New Interview w/ Cristela Alonzo on "Cristela's" New Life Online

[JamesG]

Cristela Alonzo on her ABC Sitcom's "New Life" Online
January 24, 2017
by Kate Stanhope


Cristela Alonzo's first Netflix original stand-up special, Cristela Alonzo: Lower Classy, drops Tuesday on the streaming giant, but to many fans of the stand-up comedian, it's more of a homecoming than a debut.

That's because Netflix is also home to her short-lived ABC sitcom, "Cristela", the series which made Alonzo the first Latina to create, produce, write and star in her own primetime comedy.







How did the special with Netflix first come about?

When my show was canceled, we actually approached Netflix about taking over and doing a second season there. And it didn’t work out, it didn’t pan out. We started talking to each other about a stand-up special.… I've been doing stand-up since 2003, so I've been doing it for awhile. I started thinking, "Well, I don't know if I'm ready." And then I thought, "You know what? I'm so hard on myself. I'm never going to feel like I'm ready. Let's just do it."

I started working on it and I started thinking, "I'm going to write an hour stand-up so that people can see what my show was heading toward." So basically my stand-up special is actually me, with my opinions, my thoughts and everything without any network or studio notes. This is completely me. This is what you get without any interference by anybody else.

I just felt like it was important for people to see that my life really was accurately represented in my show and not only that, but I get the chance to extend it and elaborate on it in my special.







Why specifically did you want to do this on Netflix?

To me, it's the fact that they’re global. Just the actual chance that you get your voice heard on such a huge platform. I did a half-hour special for Comedy Central years ago and it's fine, but my special aired at midnight, and it's like, if you don't catch it, sometimes you miss it and it's hard. People forget about it. It's like, "Maybe I'll see it, maybe I won't."

With Netflix, when you log in, the specials always come up. It's more eyeballs. And also the fact that they have my show, so many people discovered my show after it was canceled.







I see you retweet a lot of viewers who reach out to you about discovering "Cristela" on Netflix for the first time and asking about a second season.

Have there been any more recent talks about resurrecting the series?

No, it doesn't come up. I've gotten opportunities since the show was canceled to develop another show and I have chosen not to because, for me, I want to wait till I have a story that I want to tell. I don't want to go into another show just because I want to be back on TV.

I grew up on TV, I love TV and I actually respect television. It's that thing where I feel like if I were to rush into another show that I'm not completely 100 percent ready for, I almost feel like I'm disrespecting television.… I just want to wait until the time is right and I know that I'm going to tell a story worth telling.

But I retweet all the people that love my show and got excited about it because I want people to know that my show was a Latino show and that people want to see Latino programming.







Netflix is also home to the Cuban-American reboot of "One Day at a Time".

Seeing shows like that that are just coming on the air now, do you think "Cristela" would have met a different fate had it premiered a season later or two seasons later?

I'm friends with the showrunners, Mike Royce and Gloria Calderon Kellett, and I know Norman Lear. I think that with "One Day at a Time", it's gotten support that I never got on my show.

And I feel like a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's a reboot of a classic American sitcom done by the man himself. So that helps a lot.



For me, it was really hard for me to try to explain my life to people and have them understand that my life was my life. It was really weird, which I think is why it's so important to have diversity behind the scenes, in just the executive level, the writing level, the producing level because you need people to be able to validate your reality.

So I don't know if it would have been different a year ago or later. I actually always said, "The next sitcom that comes out after me will probably have a better shot," because you keep opening the doors. Every time that a project comes, you open the door more. So it's natural evolution.







It feels like there's been a more concentrated push in the last year to have more diversity behind the camera, particularly when it comes to writers and directors.

Have you found that to be true?

It's weird, I feel like I get invited to do a lot of panels about diversity in front of and behind the camera and I think the efforts are good. I personally haven’t seen a lot of change, but also, I'm not currently working on any TV shows so I really don't know.

It's a slow change because it's about getting opportunities that so many people are competing for. Like when I had the show, people would ask me, "Well, why do you think its harder for a Latino to get on TV?" And I always used to say the same thing: "Well, actually it's hard for anybody. It's a hard thing to get a show."







Even though you're not working on a TV show at the moment, how much thought have you given to where you would like your next show to air?

I've thought about it and I feel like if I were ready for another show, I would probably try to take it to Netflix just because they've been really great to work with and it's been kind of amazing to see how liberating it is to just be able to do what you want to do.

They really let you have that voice and have the vision that you want. Maybe when the time is ready, I will go to Netflix and see if they're interested.







When "Cristela" was canceled, you said you "probably" wouldn't work with ABC again after the experience you had.

Now that it's been a few years, has that opinion changed?

I don't know. Yes, I mean maybe. It's interesting because there's different people that weren't there when I was there so to me it seems fair to approach them because it's kind of like a changing of the guard.

I can't hold them responsible.







You said you're not working on a show at the moment so what are your plans for the next year? More stand-up?

I'm in the new Cars movie that's coming out in the summer from Pixar, I've been working on that for the past year and a half. It's a pretty cool character, it's a pretty sizable role. I'm focusing on that right now.

As for stand-up, there are many comics that, once they tape an hour, they start working immediately on the next hour. For me, I wanted to take some time off to actually live so that I have things to talk about because I feel like I need to actually go through life and experience things that I can make fun of or criticize or observe for stand-up later.

I think that the next thing I'll probably do is stay active with trying to work on this movement that we started Saturday with the march and I feel like the story that I want to tell next will probably come soon because of the work that I'm doing now.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...special-968014