An Interview with Natalia Cordova-Buckley from ‘The Mosquito Coast’

Natalia Cordova-Buckley is a talented and accomplished actor that has appeared in some of the world’s biggest franchises, such as Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Currently, she plays the mysterious Isela in The Mosquito Coast on Apple TV+ and recently we had the chance to sit down with Natalia and discuss her enigmatic character.
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John Betancourt: What was it, that attracted you as an actor to the character of Isela?

Natalia Cordova-Buckley: Well, first and foremost having a job. (Laughter) You get the audition and you're like, “I hope I get this job.” And then if you do, you dive into the character. If not, it's way heartbreaking. But, of course, I was incredibly attracted to this character because it is rare to get, as a Latina, an intellectual role of this type. Isela is, is an academic intellectual woman, we, we rarely see Latinas in that light. We're usually you know, the sexy vixen, starlet, Lolita. And, and I understand why because Latinos are so beautiful and wonderful. But there's all kinds of people of all races and colors and whatnot. So, to start just seeing roles for… it's not so much for me for representation. It's just to be a reflection of reality. I keep saying actors, we're not reflections of morality. I'm not just here to represent Latinas or Latinos, I'm here to be a reflection of reality. And reality is that there's female doctors that are Latinas and lawyers and academics and intellectuals and teachers in Harvard. And for me to play such a… just grounded, strong, adult woman in herself is his wonderful because you don't you rarely see Latinas getting those roles.

John Betancourt: That's very, very true, and a huge deal. Now one thing that I definitely love about your portrayal of Isela, is that she is constantly watching everyone and everything. How do you as an actor, get into the mindset of playing somebody that is clearly ahead of everyone by 10 steps?

Natalia Cordova-Buckley: It's so amazing. I love that you and others have asked me that question because it was definitely… I'm glad you notice it because it was the hardest challenge to play with that character. In for example, in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Yo-Yo was someone very grounded in her values, was very upfront, she wasn't a diplomat, she called it as it was and didn't care of things, the consequences, what the consequences were. And Isela has to be a complete and utter diplomat, even in all her strength, in all her groundedness in her ideology, she still has to have all these strings all the time. And for me to play each scene, grounded in who she was, but always… acting. So, Isela herself, is acting, is pretending in a lot of moments, was so perplexing at times, but I have to give it to Mark and Will, our writers and showrunners and our directors; Alonso, Metin and Stefan Schwartz and beyond, they, they really guided me in that ambiguity, because at moments I really had to like sit down and be like, “Okay, her objective is this, but she can't show her objective. So, she's got to go this way.” It was so confusing at times, having to act friendly with someone who she wasn't really friendly with. So that sort of game she constantly has to play. And it's usually with all men, so she's this woman, managing men all the time. Hello, I hope a lot of women relate to that, it was wonderful. (Laughter) It's just really wonderful to have to play someone who has to do that math all the time as you're doing it to as the actor, you know, finding out the ways on how to deal with everyone separately.

John Betancourt: Something I’ve noticed is a big theme in this series, is that everyone is constantly searching for something greater in this tale. What is Isela ultimately searching for?

Natalia Cordova-Buckley: I think she's searching for congruence with herself. I think for me, Isela was someone that from a young age had been you know, fist in the air kind of human being, but always in the intellectual matter. You know, an ideologist, you know, if you want to think of her in the past… sort of like how the communist group started back in Germany. But she was a thinker. She was a teacher; she was an academic and intellectual. And I think at one point, she decided to put her money where her mouth is and live out the system that she was always… the utopia that she was always trying to create in her mind, in her ideology. And not just speak of it as a philosophy of life, but to actually be like, you know, all these communists and socialists in the past have spoken of this utopia, let's stop talking about it, and let's actually create it and that's why she keeps saying to, to Allie, you know, “You were necessary, you would have been here.” Because I think from a young age, they spoke about this in groups as activists and stuff.

John Betancourt: Now as a follow up to that, since we’ve talked a bit about how she plays all the angles and how she is searching for more. Who or what would you say she is loyal to in this story?

Natalia Cordova-Buckley: I think like I said, the congruency of having been someone that just speaks about it now has to live it out loud. I think there's a lot of these kinds of real life characters that have been sort of… Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela without coming from a place of judgment if whether we agree with their beliefs or not, but just these people that have such fire in them, of ideology, of idea of living of the way we should be, that they cannot do anything but live it you know, Nelson Mandela, owned his 27 years in prison and came out a stronger person. Che Guevara owned the fact that he was like, “I'm a guerrillero and I will go fight in countries that are not even mine.” I mean, he fought for Congo, Castro you know, these, these people that just turned into their ideologies, for better or for worse, that's Isela, she cannot any longer just live in her mind.

She had to, to live out everything she had spoken, if she was going to protect original communities or a Native American community, she was going to live with them, she wasn't just going to speak or write about them. If she's going to save the water of the planet, she needed to live above this aquifer in this jungle, you know, like, she will not be someone that just… that doesn't walk the talk. I think that's, that's her biggest search. And I think there's a lot of vanity, in some way, in those people. Well, not vanity, more this this sort of narcissism of “I shall live even if I'm dying in the middle of the jungle, I won't get a doctor,” you know?  And there's a lot of that in Mosquito Coast, the novel, there's a lot of that in Allie, and there is a bit of Allie from the novel in Isela, you know, she represents a bit of that person that was willing to live it all just to be congruent even if it meant losing family, losing everything, you know, its ideology at its best. It's being idealistic at its max.

John Betancourt: What are you most looking forward to fans experiencing in the back half of the season?

Natalia Cordova-Buckley: I mean, I hope they first and foremost that it's a show they enjoy and that we tell a story, and they feel like they're fully formed characters and people that you could think of as existing in real life. It's hard for me to have a morality tale with my work, because, as I said, again, I don't like to be a reflection of morality. I just like to reflect what seems to be real from what the writers write and be a reflection of our world. So, I hope people, with these great shows like Mosquito Coast on Apple TV Plus, I hope we just start approximating the craft with so much more respect. You know, filmmaking and storytelling is not just what it seems to have become. It's, it's not fame, fortune and glory. To me, it's something much more honorable and profound. And when you get to do shows like this one, where someone like Neil Cross and Will and Mark and the storytellers behind it really want to make an impact in the industry of entertainment.

I just hope we keep honoring the craft as we should, because there is a craft behind it because the show wouldn't be what it is without the incredible Mexican crew that we have. In the backdrop. They were the best makeup artists, and the best hairstylists, and the best camera operators. And the most wonderful DPs, in 99% of it was Mexican and Latino. So, there's a whole craft behind filmmaking that I think is sometimes being lost, because of the entertainment industry becoming so much more about quantity of content than quality of content. So, if you take anything away from this show, know that it was seven months in insane heat with insane, insects and crocodiles and snakes and I was there 50% of the time, but there was a Mexican crew 99% of the time, in that heat and in that rain and working their butts off to give you just the best entertainment you could ever have. So, I hope people start taking that more than just the momentarily satisfaction of the entertainment, that we dig deeper and understand what it takes to do great storytelling, great filmmaking. For me that's really important. So, we don't lose the magic of this craft.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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