In 2015 Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz were featured on the cover of the Comedy Issue of the magazine, Latina. The magazine was an American lifestyle, entertainment, beauty and fashion magazine for bilingual Hispanic women published in English. It featured an article based on an interview with both of them, an online gallery of outtakes and a behind the scenes video from the photo shoot, all of which can be found below.
Outtakes[]
Cover Story[]
Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz shared their personal, touching, and often-hilarious moments along their journey toward Golden Globe success. The costars—and real-life amigas—are also passionate about nurturing Latina talent. So they teamed up with Ford this summer to celebrate the inspiring mujeres who are shining stars in their communities.
What do you get when you cross killer looks, rapid-play one-liners, and a loaded gun? No, this is not about Real Housewives of Miami. We’re talking about the riotous army of badass Latinas taking over the small screen with their impeccable comedic timing. Taking the lead are Brooklyn Nine-Nine costars Stephanie Beatriz, 34, and Melissa Fumero, 32. With their wit and on-screen charisma, they’ve introduced a new generation of TV cops with the license to shoot from the mouth.
It’s hard not to compare the hilarious costars with the characters they play on the Golden Globe–winning Fox sitcom. When meeting at the hip Dinosaur Cafe in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, Fumero arrives punctually, dressed in straight-leg blue jeans and a light gray blazer over a button-down blouse—very much like what her type-A character, Detective Amy Santiago, would wear. You can hardly tell the actress apart from her character when she struggles with an ordinary moment.
“Did you see me? I couldn’t figure out the parking meter!” she exclaims with embarrassment when she approaches the table.
As for Beatriz, she arrives five minutes later, sipping a healthy green juice and dressed in workout clothes. There’s no resting bitch face in sight like the one her character, Detective Rosa Diaz, prominently displays on the small screen. However, when Fumero hands a bag of clothes to Beatriz that she had left at Fumero’s place, Beatriz is eager to display the prim, black blouse with curse words needlepointed on the collar—so very subversively Rosa.
“I’ve worn it on the red carpet,” Beatriz says with a mischievous grin while Fumero looks on and laughs. It’s this undercurrent of sly humor that has fans clamoring for more from these tough but sidesplitting TV cops. Fumero and Beatriz’s feminist approach to humor, which sees pretty women delivering knockout punch lines, is proving to be the new norm in Hollywood. Just like Amy Schumer, Gina Rodriguez, and the Broad City ladies, the duo is part of a Hollywood squad of funny chicas giving the masses alluring comic realness.
“If you look at the landscape of television right now, we are in a really exciting time, with shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Orange Is the New Black, Jane the Virgin, and How to Get Away with Murder,” says Beatriz. “There are so many different types of people right now on television. The light is coming through the cracks. You can’t block it out anymore. It’s changing.”
Although Brooklyn Nine-Nine was built to showcase Saturday Night Live alumnus Andy Samberg, it’s the police precinct filled with unusual characters—featuring Beatriz, Fumero, Andre Braugher, Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, and Chelsea Peretti—that really makes the show a standout. Creators Michael Schur and Daniel J. Goor of Parks and Recreation fame had the foresight to cast two Latinas, a total win-win, but that wasn’t necessarily Beatriz and Fumero’s first reaction.
“I remember we would grab each other and go to the side and say, ‘Do you think they will keep both of us?’’’ remembers Beatriz, wondering if the network would cast two Latinas on the show. “Even for our first table read, we texted each other, ‘I’m going to wear my hair straight,’” adds Fumero. “We were so nervous about the two Latinas thing.”
Like their characters, the two actresses come from very different upbringings. Beatriz was born in Argentina; her father is from Colombia and her mother hails from Bolivia. “I’m pan-Latino, or whatever that phrase is,” she jokes. “It’s not a sexy phrase, but it is a sexy, cool thing. That’s how I feel.” She came to the United States at age 2 and grew up in Texas. Although her father was a chemical engineer back in his country, as with so many immigrant stories, he couldn’t find a job here and became a truck driver while her mother worked at various jobs until settling down as a Spanish teacher.
