“It’s the kind of thing that I hope will make a difference in the way that we are seen and the way that people relate to us,” Carolina Saavedra tells POPSUGAR about her new show “Leguizamo Does America.” The six-part series premieres Sunday, Apr. 16, on MSNBC and follows actor, comedian, and film producer John Leguizamo as he travels across America and celebrates Latinx excellence.
“As a Latina in this country, I think we all revere John Leguizamo and feel as though he speaks — and has been speaking — on our behalf and for us for so long,” Saavedra says. “And the idea of being able to work with him to celebrate our stories was a dream come true.”
Saavedra served as showrunner on the series, taking it from a four- or five-page pitch deck with Leguizamo to the rich docuseries about to air. As she tells it, Saavedra’s involvement began with a cold call. An anonymous friend passed along her résumé to the right person. She was excited, and upon getting the role, she got right to work. As the showrunner, Saavedra took that deck and built out template scripts, selecting the six cities to be featured.
Her next task was hiring, and she made sure to collect a diverse team who could bring their own perspectives to the show. After all, the Latinx community in the US is 60 million strong and spans people of all races, genders, ages, generations, sexualities, etc.
“I am a person who in my daily life, I champion diversity and I champion exposure to all kinds of schools of thoughts and cultures,” she shares. “Specifically, I wanted to make sure to hire women and women from different cultures of our Latin experience. And then when we were talking about who we would feature, we absolutely [were] making sure that the people featured were diverse from different communities. I wanted to make sure that the Afro-Latino story was told.”
Saavedra shares that she encouraged everyone to bring their own perspective.
“Everyone brought their knowledge and their curiosities and…
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