A COMPLETE UNKNOWN: WHAT HAPPENED TO ME IN HOLLYWOOD—AND WHY YOU HAVEN’T SEEN ME (chapter 1)

the truth about last year and the dance in the darkness that followed

god I hate that I have a substack now. is substack one word or two? sub stack. substack. looks better together, ok we’ll go with that…i’ve always been resistant to new tech (even though I know it’s good for humanity’s evolution) but internally i’m always thinking: “UGH, ANOTHER THING I HAVE TO DEDICATE TIME TO!?” ok, rant over…

let’s begin at the end shall we?

may 17th, 2024: “I just want him to feel safe with me” was my mantra during my meditation before I walked in to interview one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

I typically set an intention before I interview an actor. and up until this day, my intentions were pretty self-serving. I would pray that I wouldn’t fuck up, and memorize everything to a tee so I never had to look down at my cards (I pride myself in never really looking down at my questions although it doesn’t really matter to anyone but me. stupid standard, but I like it) but today was different. I was a correspondent for a digital media company and Will Smith had agreed to sit-down with about 3 press outlets that day to talk about his latest film, Bad Boys 4. the first big blockbuster of his to come out since “the slap”. I intuitively felt like answering questions for press probably felt different for him now since the 2022 Academy Awards.

“I just want him to feel safe with me.”

I walked in the room.

“how come your song “miami” has never been in any bad boys movies, which all take place in miami!?” I asked him, in a proud manner, loving the fact that I felt like I came up with a question so obvious and yet one that no nobody had asked Will Smith before. Will smiled and told me that he’s always wanted to separate the musician and actor within himself. then he proceeded to tell me an exclusive. (exclusive’s for entertainment journalists are like hitting the superstar in nintendo 64’s mario kart. you feel invincible. like you went in - and got the job done. rainbow road’s got nothing on you.)

“actually i’ve been in the studio and i’m working on new music right now.” he said. “what!? does anyone know that?” I asked. he told me I was the first person he told, and then we stared at each other in a moment of silence and I energetically felt like my mantra was working out in real time. then, something really unexpected happened. he said “I want you to have this.” and he took off his red beaded bracelet and gave it to me! I was shocked, as was everyone in the room. the one time I did look down in the interview was to read what the bracelet said:

“dance in the darkness.”

what neither of us knew in that moment was that after that day I was about to enter the darkest period of my life. a dark night of the soul. and I had no idea that that was going to be my last interview ever as an employee of the company I was working for - a dream job I had occupied for 6 years. exactly 2 weeks to that day, my contract wasn’t renewed and I lost: my job, a relationship I was in ended that same week, my health took a nose dive, and as I write this, I have 4 months left of savings in my bank account.

which is why i’m now writing this to auction off the bracelet...jk lolol. can u imagine?

CHAPTER 1: HOW MY INTUITION HAS ALWAYS GUIDED ME, AND WHY BATMAN IS THE SHIT.

i’m a very intuitive person. my gut has led me to make hard decisions and changes at times when it’s felt most scary: in 2012, after I got hired at Ellen, the number 1 daytime talk show & my first job out of college, I left after 4 months to take a 3 month gig at E! Live from the Red Carpet for awards season. I’ve always supported myself financially without the help of my parents, so leaving Ellen, this cushy-ass, highly-coveted job for just 3 months of employment seemed crazy to everyone around me. I followed my gut and I ended up serving as a production assistant under Ryan Seacrest + Giuliana Rancic - 2 people who I idolized at the time and whom I wanted to be the “next of”. E! Live From the Red Carpet was the pinnacle in terms of broadcast television during awards shows at that time. in 2017, when I was a producer on The Bachelor I decided to leave that high-paying, highly coveted gig to finally pursue my dream of being an on-camera host. I had NOTHING LINED UP. while producing at The Bachelor Franchise from 2015-2017, I worked on of some of the highest-rated seasons of all time: Kaitlyn Bristowe, Bachelor in Paradise Season 2, Ben Higgins, Jojo Fletcher, Bachelor in Paradise Season 3…and after I left I had intuitively felt like the energy there had waned. that same year, I started working as an in-stadium host for the Los Angeles Dodgers. in the 4 years I worked there (2017-2021), the Doyers went to the World Series 3 times!

every time I had worked somewhere, it felt like I had caught the biggest wave of energy and momentum. it felt like everywhere I worked, was at the center of pop-culture conversation while I was there. and every time I left a place, it felt like the collective energy there fell-off or something. it was almost as if Martha Stewart herself called me and told me to leave a job before the ship went down. so naturally, I started to really trust my gut + intuition.

