Michaela Jaé Rodriguez first made waves for playing Angel in the 2011 revival of Rent on Broadway. She then became an international superstar for her role as Blanca on FX’s Pose.
Since then, Rodriguez became the first trans woman to win a Golden Globe award for acting as a result of her work on Pose. She has also starred in Netflix’s Tick, Tick… Boom! musical film directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Apple TV+’s Loot comedy series starring Maya Rudolph.
With so many accomplishments under her belt, Rodriguez is now ready to become an action movie star, and she has one very particular character in mind: Lara Croft.
“I would like to tackle a role like Lara Croft now, while I’m able to do the stunts, while I’m able to – if there is a gun involved – whip the gun out and shoot the bad guy and do an aerial,” Rodriguez told Variety in her latest cover story. “I would love to do that because I have the badassness and sex appeal to make people love it.”
The actress added, “If not, I would also love to be Lara Croft’s right-hand girl who gets just as much airtime and is right next to her killing it. Or if Angelina [Jolie] decided to come back as Lara and she’s like ‘Listen, this is my daughter.’”
Elsewhere in the interview, Rodriguez was asked about modeling for Calvin Klein and being the face of Charlotte Tilbury. “It means the world is changing and that the opportunities we thought we wouldn’t ever see are coming into full fruition,” she responded. “It also means we’re not just disposable anymore.” During her response, the actress also praised other trans women who have been landing opportunities like these and serving as representation, noting: “I also am very happy that Laverne Cox and some of my other sisters, like Yasmin Finney, Kim Petras, Hunter Schafer, and Indya Moore, are the girls to do it.”
We’d love to see Michaela Jaé Rodriguez entering the Lara Croft cinematic universe. If that doesn’t happen, maybe it’s time for her to get cast in a superhero project from Marvel or DC Comics, perhaps? Regardless, we’ll always be rooting for this iconic actress in our community!
