Lisa Vidal understood the struggle her character Kara faced last season on "Being Mary Jane" when boyfriend Gael (Julian Acosta) pushed the TV news producer to not forget her Latino roots. It's an issue she and many Latino-Americans face every day in real life.
"When you're living two different cultures and you have to decide which one to be when, sometimes that can be very conflicting and I live in that world, so to speak, because I'm very connected to my Puerto Rican culture and never want to lose it," Vidal told Headlines & Global News in an exclusive interview.
"But yet I am a proud American and that's part of my culture too. I am a Latino, but being an American, I want to be identified as American in the sense I belong here. I was born and raised here. This is my culture. I went to school here. I speak English. So I thought it was a really good point to make," she said.
Kara and Gael are still together as season three kicks off on BET, but the couple has a lot of work ahead of them.
"As usual, relationships are complicated and we get to explore a little bit of that complication and see that play between Kara and Gael," Vidal teased.
Vidal puts hard work in her personal health and her personal relationships, especially with her husband of 25 years, Jay Cohen. She says "work" is the key word when it comes to maintaining her marriage.
"Everyone wants the Snow White and Cinderella and all that stuff. [But] it's work. It's not always good times and fabulous. Everybody asks us that because we've been together so long and we met so young, and we've had our challenging times and our issues, but we've really pushed through it for the sake of the love that we have for each other and our family," she said.
"We love our family and we're not willing to throw that away... I think that both my husband and I have a lot of integrity. We have a goal and our goal is to be together and see our children grow and see them get married and be grandparents and enjoy all that life has to offer. That's important to us — our family."
In addition to "Being Mary Jane," Vidal will also appear this fall on the new Fox drama "Rosewood," playing the mother of Det. Annalise Villa (Jaina Lee Ortiz).
"It's a very different kind of role than the one I play on 'Being Mary Jane,'" she said. "Just all these wonderful opportunities to play different characters, I love it. I'm really grateful and happy that I get to do what I love."
"Being Mary Jane" airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on BET. "Victor" is currently on the festival circuit.
