Annie Gonzalez said no to starring in the Jenni Rivera biopic 3 times. When she changed her mind, it changed her life
WHEN SHE GREETS me at her door, Annie Gonzalez is barefoot, her dark chocolate curls loose and bouncing. In full glam and wearing a cream-colored lace dress, she’s holding a bundle of clear plastic wrapping in her arms. With an excited wiggle, the actor explains she had a lush white couch assembled in her Los Angeles home just minutes before her TODAY.com photo shoot.
Gonzalez may still be in the middle of making her house a home, but she says she’s never felt more at home within herself.
“This moment in my life feels like the beginning of being awake,” the 31-year-old says. “I feel like there’s a lot that happened in my life that I was always trying to numb myself to, and for the first time … I can face whatever it is that comes my way.”
That includes starring in the late Jenni Rivera biopic “Jenni,” in theaters and available on the Spanish-language streaming service Vix now. “Jenni” tells the tragic and intense real-life story of the late Mexican American regional singer from Long Beach, California, who became one of the leading ladies in a predominantly male-fronted genre.
From her teen pregnancy, musical family upbringing and abusive marriages — all before her untimely death at 43 in a plane crash — Rivera was a take-no-BS woman. And she was one who was admired, scrutinized and beloved by many.
Which is why, when offered to audition for the role, Gonzalez says she was “scared s—less.” The team behind the film reached out three times in the span of two months, and Gonzalez kept passing on the opportunity.
“I turned it down because I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, I don’t know much about her. How am I going to do this?’ Speaking Spanish, the type of music that she does … that’s not something that I’m familiar with. Culturally, yes, it’s in my ethos, but it’s not something that I grew up around or listening to.”
Gonzalez’s team and close friends kept insisting she give the role a shot, including her “Flamin’ Hot” co-star Jesse Garcia, who “really convinced me to audition.”
“Once I read (for the role), I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to book it,’” she says. “There’s just certain things that click. I think what we do as creatives, as artists, is such a spiritual thing. A lot of times things come to us to break us free, open us up to pieces of ourselves that we never knew, that we didn’t know we could access, or that we needed to.”
The result is a heart-wrenching look at the reality of a young woman who had to physically and emotionally fight back to reclaim her joy, protect her children and make a name for herself. Rivera, who was a mother of five, died Dec. 9, 2012 in a fatal plane crash in Monterrey, Mexico. The accident also claimed the lives of six others.
GONZALEZ ALWAYS knew she wanted to be an actor. Raised by single mother Anna Castillo in Los Angeles and a slew of tías, Gonzalez — who is sixth generation Mexican American — was surrounded by creatives. Her mom, who also had acting aspirations, had her when she was 23.
“She was like my big sister,” Gonzalez says. “We were little creative babies, and would walk around the house and listen to music and do accents. My babysitters a lot of the time were Gene Kelly and Ginger Rogers from watching old movies. It was a lot of daydreaming.”
Her father, Gabriel Gonzalez, is also an actor and musician.
“I’ve been singing since I was a little girl,” says Gonzalez, who sings in “Jenni” and serves as an executive producer on the film. “I thought I was going to be a singer before I was an actress.”
One of Gonzalez’s first auditions was at the age of nine, alongside J.R. Villarreal, who coincidentally co-stars as Rivera’s second husband, Juan “Cinco” Lopez, in “Jenni.” The two hadn’t seen each other in years before reconnecting for the biopic.
Gonzalez’s other accolades include roles in “Shameless,” “Vida,” and most recently, “Lopez vs. Lopez.” Her big break came in 2020 with the Netflix series “Gentefied,” where she starred as the book-and-street smart Lidia, who dates Erik (J.J. Soria), one of three Mexican American cousins the show follows in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. The show ran for two seasons, and it was there that she connected and became close friends with co-creator Linda Yvette Chávez. The two later worked together on Eva Longoria’s directorial debut “Flamin’ Hot,” written by Chávez and co-starring Gonzalez.
“Eva taught me very early on to not get attached to any high or to not get attached to any low. She taught me that whatever you want, you’re going to have to be the one that decides and goes after it,” Gonzalez says. “If you want it to happen overnight, you won’t have longevity. If you love the art, focus on that. That should be the most important thing, the art and the joy of it.”