there are moments in one’s career and life that you truly never forget because you are forever changed by them. mine happened in January of 2022 when I interviewed the cast of The Batman as a correspondent for this digital media company. this was the day I found out what my purpose was. prior to this interview, I had only done interviews with movie stars at junkets. junkets - for those of you who don’t know - are an event in which a movie studio will rent out rooms in a local hotel and invite press outlets to come and interview the cast of a film in order to promote it. what was so sick about The Batman interview was that we were invited to interview the cast weeks before the junket, exclusively and for 20 minutes! the cast consisted of Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, and Jeffrey Wright. I was fully supported on this interview because I felt like I had manifested my dream producer who was extremely thorough, well-researched and versed. they loved research as much as I did and so with their help, I, for the first time ever, crafted an interview for 5 people all at once. I had never interviewed 5 people at the same time before in the span of 20 minutes.

there’s so much that goes into prepping for an interview like that. my objective was first and foremost to honor people who have been fans of Batman and the comics for 85 years (he is my favorite superhero so this felt like a tall order. also homeboy is the only superhero to have a star on the hollywood walk of fame. stakes were high), make sure that I dedicate the perfect amount of time to each actor, seamlessly transition while conducting the interview live and somehow insert my POV and sense of consciousness into the interview. when you work for an outlet you’re bound to having to ask what your company wants you to ask. in each brainstorm meeting, I felt like I could at least squeeze in 1-2 questions I came up with, coupled with the rest of the teams. I would come up with the order in which I asked the questions and transitions in between which felt like me “Naz-A-Fying” the interview. at the time, I was working with my life coach who I call my jedi - Rachael Dunville - on masculine + feminine polarity. that’s a whole-ass other substack post. the point is, that while crafting The Batman interview I realized Batman represented the masculine and Catwoman represented the feminine, and I had a gut feeling that I should ask Zoe Kravitz about how she tapped into her feminine to play CW, because that can be a vulnerable/ scary place to be for a woman. I remember when I asked it, her response was so unique and great, that in that moment I realized there weren’t a lot of people that looked like me, with the access I had, asking shit like that.

there were a lot of things that happened on the day of that interview that felt magical. Colin Farrell walked up to me before the interview and we had this incredibly warm and familiar exchange - it felt like I had been friends with him in a past life or something. this wouldn’t be the first time Colin would pop up in my life at a weird magical “forever changed” moment. It’s feels like the universe uniquely places him in my life as sign i’m on the right track. he’s like my hot fairy godfather and he has no idea.

I nailed the interview to my standards which are extremely high. I almost never reach my own standard because i’m a recovering perfectionist but I had been eloquent, poignant, I let everyone speak, and I most importantly made ‘Batman’ accessible. what most people don’t know about me is that there are actually a lot of movies i’ve never seen. my parents didn’t really take us to the theater when I was little because they were always saving money. the few movies I saw in theaters were a year after they came out at this Dollar theater in Coral Springs, Florida. so there was a part of me that always felt like an imposter when I first started working at that digital media company because I always felt like I had a lot of catching up to do in terms of my cinematic repertoire. but what my upbringing made me really good at and passionate about was making movies accessible to everyone. It’s always my #1 priority to make sure my conversations are accessible. if I interviewed the cast of a Star Wars, Marvel, or any franchise film that felt like there was a barrier to entry, I made sure anyone would be able to understand the interview and get intrigued enough to want to watch a movie in that world. just in case they grew up not having seen everything like I did.

after The Batman interview, I drove home buzzing. I felt like I had found my purpose and gift. I oddly didn’t really identify with being a ‘host’ anymore. I realized my gift was interviewing and story telling and being a conduit. this was all further supported when the interview came out on youtube. I don’t read comments because I used to work at this youtube channel called Clevver early on in my career and the comments there were so brutal, I vowed to never care about or read comments ever again. the producer I worked on the interview with shared some of the youtube comments with me and I was shocked at how many people commented about me and resonated with the interview. all of this, further cemented how I felt about my purpose and my place in the entertainment industry.

I always thought it was so cool how Oprah mixed consciousness with pop-culture. she could talk to Deepak Chopra or Peema Chodron about transcendental meditation or Vipaasana and then the next day interview Tiger Woods or Adele. I wanted to do that. I still want to do that. I don’t get why there aren’t any high-profile and commercially successful women in my field really doing that for millennials or the gen z generation? a lot of men do it like lewis howes + jay shetty, but not really any women. and yet that’s what I’ve always felt like I came here to do, especially as a young latina in media.

after that interview I was lucky enough to get to do more exclusive interviews. I was getting to sit down with actors first about the biggest projects everyone was talking about, and I was filtering it through this accessible, highly engaging, warm, conscious, thought-provoking, extremely well-researched lens. I did the first interview for movies like Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Barbie, and Dune Part II. and some of those have millions of views. I got so good and felt so in my element during these interviews, that the movie studios started to request me for the interview. because I wasn’t the only host at my job, i’m not sure my job loved the fact that they didn’t really have a choice in picking who would cover the interview when a studio would request me, but that’s my opinion and not based on any fact. of course to me, it was the ultimate compliment and meant I got to live out my dream.

read chapter 2 here.