Rita Moreno on being typecast in her career, her hope for Latinos in Hollywood

Rita Moreno is opening up about how she helped paved the way for emerging actors and used her influence to champion Hispanic artists throughout her illustrious career spanning more than seven decades.

"Everything had to be really fought for," Moreno shared during ABC News' one-hour primetime special "Latinos in Hollywood: Owning Our Destiny." "Everything."

In the special, airing Oct. 11 on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu, Moreno opens up about coming to New York City from Puerto Rico as a young child with her mother, the ups and downs of her impressive career, and fighting for more representation for her community in film and on television.

"I was typecast from the beginning, I just didn't realize it at the time," Moreno said of her early days in Hollywood, lamenting how there wasn't "a real part" for her to play.

"I was heartbroken," she added.

Then along came "West Side Story," the 1961 movie musical adaptation of the "Romeo and Juliet"-inspired Broadway show of the same name. Moreno was cast as Anita, the girlfriend of George Chakiris' character Bernardo and a friend of Maria, the female lead played by Natalie Wood.

Moreno was the only Puerto Rican cast in the film, and she said she had to wear dark makeup to make her complexion appear darker.

"I loved playing Anita because she actually had self-respect. It was probably one of the only Hispanic kind of parts I ever had where the character had a sense of self," said Moreno, who stole the show with her memorable rendition of "America." "She was marvelous. She had a sense of dignity and a sense of herself."

"And then that I got an Oscar for it was just fantastic," she added.

Moreno said she was "shocked" when she was unable to find roles as meaningful as Anita after "West Side Story." In fact, she said one person she turned to for career advice told her -- even after winning the Academy Award for that iconic role -- that she didn't have what it takes to continue on in Hollywood.

"Even to this day, it just flabbergasts me that anyone could be that cruel to someone," she said.

Moreno continued to fight, however, and eventually went on to win a Grammy, a Tony and two Emmys, becoming the first Latina to achieve EGOT status.

Fast-forward decades later and the icon says she is still typecast "all the time" -- except this time it's with grandmother roles.

"Have you ever noticed that grandmas in television series, for instance, rarely work?" Moreno asked. "They're clipped, but they don't have a job, which is, of course, absurd."

Moreno said these perceptions -- whether of Latinos or women of a certain age -- have a real impact in society.

"People get their impressions very often from films, television," she said, praising her role on Norman Lear's "wonderful, beautiful, hilarious" reimagined version of his iconic sitcom "One Day at a Time" as a beacon of positive representation.

According to an unpublished study from the University of Southern California's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released in November 2023, which looked at 1,600 popular movies released between 2007 and 2022, Hispanic/Latino characters made up just 5.5% of all speaking roles, and just 4.4% of all leads or co-leads were Hispanic/Latino. They also found that Afro-Latino actors held just eight roles across 1,600 films, equating to 0.005%.

The lack of leading and co-leading roles is worse among women of color, particularly among women of color over the age of 45, as well as characters who are LGBTQ+ or have a disability, the study showed.

"I don't think we've moved anywhere near enough," Moreno said about representation of her community on the big and small screens.

Now 92, the actress said her hope for the future is for the Latino community -- of whom she said she is "proud" -- to continue "finding a way to get the attention that we absolutely deserve and have earned."

"Latinos in Hollywood: Owning Our Destiny" features interviews with Ramón Rodríguez, Eva Longoria, Gina Torres, Eugenio Derbez, John Leguizamo, Edward James Olmos, Xochitl Gomez, Gloria Calderón Kellett, Steven Canals and Rita Moreno.

The special airs Friday, Oct. 11, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.

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