“Jane the Virgin” fans saw Gina Rodriguez depict a different character in Paramount’s new female-lead sci-fi thriller “Annihilation,” which opened in theaters Feb. 23.
The 33-year-old actress portrayed Anya Thorensen, a lesbian paramedic with a side-shaved head and a foul mouth. The character is unlike Rodriguez’s good-girl television persona Jane Villanueva on “Jane the Virgin.”
Thorensen is a “tough girl,” the total opposite of Jane. Rodriguez got to tap into a side of herself that she has been longing to display on the big screen.
“Jane is definitely a character that is so different than myself,” she told co-star Tessa Thompson on Refinery29.com. “For Anya, I got to utilize things that I had been dying to utilize, like physically.” Rodriguez was referring to the several years she’s spent boxing and training in Muay Thai, which she felt she put to good use in “Annihilation.”
In the same Refinery29 video, Rodriguez voiced that she never thought she would get the chance to play a character like Thorensen in her career. “It felt like such a breakthrough,” she said. “And I said this to Alex [Garland], I was like ‘Thank you for seeing something [that] I don’t feel like a lot of people have ever seen or been willing to risk and give me that opportunity.’”
In a video interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Rodriguez, alongside Thompson, was asked about the physical transformation she had to undergo for her role. “Annihilation” director, Alex Garland, had asked if she would mind cutting her hair.
Rodriguez was prepared to do whatever the director asked. “‘Are you kidding?’” she said she asked Garland. “‘For you, I’ll go bald. Whatever you want.’”
Although the Chicago native was willing to change her appearance, she described the aftermath as “hellish” and “rough.” They cut off thirteen inches of hair and shaved the side of her head. “I did not recognize myself, and I did not know how to feel about myself,” she told Yahoo! Entertainment.
Thompson interjected to express that she was excited Rodriguez felt this way. “It’s exciting as an actor to get to look in the mirror and not recognize yourself inside of a part. To me, that’s the beauty of what we do,” she told Yahoo! Entertainment.
Rodriguez told USA Today that she enjoys the brief “magical realism” moments on “Jane,” but playing a different character altogether was a pleasant change. “It’s really nice to escape for longer periods of time like this,” she said.