Eiza González is no stranger to transformation — both personal and professional. From a teenage star in Mexico to a force in Hollywood, her journey is a testament to resilience, rebellion, and relentless reinvention. Refusing to be boxed in by expectations, she’s faced the industry’s constant scrutiny, shattered stereotypes, and emerged stronger each time. In this intimate conversation, Eiza opens up about identity, rejection, and the quiet strength she finds when the cameras stop rolling.
Justin Campbell: Well, I’m so excited to have you here, to interview you again and to celebrate the cover that we shot together for our Rebel issue. This is a really special cover for me, not only because you and I are such close friends, but it came from a place of real collaboration and wanting to celebrate you for being the rebel that I see you as in this industry. And I want to start by talking about that—about your evolution.
I was at an incredible dinner last night, and we were all sitting around talking about how we, as humans, grow so much in our personal lives and sometimes even have identity deaths or identity evolutions. I was thinking about—just from the public perception, not even knowing your version of it—how many “evolutions” you’ve had within your own career, from being a 16-year-old girl cast on your first show in Mexico to coming to America and breaking this industry. I want to hear from you about that journey and what it’s been like for you.
Eiza González: Yeah. That’s such a poetic, beautiful way to put it—the demise of a certain identity of your persona. I think it’s the perfect way to describe how I feel. First, I’m so honored to be doing this cover, and I love you, and I truly believe in your craft and your art. Collaborating with people that you love is always super exciting, but when you have the opportunity to create such a beautiful space where you feel safe and there’s communication, it really brings beautiful things to life. That’s where I thrive and where I get inspired. Watching that video we did—it’s something that felt so deep; I feel so deeply in those words and everything that I’m conveying, everything I’m saying. It’s just something that I’ve always struggled with being in the public eye; sort of this balance between the persona and you.
To your question, talking about being a child star, starting in another country, the extreme exposure and expectations put on you at such a young age while trying to grow in your craft. I just remember trying to be the best I could be with the little information and tools I had. I was battling life at the same time because I was dealing with the demise of my father as a teenager turning into a woman, growing into my body, having my first period—all that happened in the public eye.
Then you have these high-level expectations of you to not be only the best and on point for everything that you’re being required, but you’re also expected to be a role model. And the role model thing can get to people at such a young age in the public eye because you have no clarity of who you are or who your identity is at the moment, so you’re trying to develop that side while maintaining a certain image.
I look back at my career and it feels like it’s a different person. It’s just different people, different iterations—it doesn’t even feel like me. It’s strange to describe, but I look back at the times when I lived in Mexico City or Argentina, and it feels like I died and had another life and then came back. I can remember it as a different lifetime. But it’s so far from who I am right now, and yet, inherently, my childlike excitement about things is identical—nothing has changed. I get equally excited and slightly starstruck, and I always feel like, for better or for worse, it’s never enough.
I’ve just gone deeper and deeper into my psyche, into my emotions, and that, to me, is what’s made me really grow in my workspace. If I didn’t take those steps, I would’ve been stagnant a long time ago. It’s about building resilience in this industry, and it’s easy to throw a pity party. Sometimes, in a business like this, when it’s so overly exposed, it feels like the world’s against you.
I was looking at these graphics about the average human getting, at most, fired twice in their lifetime, or said “no” to, like a big loss of a job, twice—and an actor experiences that once a week. I’m not minimizing other situations, but we’re just consistently being unintentionally minimized because we’re told “no,” meaning we’re not good enough for something, or we’re not right for something. That can really take a toll on you.
JC: You just touched on something that I think is relevant to the story that we created for the issue and the film that we shot, which is this idea of loss, rejection, and dealing with that rejection. I think what you said is true: Actors live in an industry that is constant rejection. You’re constantly putting yourself out there and being told you are not enough. How have you dealt with that in your own career? I know you’ve had a lot of experiences with putting yourself out there in a really vulnerable way, only to be told, “You are not tall enough. You’re not skinny enough. You’re too skinny. You’re not Latina enough. You’re too Latina.” I know from conversations that we’ve had that you have a lot to say about that, so I’m curious.
Eiza González: Some days are really hard. Things that have happened in my career five years ago, six years ago, just rise to the surface every other day, sometimes. You just think you’ve jumped that hump, and then you, sort of, relapse. It’s challenging because I feel like when I came to the U.S., the industry was in a very different place than it is now. It’s very beautiful to see, because if you think about it, 10 years is a lot of time, but it’s also not a lot of time. A lot has happened in the decade that I’ve been here, and it feels like polar opposites.
