Gina Rodriguez on Playing Crew Member Andrea Fleytas in 'Deepwater Horizon'

Fleytas survived the 2010 oil rig explosion portrayed in the film.

ByABC News
September 26, 2016, 10:40 AM

— -- Gina Rodriguez is starring in the highly anticipated drama "Deepwater Horizon."

The actress plays crew member Andrea Fleytas, who survived the explosion that occurred on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010.

At the time, Fleytas was a recent college graduate, Rodriguez said today on "Good Morning America."

"She was one of the only females on the oil rig during the explosion," she said. "I feel very, very grateful to be able to play her ... but this film is about the human lives that we lost. It's about celebrating them and paying a tribute to them because during the oil spill, we were very familiar with the environmental crisis. We were very familiar with those images of the oils in the water and the animals covered, but we never talked about the lives that were lost, the 11 lives that were lost."

In the movie, Rodriguez stars alongside Kurt Russell, Mark Wahlberg, John Malkovich and Kate Hudson.

"Deepwater Horizon" hits theaters Sept. 30.