You may have seen her before in Raising Victor Vargas, Lords of Dogtown and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, but you’ll be seeing a lot more of Melonie Diaz in 2008. First up is Be Kind Rewind, in which she stars opposite Jack Black and Mos Def as a dry cleaning clerk they recruit to help them make home movie versions of classic films when they inadvertently erase every VHS tape in a New Jersey video shop.
“Alma’s really ambitious and I think I’m an ambitious person at heart,” compares Diaz, “But she’s a bit of a know-it-all. She always has something to say and I think I’m a little more laid back than that.”
A native New Yorker of Puerto Rican heritage, Diaz grew up singing and dancing in front of the mirror with her sister, segued to plays at school, dabbled in photography, and knew she wanted to make movies at 15. “I went to Performing Arts High School, where I started acting and I made some films in college.” She has a year and a half left at New York University, “It’s such a cliché, but I want to direct. I love movies and I want to make cool things so I can be in them,” she says. “I want to have my own production company.”
Victor Vargas was her big break, and it’s what got her Be Kind Rewind—director Michel Gondry spotted her, had her fly to Paris to meet him from Denmark where she was shooting I’ll Come Running, and he offered her the role without an audition.
“This is my first real comedy,” she says. “Vargas was funny but it wasn’t a comedy. I realized I could be funny if I tried.” Next, Diaz will star in American Son opposite Nick Cannon, appear with Bruce Willis and Mischa Barton in the comedy Assassination of a High School President as the serious-minded editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, and as a student again in the comedy Hamlet 2 with Amy Poehler, David Arquette and Steve Coogan.
She’ll follow those with Humboldt Park, a comedy now shooting in Chicago with Jay Hernandez, John Leguizamo, Freddy Rodriguez, Alfred Molina, Luis Guzman, Mercedes Ruehl, and Vanessa Ferlito about a family reunion during the holidays. Diaz plays Rodriguez’s ex and a friend of Ferlito
“Times are changing for the better,” she says about opportunities for Latins in Hollywood. We have a lot more improvement to make, but I’m hopeful.”
Busy as she is right now, Diaz hasn’t had time to find a home of her own—she lives with her mom when she’s in New York—or a significant other. “I like somebody who can make me laugh. If you can make me laugh you have my heart,” she says. “I like a hard worker, and I need a gentleman. There are so many boys who aren’t gentlemen these days,” she adds, noting that she would date an actor “if I like the person,” especially one who likes to travel.
“I’ve been to Brazil, Berlin, and Paris, and I want to travel to India, Venice and Greece,” she says.. “There are so many places to see.”
