Cristela Alonzo’s new ABC comedy “Cristela” premiered October 10th as the #1 show for its time-slot, making it the second best comedy debut of the Fall. The Mexican-American comedian’s family sitcom premiered with 6.6 million viewers. On a recent tour of the “Cristela” I was covering for Cinemovie TV, and my blogger colleague, Cabeza de Coco.
“The whole story takes place on something that happened to me in real life 10 years ago.” – Cristela
“Cristela” stars Cristela Alonzo as Cristela, Carlos Ponce as Felix, Terri Hoyos as Natalia, Andrew Leeds as Josh, Sam McMurray as Trent, and Jacob Guenther as Henry. Stand-up sensation Gabrielle Iglesias (“The Fluffy Movie”) appears in a recurring role as Alberto.
The series chronicles the life of a Mexican-American law school graduate who must balance her chance to live the American Dream by working as an unpaid intern at a law firm, with the concerns of her family, including her sister (a call center operator at a cable TV company who wants her to get a real job), her brother-in-law (who sees her as a freeloader and wants her to find another place to live), and her mother (who wants her to settle down).
“I started with nothing which actually made me fearless, because I have nothing to lose. I mean really at the end of the day, if I fail I am never going to go back as poor as I was when I was a kid” – Cristela
Cristela’s personality was raw mixed with warmth, charisma and so much heart. She explained that the objective of the sitcom is to show that when you feel no one believes in you and you have no hope, there is always hope as long as you believe in yourself.
Additionally, something she wanted to make clear from the top was the following: “I don’t want to represent a culture because when you aim to do that you are going to disappoint someone. The best thing I can do is be myself, tell my story from my point of view with the people I surrounded myself with, and every character on the show is based on someone real. That is something I wanted to make sure of because I wanted to make sure the show was authentic. That way, in case anyone has a criticism about anything I can defend it because it is based on reality.”
Cristela airs Fridays at 8:30pm/9:30pm central on the ABC Network.
