Collider Ladies Night Pre-Party is all about making sure you’re well aware of some of the biggest talent on the rise right now and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness star Xochitl Gomez most certainly fits that description.
She makes her MCU debut in the Doctor Strange sequel as America Chavez, a teenager with the ability to travel the multiverse via star-shaped portals. That power makes her Scarlet Witch’s (Elizabeth Olsen) prime target given her desperation to reunite with her children. Fortunately, America crosses paths with Earth 616’s Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) who, with the help of Wong (Benedict Wong) and the other sorcerers of Kamar-Taj, is willing to do whatever it takes to protect her from Wanda.
Before jumping into her MCU experience during our Pre-Party conversation, Gomez took us way back to the very beginning by pinpointing the big screen character that made her realize she absolutely had to become an actor.
“The moment I was like, ‘Oh, this person, I want to play this role,’ was Katniss Everdeen, Jennifer Lawrence. I was a huge Katniss Everdeen fan, and I was team Peeta. I loved Peeta! But yeah, I dressed up as her, and I know that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is coming out soon. I read the book. I know that they’re doing the movie. I’m not in it, but I’m very, very, very excited to see it!”
Gomez may not be playing a tribute in the Hunger Games, but she’s certainly kept mighty busy with other opportunities since embracing that dream, the first big one being Netflix’s The Baby-Sitters Club series. Not only did Gomez note how special that show was due to the popularity of the source material, but she also highlighted the invaluable impact that experience had on her on a more personal level:
“I had so much fun just working on set with those girls because it was kind of our first project, our first major projects together and it was us kind of going like, ‘Okay guys, this our show. This is something that we’re doing together and we’re here for one another.’ And it’s just been great getting to see how we’ve all kind of grown and how we’ve all gone our own ways in certain ways, but also we just come back to one another.”
One of my absolute favorite things to ask about on Collider Ladies Night is how one chooses between two projects, especially when they’re both wonderful opportunities. That’s exactly what happened to Gomez when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness came her way. If she joined the MCU, she’d have to leave Baby-Sitters Club behind. How exactly does one go about making such a big decision? Gomez began:
“I was like, ‘Okay guys, I really want to try to do both.’ It was like I really want to literally do both. I was like, ‘I will fly and I will try to get it to work out,’ and it sadly didn’t end up happening just because of COVID. It was not safe and at that time England had shut down their airports, so I wasn’t able to even fly to Canada. So there was actually no way of me getting there in time, but I think that Kyndra [Sanchez], the girl who took over in my place, did a wonderful job and it’s not easy having to fill someone’s shoes like that and she did a wonderful job and I’m very proud of her.”
Gomez continued by emphasizing the value of trusting her gut and also the importance of having both her mom and Netflix’s support:
“It’s really tricky because when it comes to choices like that, it’s like you never know. You just have to go with what your gut tells you to do. I still look back at that and I’m like, Netflix was really cool that they just let me work with Marvel and let it happen because they could have said no! I’m just so thankful that Netflix let me do it. But it was mainly my mom and I just kind of going like, ‘Okay, it’s really sad that we can’t do that, but you also have to look at your career. It would be amazing getting to represent so many girls and Latina girls in general, and I would, of course, love to be that representative,’ and so I was like, ‘If they want me, they want me!’”
The MCU clearly wanted her for the role of America Chavez, but it was a long road until Gomez hit that point, one that began when she was just 13 years old:
“My first audition, I was 13, and it was just a self tape and it was for an older version of America. And then like a few months later I got a callback and it was completely different than the older version. She was now younger. And so I did that, I sent that in and then they were like, ‘Oh, she’s pinned.’ And so then I was like, ‘Okay, well there’s a chance I might actually do a screen test.’ And so I ended up doing a bunch of kick box training and stunt training and tumbling training for a month, and I did it every other day for a couple of hours, so I was like, ‘Okay, even if I don’t end up getting a screen test, at least I have this and it was really fun and it was an awesome experience and I’ve got those skills now and I can just continue doing this kick box training.’ And then a few weeks later they were like, ‘Yeah, we want you to come to do the screen test.’”
