NEW YORK — Since her breakthrough role as Vanessa in the film adaptation of “In The Heights,” Melissa Barrera has been working nonstop on the big and small screen. Only this year, she appeared in “Scream 5” and is filming a sequel, and stars in Benjamin Millepied’s upcoming reimagining of the opera “Carmen” and Lori Evans Taylor’s “Bed Rest,” which she also produced.
The Mexican actress can be seen in “Keep Breathing,” a Netflix miniseries about the lone survivor of a plane crash in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.
Barrera — along with Ana de Armas — is among the few Hispanic actresses given a wide variety of roles, far beyond the characters Latinas have been allowed to play, while the discussion about the lack of representation continues in Hollywood.
“It’s so easy for the industry to just keep us in the corner and keep us on a side lane and just give us these certain opportunities that they have designated are for us,” Barrera said in a recent interview with The Associated Press from Montreal, where she is shooting “Scream 6.” “If we don’t fight to come to the center lanes, they’re going to keep us on the sidelines the entire time.”