“My mom and dad worked a lot, so we [she and younger sister Jenny] were home alone watching each other,” she says. “Books became a way to experience the world. We spent a lot of time at the library. Super nerds.”
Beatriz eventually traded books for Shakespeare, appearing in various theater productions, including making appearances in Theatreworks USA, The Old Globe Theatre, and Yale Repertory Theatre. She even worked with the Chicano performance troupe Culture Clash on their 2012 play American Night: The Ballad of Juan José.
Fumero hails from the East Coast, raised in New Jersey by Cuban parents. Fumero’s father is a math teacher, and her mother worked at hair salons. “She did my hair for prom, and all the other girls’ from the neighborhood,” she says. The petite brunette developed her passion for performing early on when her parents enrolled her in various dance and acting classes. While finishing her studies at New York University, Fumero made her small-screen debut as Adriana Cramer in the soap opera One Life to Live in 2003. She appeared on the show, in recurring stints, through 2010.
Although Fumero and Beatriz had some comedy experience, they each went through a trial by fire when they had to improvise with Samberg during the audition process.
“They didn’t tell me that I was going to do improv,” says Fumero. “But it was great because if I had known I would have gotten nervous about it.”
Beatriz faced an even tougher time that first season. Offscreen she wears glasses—but on set you’ll never find Detective Rosa with eyewear on, which created a bit of a challenge for the actress.
“I was missing my mark all the time. They’ll do this thing where they dot the mark, place a small dot on the floor where I should stand,” recalls Beatriz. “Camera can’t see it, which means that Stephanie can’t see it either.”
Now the two are old pros on set, holding their own with the cast while viewers enjoy seeing a softer side in Rosa and a less uptight Amy. What will season three bring now that Amy and Jake have shared a true kiss and Captain Holt has left the precinct? “We don’t know who is going to be the captain,” says Beatriz. “Will we love or hate that person? How much will Amy lose her damn mind?”
Their costar Samberg was just as reluctant to share any season three details but couldn’t help but gush over Beatriz and Fumero. “They are both highly skilled performers who don’t have a mean bone in their body. Neither of them, in their entire body,” he says. “And on set they’re both complete goofballs. You couldn’t ask for a lovelier cast; really sweet.”
Off set, the two spend their time keeping physical. Beatriz is part of a dance squad to cheer on The Pistol Shrimps, an intramural women’s basketball team composed of actresses, including member Aubrey Plaza.
Fumero opts for CorePower Yoga, known for its rigorous hot yoga.
“Let me just clarify something. This is not like la-di-da yoga,” interjects Beatriz. “This is hard-core.”
“I hate working out, so when I do I want to feel like I’m dying after it,” Fumero says.
And when they are not sweating buckets, they ’re planning dinners together. They even recently traveled to Paris.
The conversation soon shifts from their Latina idols (Chita Rivera and Rita Moreno) to their first trip to a museum (Beatriz’s mother took her to a Frida Kahlo exhibit at age 10) to their love of musicals (Rent and West Side Story). With each revelation, the two tease and joke with each other, a genuine chemistry. One thing they have in common: They want to keep working that funny bone.
“You get braver when the people around you are supporting what you are doing,” says Beatriz.
But being courageous also means being open to some verbal hits. So when Beatriz reveals her love for all things Selena Quintanilla, Fumero gives her costar a little dig on being an ultra-fan by singing, “Bidi bidi bom bom.”
“I’m sorry, Selenas forever,” says Beatriz.
Not one to lose out, Beatriz digs back when Fumero recounts freaking out over meeting Chita Rivera.
“She came to talk to our theater class and because I was so obsessed with her, I was the person that was picked to give her flowers after the class,” says Fumero.
“Awww,” says Beatriz sarcastically. Hang with the two long enough and someone is bound to be the brunt of a punch line. But hey, a little comedic target practice never hurt anyone.