28
The9-1-1: Lone Staractor is no longer playing catch-up with her confident onscreen characters.
In her decades-long career, Gina Torres has embodied plenty of striking, sometimes lethal women.
I own all of it, she says.
Fresh from filming Season 3, she darts over to hop on Zoom still in costume.
She’s someone to root for.
Torres, too, is well-rounded.
What did life look like for you in 1997, when you were 28?
And I would also come to LA to do pilots and audition.
Traveling took up a lot of my time at that age.
And I had also just met who would be my first husband, Laurence Fishburne.
People think we met on the set ofMatrix, but we met prior to that.
Did you have a signature look?
I guess I was in search of a look.
In terms of hair, it does many things, so I would let it do many things.
I was just so focused on work and becoming whatever character I needed to become.
That was my look: any woman, every woman.
Youve spoken previously about howyou didnt fit the standard of American beauty early in your career.
How far along were you in the self-acceptance process at 28?
I felt pretty good about myself, I gotta say.
Everything seemed to sort of settle in.
Ill never say I came up short.
If anything, I hadtoo muchof everything.
It just didnt look like everybody elses.
All of those things when I was 28 were really starting to become mainstream.
I thought, Oh, theyre starting to catch up.
Theyre gonna catch up.
Thankfully, they did.
What was your idea of indulgence back then?
That was the beginning of taking my physicality very seriously.
Learning to do action sequences lit that fire in me.
If Im gonna pretend to be this superhuman, I gotta put a little effort into it.
How were you feeling about your life and career then?
I come from a family that couldnt be more separated from the theatrical world.
So any job that I got always seemed like a little bit of a miracle to me.
You have big dreams and it never feels like youre making big changes or youre taking bigsteps.
Its really a collection of occurrences and steps and parts that got me to where I am now.
Its been a learning curve because the older you get, you measure success differently.
Youve portrayed such strong, empowered women over the years, from Jessica Pearson to Tommy Vega.
Was that something you consciously worked toward at 28?
If I can paraphrase Jessica Rabbit, Im not really the boss, Im just drawn that way.
Now, Im just like, Oh yeah, I own it.
I own all of it.
Its a right to be able to get to that place, and you have to own it.
But its not free.
Youve been vocal about wanting to change the stigma of Afro-Latinidad onscreen.
How did your values and activism inform your early career?
At 28, I was just trying to work.
We didnt use terms like platform and branding at that time.
It wasnt so much about a stigma or to change peoples ideas because we literally didnt exist.
It was about being present.
I was always myself and proudly Afro-Latina.
How did you start to feel comfortable advocating for yourself and the stories you tell?
Theres nothing like getting comfortable in your shoes, right?
Getting a little lower in the saddle.
Somewhere around Season 2 ofSuits, one of the writers said, So… Torres?
It always starts like that, by the way.
So are you half?
And they incorporated [my Afro-Latinidad] a little bit.
It was incredibly important for me to reestablish Jessica Pearson as being a woman of Afro-Latinidad descent.
What did sacrifice look like for you when you were 28?
Going where the work is is not just a catchy line.
[It] means being prepared to be away for a long time and away from everybody.
And now I have a daughter.
Thats time away from her.
How did you feel about dating, marriage, and children back then?
I didnt really stress about it.
I will say [this story] that I remember very clearly in New Zealand.
I was in costume and in this production bus that was parked somewhere.
I was like, Oh my god, thats amazing!
Thats just so exciting!
I hung up the phone, and I burst into tears.
I didnt even know thats where my body was headed.
I just lost it.
This is my life!
What am I doing?
What was something you considered romantic at 28 but no longer do?
Thank you for not doing that.
I dont care much for living my life too much out loud.
If you could give advice to your 28-year-old self, what would you tell her?
Its gonna be this thing called Instagram.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