At the same time, and this is speaking from a place of being an immigrant Mexican woman, there’s still a ways to go. There’s so much to reeducate people about because I don’t want girls to feel how I felt for many years, which was sitting in my living room in Mexico City and thinking about Hollywood, right? And it was just so far away in the ‘90s, there was no one but Salma [Hayek]—no one. No other Mexican woman had left Mexico for America and made an A++ career in Hollywood for themselves. So when there are millions of people, and there’s only one of you, it’s just so defeating, and I don’t want that. I don’t want for other girls to feel that way, and I don’t want to be the only one, right?
It’s so funny, we’re always competing for the same roles because they just put us in this box, but they’re just not opening it enough for us to have more solid seats. And listen, it is happening. It’s changing, and it’s going there.
JC: I think that’s really the answer. Our industry needs to face itself and say, “We need to create more opportunities. We need to stop making it so there’s only one spot.”
Eiza González: Yeah, and then we kill each other for that because it also doesn’t allow for a community to exist—it’s survival mode. I always say that if you have a mortgage to pay, a life, a family that depends on you, there’s pressure already, and you’re like, “I need to get this. I need to get this. I need to get this.” If it’s always competing against your own peers, how are you supposed to not let it fall into your persona that you have to kill because there’s a one-in-a-million chance?
If you look at Latin women, it’s always a struggle to have a continuous career; where with white women, they go from one great director to another great director. For us, it comes, and then you have to take a bit of a hit to come back. I’m not saying that other people don’t struggle—let me reiterate—I know that it’s different and hard for different people in different ways.
JC: You’re speaking from a place of your own experience.
Eiza González: How many more stories of drug dealers or immigrants crossing the border can we tell? It’s us being like, “Of course, you need Latinas to tell the stories because those stories exist.” But they’re not the only ones.
JC: Exactly—they’re not the only stories.
Eiza González: There’s so many more, and I’ve always admired so beautifully…and I think that the Asian community’s doing an incredible job too. We’re on our way.
JC: It’s because of you, Eiza. It’s because of you and others like you who have paved the way for that change. You had to do a lot of hard work to make it possible for those 15-, 16-year-old girls to navigate the industry the way they are today, which differs from how you had to navigate it 10 years ago—it’s the thing that makes a rebel and a trailblazer.
Eiza González: That’s so nice for you to say, because I never think of myself that way.
JC: You don’t stop. We don’t stop and look back. We just keep going.
Eiza González: Yeah, I don’t look back. I keep going, and I try to maintain in a space of optimism. You have to force yourself to find your inner workings and find optimism, and your silver linings, to turn around trauma or fear. I’ve always asked, “How do I challenge myself? How do I push myself further? What’s going to make me feel?” And that’s a rebel—I definitely think that’s a rebel. You want to be the salt of the earth. You just want to work with what life is throwing at you and let go of control.
JC: I know for people like you and me, it’s hard to let go of control because we strive for perfection, and we strive to be the best at what we do. It’s so hard, but it’s amazing when we do let go of that control—how it opens us up to the universe and allows us evolve, grow and give us things that we could never have when we’re trying to control every moment.
Eiza González: Absolutely, and it’s a powerful thing to exercise. Loss of control is a scary thing. No matter what you do, where you are or what your career is, loss of control is the kryptonite of a human being. I think trying to let that go is a great exercise, and I would encourage anyone watching this or listening to find ways to do that.
JC: The question I want to end on, and I think this relates to the film that we created together, which deals with the idea that who we are inside is often very different from who we’re showing on the outside. So I want to ask you a question that I’m going to ask everyone in this issue: Who are you when you’re alone at night? Who is Eiza when she is alone at night?
Eiza González: I’m very vulnerable at night—that’s when I’m at my most vulnerable. I allow my mind to roam at night.
JC: Thank you so much for being vulnerable today and being so open and not just in the work that we created leading up to this interview—the cover, the images, the film, which was so personal for both of us in that process of creation—but also in the dialogue we’ve had today. You are amazing. I love you.
Eiza González: I love you so much. Again, I want to say thank you for creating a safe space for us to express, play and show a little side of me I think many people haven’t been allowed to see. You pushed me there, and that’s fun. I really appreciate that. I respect you as a friend and as a creative, and I’m really proud of what we did. I can’t wait to do something else with you soon.