Ep 85 - Actress Luna Lauren Velez, "Mission Impossible: Fallout" Review

Actress and producer Luna Lauren Velez who you’ve seen many times on TV in her roles on DEXTER, OZ, UGLY BETTY and HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER to name a few, plus her film roles in CITY HALL with Al Pacino, the recent horror film THE FIRST PURGE and the upcoming remake of SHAFT with Samuel L. Jackson. We catch up with her to discuss her new film American Adrift about opioid addiction in a Latino family, how social media has become a necessary evil for working actors and the new American optics of being Puerto Rican in this country. (26:55)

Also, film and culture critic Mike Sargent (Fox Business News, PBS, WBAI Radio) gives us a visit to review Tom Cruise’s much hyped movie Mission Impossible: FALLOUT… should Tom Cruise stop doing his own stunts at 56, what makes an action film epic? and… could FALLOUT be the best of the Mission Impossible franchise. (1:38)

Episode Summary

Luna Lauren Velez interview

Her big break "I Like It Like That"
Rita Moreno
How she you got into acting
What kind of stories she wants to tell today
Puerto Rico 
Typecasting
"American Adrift" and addiction
Why she’s attracted to emotionally charged roles
Why Hollywood hasn’t embraced Latino families on screen
Latino writers
"First Purge" and its social commentary on race
La Lupe/El Cantante
Being a New York actor
How social media has become a necessary evil for actors
SHAFT

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