Taste Test
What is “good taste” anyway? Allow your favorite actor, musician, celebrity, or comedian to let you in on what they’re watching, reading, and consuming.
Just a few years out of college, Tatianna Córdoba has already made her Broadway debut. Her performance as Ana in the new musical Real Women Have Curves is earning the kind of raves that launched America Ferrera, who played the role in the 2002 movie, into stardom.
It’s her first time on a New York stage, but it’s a role that feels tailor-made for the 25-year-old, who grew up enmeshed in her native Bay Area’s rhythms, with a dancer mom and musician dad. Just like the show’s Tony-nominated composer Joy Huerta, Córdoba was surrounded by R&B and pop before coming to musical theater. So she feels right at home in its cheery blend of Latin chords and tells the Cut she and Huerta “had fun coming together and figuring out what that sounds like for this character in the musical-theater world.”
Set in 1987 Los Angeles, the story weaves together several strands around the three García women, who work at a textile factory: Ana, a budding journalist fresh out of high school and the only documented member of her family; her older sister, who owns the plant; and their fiercely protective mother, who doesn’t miss a chance to comment on Ana’s figure. Tasked with an impossibly demanding order, Ana gets roped into the business, and the musical highlights the bonds those three create with their fellow working women.
Córdoba wound up relating to her character, a fellow Californian with an immigrant background, more than she’d anticipated. Her mom, herself a teenager in the ’80s, had a rocky relationship with her own mother, who immigrated from the Philippines, similar to the one onstage. “I’ve talked to her about how I have this new understanding of her and of my grandmother from doing this show,” she says. “Because it really is such a reflection of a relationship that I’ve seen for years.”
The musical has also closed a gap Córdoba has felt between herself and her first love, ballet. Initially trained as a dancer, she felt pulled away by the difference she noted between her fellow dancers’ bodies and her own. “Traditionally, dancers’ bodies look a certain way, so I got really discouraged and ended up stepping away from it for a while,” she notes. “But getting to dance in this role has really reignited my confidence in my dancing.”
Though she gets a lovely dance sequence in Real Women, Córdoba’s game to step into a dancier role in the future. (“This is so basic, but Anita in West Side Story is the ultimate,” she tells the Cut.) And the production features a moment she says has helped her come into her onstage body more assertively. When the summer heat in the factory becomes unbearable in the second act, Ana leads the women in stripping down to their skivvies (and in song). The scene routinely gets standing ovations, but the actor says it was a step-by-step process involving intimacy rehearsals and lots of checking in.
“Honestly, the first few times we really did it, without an audience, I felt so silly,” she says. “But when we did it in front of an audience, it all made sense. That’s one of the only numbers where the audience is lit, so we can see the faces they make. Women are crying, and some of them look like they’re about to get up and strip too. It’s cool to actively watch how you’re affecting people in the moment, and now it’s our favorite number to do.”
What was the last song you were surprised to like?
I will absorb anything and try anything twice, whether it’s music or food or whatever. There was this song that came up on one of those world-music playlists that I played one day and now I’m obsessed with the artist: “W,” by Koffee and Gunna. It’s my favorite song of the summer; I play it every time it starts getting warm.
Is there a show that your boyfriend isn’t allowed to watch without you?
Kinda all of them. I feel so bad. I’m never around anymore because of the show, and I’m like, “You gotta figure out something else to do.” Severance was one that we were really up on when this new season dropped. He’s seen so many TV shows and loves introducing me to new ones. Lost was one that he introduced me to that I died for, and also The Rehearsal with Nathan Fielder. But he can’t watch anything without me. I just won’t allow it, I’m sorry.
Do you have a comfort rewatch?
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen New Girl. I actually have a list in my Notes app that categorizes the episodes based on which ones I think are the funniest Schmidt episodes: If I wanna just laugh, these are the funniest episodes; these are the cry episodes. That’s something I’m a little psychotic about.
Do you have a preperformance ritual?
Once our stage manager calls half-hour, I put on my pregame — well, preshow — playlist, which is mostly hip-hop and hyperpop. I’ll put that on and start getting ready. I do a quick vocal warm-up, and one of my best friends in the show visits me five minutes before. Like clockwork, he will come in and steal one of my snacks every day. I have to replenish all my dressing-room snacks specifically for him. And then I do a quick body warm-up, and I’m ready to go.
