South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Machado hopes to reach more homes
Her sitcom makes network TV debut as actor makes a strong start on ‘DWTS’
LOS ANGELES — Justina Machado has never felt this exhausted. It’s late September, just a few hours before she heads off to another three-hour rehearsal for “Dancing With the Stars,” and the actor reveals the unusual piece of equipment that has been a life saver — or rather, a feet saver — since joining the current season of the prime-time dance boot camp.
“I literally have this big caldero that you make arroz con gandules in,” she says, referring to the
Puerto Rican rice dish. “I can’t even make any arroz con gandules in there anymore because it has become the pot for my feet. Gross, right? Every day when I come home, my routine is dunking my feet in there with ice. The first week and a half of rehearsals, forget about it — I was crying. I was like, ‘Oh, what did I do?’ Everything hurts me, why did I do this?’ ”
So, why did she do it? For one, it was a muchneeded quarantine distraction for the “One Day at a Time” star. “It sounded exciting, the idea of learning things I’ve never done before,” says Machado, 48. “Like a lot of people right now, I was feeling very depressed, and there’s so many things happening in the world and so many things we wish we could do and can’t — this couldn’t have come at a better time. And I love old Hollywood — love, love, love old movies and old musicals. And I’m always like, ‘Oh, I wish I was acting in that time.’ But if I was, I’d be playing Lupe the house maid. I wouldn’t be dancing with Fred Astaire.”
That gets at the other reason: visibility.
“The thing about ‘Dancing With the Stars’ is it reaches so many more homes than my incredible show (‘One Day at a Time’) that should reach everybody’s home. I know they’ve had Latinas on the show, but they need a whole lot more. And so I was like, ‘I’m going to do that. I’m going to be that Puerto Rican woman that’s on that show.’ ”
Make that two shows: Last week, the pandemichalted fourth season of Machado’s sitcom began a three-week run on CBS, in the Monday time slot immediately following ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”
Originally set up at Netflix, the Latino-fronted reboot of Norman Lear’s classic sitcom was canceled in 2019 after three seasons. Sony Pictures Television, the studio that produces the series, shopped the comedy to other networks, eventually landing the Cuban American family sitcom at Pop TV.
Its run on CBS is part of the deal ViacomCBS sister network Pop TV made in rescuing the series.
“I always believed that this show belongs on a network,” says Machado, who plays single mom and military veteran Penelope Alvarez. “I love streaming. People love to stream. I understand that’s the thing, but in reality, network just reaches more households.”
It’s not lost on Machado that she’s trying to prove television viewers will watch a show that revolves around a Latino family roughly two decades after a network executive suggested they wouldn’t. Machado was cast as the lead in the late ’90s comedy pilot “I Love Lupe,” which featured a Latino family. When the series wasn’t picked up, Machado received a call from the executive to explain why: “He literally called my house, nice man, and said, ‘My God, your pilot is so great. Everybody loves you, everybody. But we don’t think America is ready for a Latino family.’
“That was acceptable for him to say — America’s not ready for (a) Latino family. Like, what? And that was the ’90s! And look at today. How many Latino families do you see on television? So America better get ready because we’re here. We’re here.”
Born and raised in Chicago to Puerto Rican parents, Machado was always “making up scenarios” and roles to act out with her siblings but never imagined it could actually happen. It wasn’t until her time in the Latino Chicago Theater Company that she gained the confidence to see herself as an actor and decided to make a career out of it.
“It’s where I found my tribe,” she says. “Juan Ramirez, one of my mentors, lifted me up. I remember that it was maybe the second or third play, and he was like, ‘Do you think you’re an actress now?’ Because I kept saying, ‘I’m not an actress. I’m just doing this because I don’t have anything to do.’ That’s all I would say. Because nobody was an actor in Chicago that I knew, in my neighborhood, in the inner city of Chicago. That wasn’t a part of my world.”
Her first credit is a 1993 episode of “ABC Afterschool Specials,” playing a 16-year-old girl with an abusive boyfriend. Over the next 25 years, she worked steadily with small roles on shows like “NYPD Blue” and “Touched by an Angel” before breaking through with her turn in HBO’s “Six Feet Under” as Vanessa Diaz, the wife of funeral home technician-turnedpartner Federico (Freddy Rodriguez).
From there, Machado had memorable turns in “ER,” “Queen of the South” and “Jane the Virgin.” She even starred in the 2010 stage production of LinManuel Miranda’s Broadway hit “In the Heights.” She wanted the headlining roles, but she had come to accept that she’d likely always be a supporting player.
“I had given up on being the lead,” she says. “I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’m just never going to be No. 1 on the call sheet. Maybe
I’m just not going to be the star of the show. That’s OK. I’m just going to keep doing what I do.’ ”
She did keep on. And it happened. That her big break materialized in a role that taps into her comedic side made all the sense in the world to those who know her.
“From the beginning of her career, Justina has always been known to be a great dramatic actress,” Rodriguez, who knew Machado from their early days acting in Chicago, said. “What a lot of people didn’t know for a long period of time is she is incredibly funny. I’ve spent days and nights hanging out with her because of our families, and she is the kind of person who will have you in stitches laughing. I just always had this secret hope that she would be able to show this side.”
More pressing, though, is Machado’s attempt to perfect the dancer side. She’ll have to leave in a few hours to rehearse for the show’s Disney-themed episode, and she can’t help but let out a playful sigh of dread at the thought of getting back to the grueling grind.
“Pero, like my grandma would say, quien te manda?” Machado jokes, using an expression that roughly translates to, “Who told you to do it?”
“I can’t complain because I did it to myself.”