Rodriguez thinks new role as mom is her best yet
LOS ANGELES − Gina Rodriguez doesn’t think she can “do it all,” but she can do quite a lot of it − with some help.
The actress, best known for CW’s “Jane the Virgin,” welcomed her first child, son Charlie, in March 2023 with husband Joe LoCicero. And now that her ABC series “Not Dead Yet” is back in production on Season 2 (Wednesdays, 8:30 EST/PST), Charlie and Joe are right there on set with her every day.
“I have my little man with me and my awesome husband,” Rodriguez, 39, told reporters on the set of the show Wednesday while holding little Charlie in her lap. “And he is going to learn how to walk on this set.”
In “Not Dead,” Rodriguez plays a messy 30-something woman who takes a job writing obituaries for a newspaper, only to suddenly be confronted with the ghosts of the people she’s writing about. While filming the series’ first season, Rodriguez was pregnant with Charlie, which presented unique obstacles to making a very physical comedy.
“Charlie was with us last year,” she joked. It was difficult “having to hide the belly and deal with nausea or exhaustion, or the fact that I was growing exponentially and I was pregnant for two years, and just like a small elephant.”
As a working mom, Rodriguez has new challenges on set. But she praised her husband, an actor, for putting his dreams on hold and taking on a caregiver role while she works on the show.
“I got really lucky because I have an incredible − and of course I’m going to cry,” she said, tearing up. “My husband has pushed aside his desires right now to take care of our son, to be on set and allow me to be with my son. So he is all in and he’s the greatest father ever. Just the best.
“So often the roles were reversed. So it’s really empowering,” she said, noting that many women put their careers on hold when they have children. “It just allows for such a fluid space to be a mom and be an actor and be able to work them both out. So it’s shooting a scene and breastfeeding. And shooting a scene and making turkey, beans and peas, because he loves turkey, beans and peas.”
Of course she’s talking about baby Charlie, not her husband.
“As much guilt as I go through, feeling like one can’t have it all, somehow, I have all these people helping me make it happen,” she said. “Right now, I just watch (my husband) every day make such an incredible son, you know, and allow me to do what I love to do.
“Are we all crying now?”