Getting to do all that training during the audition process is a rather unique opportunity in and of itself, but it wasn’t until Gomez actually did that final screen test that she fully realized how above and beyond Marvel goes when searching for the right actors to fill these roles. Gomez continued:
“Usually when you do a regular audition or when you do a screen test, let’s say when I did the pairing test for Baby-Sitters Club, it was the final audition and it was just a room with a bunch of the executives and they were pairing me and all the girls together in a room, and that was kind of it. They filmed it and then told us if we got the roles and then we left, and it was just in an office. Now for Doctor Strange, I kind of expected it to be that same thing, but you really have to think about it; it is Marvel! So they took me to the studio and I went into the set of the New York Sanctum and I did my audition on the set of the New York Sanctum. And so I’m just sitting there and Benedict is just sitting in front of me and I’m just doing the scene with him. It was actually the pizza scene that’s in the movie. My audition was that scene. It was crazy. Most of the time I was just trying to literally play it cool. I was like, ‘Don’t be a fan right now. This is work. This is how it’s gonna go. Be cool, be chill, be confident.’ But it was intimidating because there were four cameras going, four whole set-ups and the AD crew people. It was literally like a working set! That’s not how a normal audition goes.”
Clearly Gomez was cool, chill, confident and whatever else she needed to be during that screen test because she booked the role! Now that she’s gone through the experience of making her very first Marvel movie, Gomez is eager to pay it forward by using the advice she received from Patrick Stewart and Benedict Wong to help other MCU first-timers:
“Patrick Stewart gave me great advice and it’s something that I will carry on with me because it was just something that I know I needed when I first came in. And actually, Benedict Wong did that; he welcomed me and he knocked on my trailer door and was just like, ‘I’m here for you and if you ever need someone to talk to or if you’re just lonely or you feel a little stressed, come to my trailer and we’ll have some tea.’ And then Patrick Stewart just also said the same thing. He was like, ‘Just make sure to pay it forward and be very welcoming to newer people.’ His main thing was that sometimes you never know; the person who’s in front of you might be the hugest star and you don’t even know it. And I’m like, yeah, it’s always important to just be kind to everyone and treat everyone with kindness and respect people, and it just really hit me that it was like, yeah, whoever is coming into this and joining it, I want to make sure I reach out and let them know, ‘You want to grab coffee? I’m available.’”
In addition to feeling inspired by Stewart and Wong, Gomez also found herself in awe of Elizabeth Olsen, especially when watching her jump into and out of her role. Here’s how she put it:
“She’s someone that I watched constantly because I was just mesmerized by her. I really noticed that she takes the time to get into her character. Even if she’s been talking to people and she’s been socializing and being nice, being herself and lovely, lovely Lizzie, right before they say ready, she’ll be like, ‘Five seconds,’ and then she’ll take that moment to really get into her zone, and then she’s just ready and she’s present, and it’s almost like you’re not looking at Lizzie anymore, you’re looking at Wanda and you’re looking at Scarlet Witch.”
Another thing Gomez took note of while working opposite so many seasoned pros on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? Not everyone memorizes their lines, and that can actually be the right route to take for some. She explained:
“I noticed that a lot of classically trained actors don’t actually memorize their lines as well. That was something that I was kind of like, ‘Whoa!’ They’ll only memorize their monologues. Generally, they’ll just kind of wing it in the moment because they know their characters so well, they know how they would respond and stuff, and they would just work the scene as it was happening. That was something that I was just like, 'Whoa, what is this?’ Especially [as] somebody who goes by musical theater, and also I have dyslexia, so I memorize everything that I do and I memorize my character and my lines and the other person’s lines so that I know what I’m gonna say and I don’t mess up the order of the words.”
The specifics of Gomez’s approach to her craft are certainly working for her because even opposite some of the best in the business, she pops big time as America in Doctor Strange 2. Gomez has a lot to be proud of right now and not only does she know that, but she likes to celebrate it.
“I take a camera with me wherever I go, just because I like to photograph things and have fun memories, but one other thing that I always carry around with me is my action figure. I take it everywhere I go. Whenever I’m depressed, whenever I go places, I literally have my little mini America with me everywhere I go just because, I’m just proud to have it!”
Eager to hear more from Gomez on her journey from admiring Katniss Everdeen to joining one of the biggest franchises of all time? You can watch her full Collider Ladies Night Pre-Party interview in the video at the top of this article or you can listen to the conversation in podcast form below: