Actress Mariana Treviño with Tom Hanks at the presentation of A Grumpy Neighbor on December 16 in London, United Kingdom. TOLGA AKMEN (EFE)
The name Mariana Treviño is not alien to memory. For some it may not click the first time, but when mentioning characters like Isabel Iglesias, protagonist in the four seasons of Club de cuervos (2015); or to Jenny Quetzal in La casa de las flores (2018) or her two Ariel Award nominations for her performances in The Immoral Life of the Ideal Couple and Mara’akame’s Dream, the mental puzzle is no longer an unknown quantity and is making sense. If another title was missing to recognize his career, his face now accompanies Tom Hanks’ throughout the promotional material for A Grumpy Neighbor, a film that opens December 25 across Mexico.
Treviño (Monterrey, 45 years old) studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse Theater School in New York City and at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He began his professional theater career in the United States, starring in works such as Words, Words, Words, Tractor and Homegirls on the Prowl. However, his discovery was not to come until 2009, after his participation in the musical Mentiras, a work in which he appeared for more than 1,000 presentations, in which he also caught the attention of the filmmaker Manolo Caro and managed to make the leap into cinema He became too a recurring actress in his filmography and has participated in up to seven of his productions, including Perfecto desconocidos (2018).
Treviño, speaking to EL PAÍS, admits that he didn’t believe it when they told him he was going to star in a film starring Tom Hanks and directed by Marc Forster (Stranger than fiction, 2006, and Christopher Robin, 2018). He says it felt like a “surreal” experience at first, but then he had to get down to earth, do a good job, be as honest as possible.
“I started filming reflecting on all of the experiences I’ve had that help me put together a character who is honest, has the truth, and can tell the story she needs to tell. Marc is emotionally reserved but opens up a space for you to be yourself, express yourself and of course imagine the experience of Tom Hanks, who always works from a very intimate and real place,” affirms the actress.
Tom Hanks and Mariana Treviño in a scene from “A Grumpy Neighbor”.c (Dennis Mong)
The film, the second film adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s novel A Man Called Ove (2012, Debolsillo), which opens January 13 in Latin America and the US, presents the story of Otto Anderson (Hanks), a grumpy and very stubborn widower. When a happy young family moves in next door, he finds his match in the quick-witted and heavily pregnant Marisol (Treviño), leading to a highly unlikely friendship that will turn his world upside down.
The Monterrey-born interpreter says the chemistry with Hanks on set was “surprisingly good” as she sometimes wondered if she was up to the challenge, but she says the characters in the story started to get close and fell in love, without realizing it, they then followed this process from fiction to acting, working toward the other to connect. “The challenge was to be emotionally open, because what’s happening between the characters goes beyond rationality. You have to watch the scenes, study them a lot and know what you’re playing. Knowing what the power is that is behind and below, which is not visible but your character needs to show. We try to make that visible,” he adds.
Stroll through Hollywood
Treviño had previously acted in another Hollywood production and was the sister of Eugenio Derbez’s character in ¡Hombre al agua! (2018), but it was with the experience in A Grumpy Neighbor that he made his first step into the mecca of cinema alongside other of his more flair compatriots in the industry. Like Diego Luna – the protagonist of Andor – or more recently Tenoch Huerta and Mabel Cadena in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. For the Narcos: Mexico actress, Marisol is a character who complements the virtues of Mexicans and Latinos, aspects to which she brings value and visibility.
He says that Marisol arrives with a chaotic energy, a loving core of family that reaches out and takes care of the man in front, without calculations or interests. “The Latin American warmth plays a very important role because it makes the other person reconnect with their own sense of love, with their own attitude to life. I think it’s great that Latin Americans and Mexicans are recognized, their benevolent contribution is based on their idiosyncrasies, and that they can make very nice contributions to improve the societies where they arrive,” Treviño specifies.
With more than thirty productions to his credit, Treviño has forged his career based on effort. The results were recently seen in his first co-lead role with Ilse Salas for the telenovela 100 Days to Fall in Love on Telemundo; or his first solo star in the series Cecilia, an Original Production from the Paramount+ streaming catalog. She says she is grateful for this moment in her career and how the elements came together to provide this golden opportunity.
“The career of an artist involves many emotional ups and downs, many sacrifices. The raw material of acting is you and what you feel, your soul, your vision of life, you work with that. It can be a lonely journey at times and coming to this Hollywood project with Tom and Marc is a dream that will come true later in my career,” reflects the actress.
Although she is currently in Los Angeles and only thinking about promoting A Grumpy Neighbor, the actress is not indifferent to the complications that Mexican cinema and culture are experiencing at the moment. He sees a lack of awareness and support for culture in the recent announcement of the suspension of the 2023 Ariel Awards. “It’s a platform [los premios Ariel] very important, in which we see ourselves, we reflect our national and cultural reality. It is very important to be able to continue to rely on these mirrors so that our awareness and introspection grow and our cultural heritage is preserved over time,” he concludes.
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