“Eva really taught me relevance comes and goes,” she adds. “It’s about believing that you’re relevant in here: inside of your heart, finding that peace in here.”
DANCING ALONG to artists like Victoria Monét and Kelly Rowland, Gonzalez is carefree and open in her own safe space.
“Oh, so you’re just going to make me feel beautiful!” she exclaims after seeing the first photographs of herself taken by Juan Veloz.
Whatever you want, you’re going to have to be the one that decides and goes after it.”
Annie Gonzalez
As a journalist in Los Angeles, my path has crossed with Gonzalez’s many times over the last years. From a set visit during the first season of “Gentefied” to interviewing her for “Flamin’ Hot” and running into each other at events in Hollywood, Gonzalez’s genuine spirit has has always shined through.
She once told me she didn’t know how “to do this” — meaning, navigate Hollywood with interviews and photo shoots. However, watching her being photographed, I have to disagree.
It’s taken Gonzalez a bad breakup and therapy, she says now, to self-reflect and see her talent and worth. She has realized the importance of facing her fears and living by the belief that “no weapon formed against me shall prosper.”
Gonzalez has also given herself grace to rise and fall — much like Rivera did over the course of her complicated life.
“This was one of the hardest projects I’ve ever done in my life,” she says. “This helped me open up to myself. Now, even watching ‘Jenni,’ I see certain things. Because I’ve grown so much as a person in the last two years since shooting the film, that I’m like, ‘Oh s—, I wonder how I would approach this now.’ There’s always room to grow, and I’m proud of myself.”
RIVERA’S FAMILY had final casting approval for who was going to portray their mother. After getting the role, Gonzalez had lunch at the home of Rivera’s eldest daughter, Latin Grammy-winning artist Chiquis Rivera.
“I asked a lot of questions,” she says. “It was only one lunch, so you can only get so much, and ultimately, for me, it was about getting her essence. I’d be doing a disservice to her if I was trying to imitate everything that she was. But her essence is something that I understood once I saw the family dynamic. It reminded me very much of my family.”
Thousands of interviews exist online of Rivera. While doing her research, Gonzalez couldn’t believe the sexist questions and “complete disregard to her humanity” that Rivera experienced. Yet she persisted.
“She was honest, she was authentic, as much as she could be, because either way people had an opinion about her,” she says. When embodying “La Diva de la Banda,” Gonzalez says “it was hard to separate” what her character Rivera was going through and her own real life, including being assaulted.
“I’m such a visceral person that I do pull a lot from my own life. And then just knowing her life and what she had experienced … Sometimes I still sit and I ponder her. I listen to her music, and I sob for her.”
“Jenni” the film concludes with a poignant quote from the late “La Chacalosa” singer.
“Gracias por aceptarme tal como soy, con mis virtudes y defectos,” which translates to, “Thank you for accepting me as I am, with my virtues and defects.”
The screen then fades to black. And as the credits roll, “Pedacito de Mí” by Jenni Rivera and her daughters Chiquis and Jacqie Rivera starts to play.
“This movie is a Chicana, feminist story of someone finding her fight and finding it in her own way, and finding fight enough to not just protect herself, but to protect those who didn’t know they needed protection,” Gonzalez reflects. “It’s a love story to anyone who’s never felt worthy, who’s never felt good enough, more beautiful enough, talented enough, and still stood up in the face of adversity and went for it.”
Legs stretched across her new couch, a golden glow embracing the downtown skyline, Gonzalez shares what comes next for her.
An artist through and through, she’s been writing songs for an EP and has been performing live at historic venues — something she didn’t feel she had the confidence to do before “Jenni.”
“This film has broken me open to exploring, to leaving no leaf unturned in my life,” she says.
She’s also manifesting becoming the next rom-com queen. “But not just any. I want to be what Sandra Bullock was to the ‘90s to today. I think our last rom-com queen was maybe Anne Hathaway or Emma Stone. I want to do that, but me.”
Smirking, she pauses before talking about herself as the leading lady in “Jenni.”
“I even saw moments in ‘Jenni’ where I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I could do it. Yeah, she’s a little charming f——!’”
