from IGN, July 2004 / by Jeff Otto

Colombia’s striking new talent talks to IGN about her daring breakout performance in Maria Full of Grace.

We’ve probably all heard the term “drug mule” before and perhaps been somewhat aware of the process by which these women are used to transport drugs out of Colombia and into America. Maybe you’ve seen a 60 Minutes special or a report on the nightly news. Maria Full of Grace tells the story of a young Colombian girl named Maria. She is struggling in a poor Colombian town. When she loses her job and finds out she is also pregnant, a friend introduces her to a new way to make money. No matter what you may have read or watched on the news about Colombian “mules,” I’d wager that most Americans will walk out of this film with an entirely new understanding of the horrible lengths these women go to and the desperation involved in putting their lives on the line for the chance to escape Colombia or put food on the table for their families.

Newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno plays the role of Maria. When first-time director Joshua Marston came to Colombia in search of real Colombian girl, Moreno decided to try out. At the time, she was a college student studying advertising, but acting had always been a passion for her. The news that an American was in desperate search of a Colombian girl to play a lead role was rare news indeed. After struggling for months to find a girl right for the part, Marston hit the jackpot with Moreno. Here was a smart, tough, daring Colombian actress who was willing to conquer any obstacle Marston threw at her.

When Maria Full of Grace is released theatrically, doors are sure to open for Moreno. Her work here is one of the year’s standout performances, foreign or stateside. We spoke with the young actress recently at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. On screen and in person alike, Moreno is striking, with an essence of strength about her. Her smile lights up the room.

Initially, Moreno’s decision to audition for the part of Maria was more of a casual curiosity than anything else. “I was curious to meet this American that was looking for a Colombian girl. I’d gone to a couple of auditions in Colombia and they never chose me, so to hear there’s an American looking for a Colombian, I really needed to see who he was and [find out] what this movie was about. I read for Blanca the first time and the casting director saw me and said, ‘You should just read for Maria, just to show the director.’ And a couple of weeks later, they called me and said that Josh was coming to Colombia to see a couple of girls and that I was in the top three girls.

“I read the script and I was so proud that an American was not stereotyping Colombia. He never showed a gun. He never showed, like, bloody Maria’s face. He never did those types of things, and for me it was incredible… There’s more about Colombia and what Josh did was an incredible job and I’m so proud that he did it. That’s why a lot of Colombians are so grateful [to] him, because he just put his eyes on Colombia and made an incredible movie.”

Though Moreno had always enjoyed acting, she was never sure if she could make a career out of it until now. “I was studying theater. When I was 13 years old, I began studying theater. Then I was studying advertising, but I’ve always studied theater. I was very shy and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m going to just jump into theater. That was my background in acting. I’d never done anything professionally in Colombia. To make this was a challenge, because I’ve never done anything like that.” Moreno also had to discover who this Maria character was, because she shared few similarities in her own life. “Maria is very different from who I am. I don’t live in a little town. I was in college and I didn’t have to work because I needed money. I was blessed because I had a different lifestyle than her. And for me, it was a challenge to do it. Thanks to Josh and thanks to all of the actors, they made my work much easier.”

One of the film’s many intense moments involves an airport inspection when Maria gets to America. Moreno could at least identify with that, admitting that she herself has in the past been privy to the harsh inspection that many Colombian women must endure because of all the drug smuggling. “I was studying in New York. I had to go back to Colombia to get my student visa and so, I was coming back to New York, and they stopped me. And it is a very weird feeling when you just put your feet in America coming from a Colombian flight. They’re waiting for you, they’re there. Their eyes are wide open, and you feel like you did something bad, even though you haven’t done anything, but you’re there with your bag, just waiting for them to stop you. And when they stopped me, I’m like, ‘Okay, I know I have to be calm.’ And of course I wasn’t calm, I was crazy. My heart rate was 1,000 and my hands were shaking. Of course, they saw, I was so nervous that they stopped me more and they were keeping me asking questions. I remember, at a point, I was thinking, ‘Okay, I have to be calm,’ because I know they might put me in a little room. But it was so weird. I was, like, acting to be calm and I was not calm. And they knew it. I was so crazy. I just wanted to get out of [there]. It was a horrible experience. They padded me, they took my wallet. They were, like, ‘How much money do you have?’ I was, like, ‘Oh, my God, hopefully I didn’t spend ten dollars.’ I was trying to get the amount really close to the amount that was in my wallet.’ It was very crazy… And I cried. It was a horrible, horrible thing…”

The film’s most trying moment is when Maria must swallow the rubber-wrapped heroin tablets before her flight to America. Marston didn’t want to pull punches on the scene and used many long shots instead of cutaways. Mysteriously enough, neither Moreno nor Marston would tell us exactly how many she swallowed or what they were really made of. Moreno does admit that the scene was done on the fly. “I didn’t practice. Why should I? I think, especially for Josh, it was important to be real. And, for me, just coming in and seeing these pills and trying to swallow them, I was like, ‘I’m not going to swallow that.’ But when he actually put it in the yogurt… It’s not easy. It was really hard, and that’s the scene in the movie.”

Marston believed in letting his actress have the freedom in the film to be natural. Instead of rigidly setting up the scenes, the director followed Moreno with a handheld camera for many of the scenes and let her do whatever made her most comfortable. “In this movie, the camera was handheld. And Josh told me that, whenever you feel that Maria needs to walk, just walk. The camera’s going to follow you, because he just wanted to feel what Maria was feeling. And it was much easier for me [to say], ‘You know what, Maria should just stand up.’ Whatever I wanted and whatever Josh approved, I just did it. It was easier…”

Since finishing Maria, Moreno says that her life has already changed for the better. “It’s changed a lot. Now I’m living in New York. I have an agent… I’m alone in New York, I’m living by myself, so everything has changed. I have to be independent. I think, like Maria, I grew up. In Colombia, it’s a slower process to grow up. You just stick with your family for twenty-something years, then you finish college, then you, you know, get to work, you get married… But here, I’m growing up faster, and that’s good. I’m learning a lot of things that I should have learned earlier.”

Moreno promises that she is not going to let her head swell and that she needs to take some time to figure out what her next part will be. Working with Marston on his first film, she has been allowed to be a much larger part of the production than just the lead actress. “I’m not going to jump in another project so fast. I think I’m going to finish Maria’s cycle of being in the editing, of being in the sound room, I think it is so incredible how they do movies. I think, when I do another movie, I won’t be next to the director in the sound room, to see how they mix the sound, or to be in the editing room. So, I think being so involved in this movie, it’s so personal, that I just want to end this cycle. I just want my head in one place. I don’t want to think about another project, but I’m reading. I’m reading a lot. I really want to do my next role in Spanish. I’m just waiting for the next role. I’m very proud to be Latin, I’m very proud to be Colombian and, to me, it’s very important to keep with that.”