“The only power I have is in
the choices I make for work.
And that’s where I thought
‘You can’t put me in a box.
I won’t let you.’” Constance Says.
She was painfully shy, and despite being interested in acting, she
nearly flunked her high school drama class. Luckily, as a teenager,
she also developed a passion for dancing which turned out to be the
thing that saved her dream and took her life in a new direction. She
loved the way she could use dance to express herself and to inhabit
her own little world without being self conscious. Soon it began to
open doors for her. At age 19, she was asked to dance in a musical
by famed composer Ryuichi Sakamoto in Japan. After Constance
returned to Los Angeles, she got another lucky break. She was
spotted dancing in an underground break-dancing club and was
invited to audition as a dancer for David Bowie's Glass Spider
Tour. She was selected out of a group of 500 hopefuls to join the
world tour.
In 1988, after she returned home Constance was cast as
a dancer in the movie Salsa. The film's choreogra-
pher introduced her to producer Steve Tisch, who
gave Constance her very first acting job and a
pretty good one at that: a series regular role as
Penny on CBS's show "Dirty Dancing" which
Constance
was based on the hit movie. The role gave her a
great opportunity to tran-
sition from dancing MARIE
into acting. However
ornament10
,
after the show ended its run
she found that it was not
always going to be that easy
to get a break—especially know.” As a dancer, she never had to fit herself into an ethnic cate-
for an actress who is gory or a box. In a 2004 Hispanic magazine interview she also
Latin. “It was like, ‘No, explained that she had spent much of her youth in an area of Los
you can’t read for this Angeles that was a melting pot of different people sandwiched pri-
role. You can only read marily between an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and West
for this role.’ And I Hollywood’s gay community. Like many second and third genera-
was like, ‘Why? I am tion Hispanics in the city, she assimilated quite thoroughly and
the same age. I under- doesn’t even speak Spanish very well.
stand this role. I con- Being a Latina actress in Hollywood has been a double edged
nect to it emotionally.’ sword. It has helped her career and been the source of an enormous
And they were like, sense of pride, but it has also been a barrier limiting her opportuni-
‘We are not going that ties for roles. Hollywood producers and casting agents still tend to
way.’ Which was the rely on ethnic typecasting. She’s been told she’s “too Latin” for
ethnic way. And I was, some roles and not Latin enough for others because she doesn’t
‘Oh. I am Latin.’ They speak Spanish or speak with an accent. Her sensible response to
know how much more this kind of thinking? “A third-generation Jew doesn’t necessarily
Latin I am than even I speak Hebrew.”
S A L U D O S 9 H I S P A N O S
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