Actress Keyla Monterroso Mejia got here out of nowhere to wow audiences on "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
NY Publish photograph composite
The day earlier than she began her new job, Keyla Monterroso Mejia “cried my eyes out.”
It’s not the response you may count on from an actress touchdown her massive break — on this case, on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” However Mejia, 23, mentioned issues have been much more excessive when she first came upon she received the gig.
“My coronary heart sank to my ass!” she instructed The Publish. “It was one of the best, worst information ever. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be as scared earlier than a undertaking as I used to be the evening earlier than I began capturing ‘Curb.’ I used to be so stuffed with doubts. I had nightmares that I might be on the set and they'd fireplace me.”
As a substitute, Mejia, who had no skilled TV expertise, turned out to be the brightest mild of the present’s twelfth season: stealing scenes from stars Larry David and Cheryl Hines.
Even higher, she’s performed it by enjoying the world’s worst actress. Maria Sofia Estrada is a Mexican quick order cook dinner whose father blackmails David into hiring her for a component — meant to be that of a slim Jewish ballerina — on a present he's producing.
However Maria Sofia fancies herself an actress, and has the ego and temperament in addition. She turns into David’s bête noire as she bumbles, brawls and typically breaks out into extremely awkward “attractive” dances.
“Marques Rey, who performs my dad, was unbelievable,” Mejia mentioned. “He simply mentioned this line to Larry, ‘You realize, my daughter can dance.’ He got here up with the thought and all I needed to do was execute it.”
The primary-generation American daughter of immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, Mejia mentioned she “had nothing on my resume however two quick movies,” however that was sufficient for a casting agent to find her. “They have been actually taking an opportunity on me.”
She ended up being in six episodes when she was initially employed for only one. Now the actress is getting a raft of presents, and has simply wrapped a nationwide industrial and booked a brand new film with main stars that she will’t reveal but. She’s additionally a part of the forged of the upcoming Netflix sequence “Freeridge.”
The bubbly Mejia spoke to The Publish on Zoom from the identical modest bed room in Chino Hills, Calif., the place she additionally auditioned just about for David and “Curb” producers. She lives there together with her mom and youthful brother.
Her mother and father, Juan Carlos and Chely, each barbers, don’t communicate a lot English. They nonetheless don’t have any concept who Larry David is, Mejia mentioned.
“However they gave me all of the assist on the earth,” she mentioned, “even after they didn’t actually perceive what I needed to do or why I needed to do it.”
All she has in widespread with Maria Sofia, Mejia defined, is that she is aware of what it’s like to actually unhealthy at one thing. Along with her mother and father, a lot of her aunts, uncles and cousins are barbers.
Her household anticipated she’d be one too, and tried to coach her when she was an adolescent.
“I used to be the worst barber ever,” Mejia mentioned. “I apologize to anybody whose hair I minimize. I used to be so nervous. I’d begin sweating after I needed to minimize hair.”
She dreamed of being an actor however by no means instructed anybody till a buddy talked about a performing arts highschool in close by Pomona. Mejia, then 15, talked her mother and father into letting her apply, and he or she received in. She stayed by her junior 12 months then switched to a homeschool program.
She mentioned that a few of her greatest inspiration got here from watching the 2017 documentary, “Within the Heights: Chasing Broadway Desires,” that chronicled the life tales of Lin-Manuel Miranda and the forged of his musical.
“I needed to be an actress however it appeared like a faraway dream,” she mentioned. “Then I watched that documentary. It gave me such motivation. I can’t sing or dance but it surely made me really feel there's a place for me in performing — a spot for individuals who appear like me. And it may be powerful but it surely’s not unimaginable.”
Her father, after working 12 hours within the barbershop, would drive Mejia to her performing coach, Gloria Garayua, in LA and again a number of evenings every week. She was so scared the primary time they went that she was afraid to go in, although she’d set the entire thing up herself.
“My dad and I had an argument outdoors [Garayua’s] place,” Mejia mentioned. “I mentioned, ‘No, I can’t go as much as the door, I’m too scared.’ So my dad mentioned, ‘We didn’t come right here for nothing. I’ll do it.’ He knocked on this girl’s door and mentioned, ‘That is my daughter. She desires to be an actress. Are you able to assist her?'”
Her dad, Mejia mentioned, is pleased with her however fell asleep whereas watching her first episode of “Curb” as a result of he didn’t actually perceive it.
The actress herself had by no means heard of the present earlier than her tryout, though she was vaguely conscious of “Seinfeld,” which Larry David famously co-created and wrote.
“We don’t have cable so I watched loads of ‘Curb’ on YouTube clips” when she received the audition, she mentioned. “Then I bummed a buddy’s HBO account to observe the remaining.”
She nearly misplaced it when she came upon actors on the sequence are anticipated to improvise.
At her improv class on the performing arts highschool, Mejia mentioned, “I’d simply sit within the nook, paralyzed. I instructed myself, ‘I by no means need to really feel this manner once more.'”
After highschool, she determined to sort out the issue head-on by signing up for courses on the The Groundlings, the famed improv and sketch theater and faculty.
“I sucked once more,” she mentioned. “I simply mentioned, ‘By no means once more. I can’t do that.'”
So when “my agent mentioned I used to be going to do improv [in an audition] with Larry David himself, I swear to you, my coronary heart went to my ass once more.”
When the large day arrived, Mejia received on Zoom in her bed room and noticed David, the director, two producers, the casting director, the casting affiliate and a casting assistant all watching her from the opposite aspect of the display screen.
Mejia mentioned she had deliberate the character as form of “quiet and peculiar and gentle.”
However to her shock, David “received aggressive and imply and grumpy and began attacking me. At one level he mentioned he was going to pull me out by my arms.
“I simply felt, you’re not going to speak to Maria Sofia like that,” she mentioned. “And my character was born in that second. I shoved my arms on the display screen at Larry and mentioned, ‘Attempt it bitch!'”
Everybody laughed, and he or she was instructed she received the half the subsequent day.
Throughout filming, her improv largely went effectively — aside from when she by chance scratched Hines in a faked catfight and drew blood.
Mejia calls her expertise on “Curb” a “fairy story,” however admits she doesn’t bear in mind loads of it.
“I believe my mind thinks it’s a foul reminiscence and blocked it out as a result of I had such nerves,” she mentioned. “However you haven't any concept how grateful I'm.”
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