A STAR IS BORN
IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE POSE’S FIRST SEASON, the script initially centers on Damon, portrayed by Ryan Jamaal-Swain, who is kicked out of his house by his parents and eventually adopted by Blanca Evangelista (portrayed by Rodriguez), a tenacious young house mother hoping to secure her legacy after splitting from Elektra Abundance (Dominique Jackson).
So when Rodriguez walked in for her audition with Ryan Murphy, the show’s prolific creator, she prepared the monologue that would become the most pivotal of the pilot: Blanca, incensed that the New School’s dance program had bypassed Damon, storms into the classroom to convince the professor that he deserves a proper chance. “This young boy has been discarded,” she says, impassioned. “And he’s so young, he believes that it has something to do with who he is. It’s going to eat at him from the inside until he starts to resent even the best parts of himself.”
By the end of her delivery, Murphy was convinced. “I knew she was our heroine,” he says. “We had found our Blanca.”
Ironically, this wasn’t the first time Rodriguez had, and while she didn’t make the cut, she remained undaunted. Rejection doesn’t hit Rodriguez too hard, perhaps because she is a true Capricorn at heart: stubborn, tireless, and filled with relentless ambition.
