Michaela Jaé Rodriguez dreamed of working with Maya Rudolph: "The stars have aligned"

Michaela Jaé Rodriguez was looking to do something a little different when she heard about a possible role in AppleTV+'s "Loot." The actress became famous thanks to her role as Blanca in "Pose". For her work in the final season, she received an Emmy nomination and won the Golden Globe for Best Actress, becoming the first openly trans actor to receive either accolade.

Rodriguez tells POPSUGAR that Sofia in "Loot" was exactly what she was looking for at the time. "I was just like, 'I hope I get this character. I hope so. She's so different from Blanca. She's got so many facets and she's also layered and I want people to see her depression. I just want it,'" she explains.

“I love playing the role of a boss, you dirty bitch,” says Rodriguez. "Blanca was that, but she was the nurturing, caring, loving mother. Sofia is a successful young entrepreneur, who is the COO...She has a level she wants to reach and she will get there no matter what. it happens.. I like that she doesn't play any games."

"There aren't many girls like me here who are really pushing to change the narrative."

"Loot" is a comedy starring some of the genre's biggest rising stars like Maya Rudolph, Adam Scott, Joel Kim Booster and Ron Funches. Rodriguez had never acted in a comedy before. “I was really worried going into it,” she admits. But working with Rudolph, she says, had been one of her dreams since she was a child. "I remember meeting her a few years ago and sharing a moment where I was like, 'I hope I can work with you one day.' And look how the stars aligned," he says. her.

Rodriguez's Sofia begins as the most serious person in the cast, contrasting with the excesses of Rudolph's Molly, a divorced billionaire who turns to her charity staff for fun. "Molly does a great job of freeing up a lot of women and men on this show," Rodriguez said. "Yes, she is a woman who has the privilege of having 87 billion dollars, but there is also a human behind all this." Thanks in part to Molly's influence, Sofia eventually opens up. His extreme, no-nonsense attitude turns into his own joke, complete with some devastatingly funny one-liners. "There were times when I broke character," Rodriguez admits, as she laughed so hard at Sofia's lack of filter. "This woman has no laughter in her. Sometimes I feel like she might be a little cold."

“It definitely challenged me,” she explains. Still, Rodriguez can see a similarity between her and Sofia: they're both workaholics. “I like to work until the fault,” she says. "I take my job seriously, but I don't take it as seriously as she does, which I think is holding her back." But Sofia, she says, is perhaps a reminder that sometimes she needs to "buckle up" and not be afraid to work hard.