00:01Hi, I'm Rachel Sklar from The List. We're here at the Tribeca Film Festival
00:05Daring Women's Summit with Oscar and Emmy nominated actress and activist
00:10Rosie Perez. It's so wonderful to meet you and speak to you and have you here.
00:15Thank you. So you are here at the Tribeca Film Festival. You just spoke about being
00:22a daring woman and about your activism but since it is a film festival let's
00:27talk about your upcoming projects. You have Five Nights in Maine coming up as
00:31well as Puerto Ricans in Paris. Can you tell us a little bit about those?
00:33Yes, Five Nights in Maine stars David Oyelowo from Selma and the wonderful
00:40legendary Diane Wiest and it's a film about loss and grief and how that plays
00:47out in a very quiet unconventional way and I play Diane Wiest, private nurse and
00:55basically only friend. And that was from a female director, Maris Cuon. It's her
01:02first feature film. She was recognized during a different festival for a short
01:09she had done and she presented the script to David Oyelowo and he said yes and
01:15they found the money and they dated. That has a distribution now and also I have
01:21Puerto Ricans in Paris and that is a script by produced by Luis Guzman and it
01:29stars Luis Guzman and Rosario Dawson and myself and I play Luis Guzman's sister and
01:36it's a comedy. It's a caper comedy.
01:39Puerto Rico is a cause near and dear to your heart.
01:42Yeah.
01:44I feel like that's been getting a lot of play lately with Lin-Manuel Miranda
01:50agitating on behalf of Puerto Rico. Is that something that you've been active
01:56about recently?
01:57Well, I've always been active about the status of Puerto Rico and their politics
02:03and preserving the culture of Puerto Rico and what's going on right now with the country
02:10in bankruptcy is really, really sad. And basically, Puerto Rico is a modern colony,
02:16if you will. It's a commonwealth of the United States which basically means a colony
02:21of the United States but that's the sanitized version of it. And they pay taxes. They have a
02:32governor of the island but they cannot vote for U.S. president. And that's very complicated.
02:39And in regards to Puerto Rico becoming a state or not, that's not for me to say
02:45because I don't live there. I'm not a resident there. I think the people should decide themselves.
02:49But something has to happen because it is part of the United States. It still is a part
02:55of the United States and it's an island that is in serious, serious trouble. And the people
03:01are fleeing because there are no job opportunities and it's just going down and it's really sad
03:08to watch.
03:09And just to continue the activism thread, we're here at the Tribeca Daring Women Summit
03:15and you were getting a great response from the crowd as you were exhorting them to not
03:19let anyone tell them no and to do your thing and don't listen to the haters. How do you feel
03:25about the situation currently for women in the entertainment industry?
03:31I think it's getting better but I think that it still isn't great. And I think, you know,
03:37just because you give us a TV show doesn't make it right. It's what's the material behind
03:44that television show and who are the players that are producing it. Do they understand what's
03:50going on? It's gotten better but we still have a lot of room for improvement. And, you know,
03:57and get people behind the scenes as well. Get great writers like, what's her name, the writer
04:05for Girls. I love that show.
04:08Like Lena Dunham?
04:09Lena Dunham. You know, there has to be other women out there that have her talent.
04:14There's plenty. There's a panel going on shortly.
04:16There's a panel, yeah. And women of color and different backgrounds, there has to be more.
04:23You know, there just can't be only one great Lena Dunham, you know. And I think things can
04:30really, really change. And it doesn't have to be just what I was saying there earlier.
04:35The material doesn't have to only be specific about our nationality or our race. It's stupid.
04:41We don't live like that as human beings. Do you understand what I'm saying?
04:45Yeah, absolutely. That there's plenty of room for way more voices than the very narrow typecasting
04:52of who gets to create our culture.
04:55Exactly.
04:55I'm hearing you.
04:56Yeah, yeah. I mean, a show like Scandal, fantastic. A show like Grey's Anatomy, fantastic.
05:02A show like How to Get Away with Murder, fantastic. A show like Jane the Virgin, fantastic.
05:08Give us more. Give us more of that.
05:10And by the way, the ratings show that we want more of that. That's for sure.
05:13Yes. Yes, I'll say, right? I'll say.
05:15So, yeah. All right. Well, the mandate is clear. So let's hope people are watching.
05:21But more than that, that the people out there, the new voices are encouraged to come forward
05:26because there is space for them and we're making that space.
05:29Absolutely.
05:30Absolutely.