Run me down your dressing-room snack list.
I have so many. I have guacamole Takis, gummy bears, Nerds Gummy Clusters, pizza-flavored Combos. I have a lot of gummies because the glycerin is good for coating your vocal cords. Jennifer Sánchez in our cast said that on every show she’s had, she always keeps gummies nearby. I was like, “Oh my God, perfect,” and stocked up on those.
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What’s the last thing you cooked?
I miss cooking so much. The last thing I cooked was my famous creamy pesto bow-tie pasta with grilled chicken. I say “famous” like it’s not just me and my boyfriend. But I do have an actually famous noodle stir fry that I have this secret sauce for that I perfected during COVID. Because I’m half Asian, I have a lot of experience and love for Asian cuisine.
What’s a musical you would recommend for Latino friends who need a little convincing to get into musical theater?
Besides Real Women Have Curves? Because … not even “shameless plug,” I actually would. I think our show is a great in to the world of musical theater, especially because of our music and its themes. Our show also feels a little sitcom-y at some points, in the best way that makes it a good intro if you’ve never been a part of it. But also, In the Heights is a classic. Anything Lin-Manuel Miranda does, or blesses us with, is genius.
How do you switch gears between your show’s very intense immigration-raid scenes and its more lighthearted numbers, sometimes back-to-back?
As an actor, it takes a lot of focus. The scene where the factory next door gets raided is really intense: We are hiding, breathing, and crying into each other for a good minute, and it’s a really stark switch into the next scene. It took a lot of practice to feel like I did it well. My character is 18. Teenagers’ minds are all over the place, all the time, and can go from crying to laughing so fast. Ana, specifically, is very avoidant. She’s a problem solver. So in that moment, the switch for her is very much, Okay, how can I solve this? How can I make this better for everyone? Even if she doesn’t know the answer, she thinks she knows everything. So her idea of that switch is trying to problem-solve.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
The best I’ve received is from Justina Machado, who is brilliant and who plays my mom in our show. It’s that you know who you are and what you bring to the table as an actor better than anyone else, better than any casting director, so you have a lot more power than you think you do in your own career. Growing up doing theater, being in a B.F.A. program, you are taught to, for lack of a better term, take orders, take direction, and always say yes. That’s great and amazing, but being able to know your own boundaries and that it’s okay to say no sometimes is really freeing. I’m happy that I got that advice so young because — especially being Latin, being bigger-bodied in an industry that, at its core, is not made for someone like me — having that in the back of my mind is helpful for me moving forward.
And the worst advice?
This is controversial, but the worst advice is that as an actor you have to always say, “Yes, and.” I think we need to break that. I love the idea of being up for any challenge and being okay with pushing yourself and being open creatively. “Yes, and” to that, but I think that that can easily get skewed into not having boundaries for yourself and being easily taken advantage of.
What’s one tip you would give to someone currently in a musical-theater conservatory program?
Relax. Chill out. Oh God, especially in a B.F.A. program. We are trained to be so tightly wound, and it does make for a great professional. Like, when I stepped out of college, I really felt like I was able to enter any professional setting in a great way. But at the end of the day, we are not performing heart surgery. We are doing theater and theater is so important, but nobody’s life is on the line when we’re doing theater. That’s sort of the beauty of it, that it is fun and silly. It is a breath, a deep breath for everyone watching, so it can be a deep breath for you.
Do you have a favorite game to play?
I love board games. This is basic, but Monopoly is such a classic. When I play games, I purely play for fun. I’m not overly competitive, so my favorite part of Monopoly is playing with really competitive people and just watching the rise that you get out of them. When you’re just having fun, it’s hilarious.
If you’re hopping in an Uber XL and can bring five celebrities, who would you bring?
I would bring Doechii. Okay. She’d be a great time. The pop girlies are just on my mind. I would bring Sabrina Carpenter. Maia Reficco, I actually met at a little Broadway event last night, and she was fantastic. She’s going in my Uber XL. I would probably bring Harry Styles; I feel like I would have good conversation with him. And I would really love to spend time with Cardi B.
With that group in mind, where are you going?
Ooh, I feel like we’re going for a good, like, Dos Caminos happy hour.
What music are you playing in the car, if you have the aux, and assuming no one wants to hear their own song?
African pop vibes or, with that car, I feel like reggae. Reggae is such a vibe. I think that car would like that.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
