Spanish trans icon inspired TV’s newest GLOBAL SMASH
SIsabel Torres, who plays modern-day Cristina, described the show as “so important that it will mark a before-and-after on television wherever it’s broadcast
— whether in South America, in North America or on the other side of the world, in Australia. Wherever it is broadcast, this series will stir many consciences.”
That level of influence is not unprecedented for la Veneno. When the vedette was “discovered” by the “Esta Noche Cruzamos el Mississippi” late-night show in 1996, she introduced trans culture to living rooms across Spain.
“I think that la Veneno, at the time when she rose to fame, meant something that Spain didn’t want to see in itself,” Torres said in Spanish. “Spain looked the other way. There weren’t many others like her, and I think that, at the time, she held up a mirror that Spain didn’t want to look at.”
“Veneno” breaks down the star’s rocky origin story — from her upbringing by an abusive mother to working as a prostitute to her stint in an all-male prison. The singer and actress hailed from the tiny Spanish municipality of Adra and was illiterate until adulthood.
“This is a person who doesn’t know how to handle this, when you’re left with nothing like she was,” said Lola Rodriguez, who portrays journalist Valeria Vegas. “She didn’t know where to turn, and she grabbed at everything, which is what you see in the series: first prostitution, fame, then porn.
“Until her total decline,” she continued, “ending up in jail, and this whole amalgam of hard and terrible emotions that can happen to a human being — that can lift you up and make you fall.”
La Veneno is played by three actresses: LGBTQ activist Jedet at a young age, Daniela Santiago at the peak of her fame and Torres in the years leading up to Ortiz’s death in 2016.
“To go from having been a sex symbol to looking chubby to looking totally deteriorated and looking nothing like she did when she was a successful actress was a huge emotional cost,” Torres said of the role.
On set, at least one person in each department, Torres said, was queer. There were “gay girls, gay boys, trans boys” and, of course, trans women.
“I was constantly surrounded with trans people,” Rodriguez said. “The environment was completely like a bubble of full acceptance.”
The supportive atmosphere, it seems, was as co-creators Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo intended. They worked alongside the real-life Vegas, who consulted on the script, to re-create an accurate history.
“Thank God, fortunately in Spain we aren’t living through that situation any more,” Torres said. “We’re moving forward and taking baby steps.”