do, trying to lead it back to me, you know, and to recognize myself, because it also happens that sometimes you do things that you stop recognizing who you are to yourself, and that's also part of, well, the things that we have to learn. But I just try to do that.

Mariana Trevino 32:56

You know, I live very simply. I live day to day like a lot of actors. I don't plan a lot of things, I work with what comes in the moment. I think all actors are a little bit of a nomad soul. We are all like on the road, just like stick, you know, on the RV. We're all like on this road going from town to town, like the old actors you know, like picking up your little life and doing your little show and your little life and you keep walking and I and I truly live my life like that a bit. I'm very, I'm very, um, detached and just working in the moment really well, mariana.

Greg Staffa 33:32

Thank you so much for coming on again. Stick's available on apple tv. The three episodes are out by now. But, uh, there's some funny, enjoyable things, especially with your character coming up, that I think fans of yours will really enjoy, and even fans just getting to know you.

Mariana Trevino 33:49

So I appreciate it and also and and also greg, I want to make a point of the in Apple Music of the soundtrack of the series. It's just such a good road trip, beautiful, heartfelt, heartfelt, existential soundtrack that I really hope people you know connect to that and enjoy it as part of this show.

Greg Staffa 34:11

And I'll include a link to that in this interview.

Mariana Trevino 34:15

Thank you so much.

Greg Staffa 34:16

Thank you.

Mariana Trevino 34:17

Oh, thank you, Greg, for the time and thanks everyone and see our show. Go watch it, You'll enjoy it.