CREDIT: Dazzler FilmsĪlthough nothing like Carmen’s tale, you might argue that 32-year-old Barrera’s remarkable rise does have a dreamlike quality to it.
‘Carmen’ is a modern reimagining of the 19th century opera. I mean…” she laughs again, “It’s hard not to have chemistry with Paul, right?” “ to witness me making a fool of myself, but also there to celebrate when I finally nailed something. “You get to know each other on a very deep level because when you’re spending that amount of time dancing together, all your insecurities are coming out and you have to trust each other fully,” says Barrera. Post-quarantine, they got to gruelling work on the choreography that powers the film. “I felt so horrible! But that just shows what kind of guy he is – a gentleman. “We went out and had a little Christmas dinner together and Paul got me this gift – a journal – and I felt so bad because I didn’t get him anything in return!”, Barrera laughs. They first met over FaceTime, both quarantined for two weeks in their respective hotel rooms, and even spent Christmas together as both were away from their families.
#OH INVISIBLE MAN CAST MOVIE#
They didn’t know each other before they started rigorous rehearsals (Barrera came onboard in 2018, while Mescal joined two years later – his casting announced six months after Normal People had turned him into an international sex symbol), but their relationship was forged through the intense experience of making a movie during lockdown in Australia, which doubles for the gritty LA desert, in 2021. There’s another level to it.”Īt the centre of Carmen is the white-hot spark between Barrera and Oscar-nominated Mescal which sizzles so much, you half-expect the film to light up a post-coital cigarette during the end-credits. It was a dream-like version of a narrative we’ve seen so much – told in an artistic way that will connect in a more emotional way through its use of movement and dance. The catalyst for the whole adventure-story was because this woman needed to run from danger and cross a border to seek a better life.
Maybe after this movie they’ll think: ‘Oh my God, Carmen was an immigrant’. “I thought this was a way of reaching an audience that would usually reject watching immigration stories. “It’s beautiful, hopeful and doesn’t hit the nail over the head,” says Barrera. Melissa Barrera and Paul Mescal in ‘Carmen’. Watching Barrera’s kinetic chemistry with Mescal, even hardline home secretary Suella Braverman might dust off her Spanish Duolingo subscription or be tempted to squeeze her cloven hooves into a pair of ballet pumps. Featuring a score by Succession’s Nicholas Britell, the resulting bilingual film unfurls like a hallucinatory fever dream via song and expressionist dance numbers. With a few notes to Millepied to help expunge any clichés, it could be a more avant-garde way of telling a story that had traditionally left her cold. “In Hollywood, most of the opportunities you get, as a Latino, are to play some version of an immigration story – which are always very dramatic, violent, sad and depressing… They’re like trauma porn that makes you want to crawl under the covers of your bed and cry.”Īfter reading the script though, Barrera was torn.
“When I moved from LA to Mexico in 2017, I told my team I didn’t want to feed the narrative of ‘that’s all we are’,” she explains via Zoom from a hotel in Dublin, where she’s shooting a reimagining of the classic Universal Monster Movies from the studio’s horror golden age (think Dracula, Frankenstein or The Invisible Man). “Hollywood’s immigration stories are like trauma porn” The problem? Barrera had vowed “not to go for any immigration roles”, wary of perpetuating stereotypes. After a deadly incident at the US border, she goes on the run with shell-shocked ex-marine turned reluctant border patrol guard Aidan, played by man-of-the-moment Paul Mescal. In Millepied’s version, the eponymous Carmen is a Mexican immigrant fleeing from drug cartel thugs who murdered her mother. “I knew it was going to be really cool with a very unique, creative vision,” Barrera nonetheless concluded.Īfter reading the plot, however, a snag emerged. And that it was an updated take on George Bizet’s timeless 19th century opera. She’d heard it was the directorial debut of French choreographer Benjamin Millepied, known for masterminding the dance scenes in 2011’s Natalie Portman-starring ballet drama Black Swan. She didn’t know much about the upcoming musical, but what she did know intrigued her. When Melissa Barrera first heard about Carmen in 2018, she knew straight away that she wanted the title role.
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