Eiza González is reflecting on her career. In a recent interview with InStyle, the 34-year-old actress revealed one roadblock she hit while trying to book roles.
“I went through a lot of trouble with my body, with my curves, with my look. It was really tough,” she told the outlet. “I just think it’s an overly sexualized idea of a Latin woman. It’s so disappointing and it’s so pathetic.”
In fact, González said that getting cast as anything other than the bombshell “has been single-handedly the biggest challenge of my career.”
“I remember being [told for] so many projects, ‘She’s too pretty for the role. She’s too hot for the role,'” she said. “Then I’d just be like, ‘What is Margot Robbie?’ She’s the hottest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life!”
That led González to have “an identity crisis for a very long time.”
“I was like, ‘Do I shave my head? Do I make myself less attractive? Do I make myself more attractive? Do I not dress super hot or do I dress super hot or do I cover myself all the time?'” she recalled.
On top of her physical appearance, González said that transitioning her career from Mexico to the U.S. presented its own challenges.
“It was dismissive of my entire career. It was dismissive of who I was. It was dismissive of my culture. It was dismissive of my experience, my work, my work ethic,” she said of American media thinking she was a new actress when she started getting roles in the U.S., despite years of work in Mexico. “Because you are uneducated and uninformed about other countries, that’s on you and that’s fine, but you cannot dismiss people’s careers.”
Now, González — whose upcoming projects include the series 3 Body Problem and the movie The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare — says she’s “happy with the people that I’ve brought into my life.”
“Shockingly, I like myself so much more physically right now than I did in my 20s,” she said. “And a part of it, obviously, is maturing and accepting yourself and doing all the hard work, but I also think I look better. I actually think I’m aging into my looks in a way that I personally like.”
As for love, though, González — who’s previously been linked to Liam Hemsworth, Timothée Chalamet and Jason Momoa — says she’s “sort of given up.”
“I’m not looking anymore,” she admitted. “When I’m in love, I fall in love so deep and it takes me so much to get over. And the older I get, it’s harder for me because I don’t play around. I go in and I give it all. I am not going to half-ass anything.”
