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I know you grew up watchingLegendson Nick.
And Im like, Ah, yes.
Do I pay you?
And for me, that was always cool.
How does one prepare for that?
All I kept thinking was my job as a host is to confirm that everybody looks good.
I realized that when I host something, I want to get to know everybody.
So I got to know the contestants by name.
And they become real people with real personalities and real lives, and you root for them … Can I cheer for people?
And Scott said absolutely.
So I just made it my thing.
You werent just the detached game-show host.Theres an investment there.
We still keep in touch online!
That really kind of surprised me, considering the show hasnt been around for decades.
So that means that now the sets are bigger, and the physical challenges are bigger and more challenging.
How did that come together?Marios a friend of mine.
The deciding factor for me was that I wrote theChristmas episodefor my sitcom,Cristela.
And people still talk to me about that episode.
But when I watch now, Im so aware of just how blindingly white they were.
I grew up in a border town where we didnt have diversity in my neighborhood at all.
We really didnt have white people or Black people or Asian like, nothing.
We were all Latino because we were right next to Mexico.
Now I didnt understand that they werent Latino or anything, but I knew that they werentwhite.
And that felt comforting to me, and I didnt know why until I got older.
It was a struggle, but they still had each other.
And I connected with that because that was like my family.
We couldnt qualify to get into the projects.
Thats how poor we were!
But we had each other.
So when I saw those episodes, they really hit close to home.
If its funny, its funny.
When I watched sitcoms growing up, they were like theater to me.
Thats what it was supposed to be like.
And theres something so great about that.
Thats whats missing about so much of TV nowadays.
I constantly hear from the industry that they want multi-cams …
But they dont always respect the multi-cam as they should.
You have to let them breathe.
Youve got to honor whatever story is being presented.
It blows my mind that its been this long, butCristeladebuted on ABCseven years ago.
Has enough time passed for you to get back into trying another one if the opportunity presented itself?
You took a break from acting to focus on social activism.Yes, but I did need the distance.
I needed the time away.
In this business, the only power we have is to say no.
My show ran 22 episodes, and there are people that miss it and love it.
But there are a lot of people that have forgotten that it ever existed.
So you start thinking,Well, maybeCristelawas a fluke.Or,Maybe I did it wrong.You start wondering.
And then after a while, I realized,It wasnt all you.
Its wherever we were in the industry.
Its all these factors.
And I remember just waking up one day and thinking,I want to come back.
I want to do things differently.
And I want to be unapologetically and I hate that term in some ways, but unapologetically myself.
I just wrote that I was ready to come back and see if I could make something happen.
I wasnt even sure how long it would take to hear back from them.
And within five minutes, they were like, Weve been waiting.
What do you want to do?
So I started writing the Lifetime Christmas movie.
Then I ended up doingLegends of the Hidden Temple.
And now Im about to shoot my second Netflix stand-up special in the next couple of months.
Im not sure if I was ready to do it that way the first time.
What about another TV show?
Would you want to go back to a sitcom?Yes, I want to develop.
I want to tell stories.
[Cristela] was really it was a lot for me.
I didnt realize the bigness of how much it affected my life.
So youre learning all this stuff.
Youre figuring it out as you go along.
I didnt understand that there was a business side to Hollywood.
I thought that if you created something good, that was the hardest thing.
But I realized there were a lot of factors I didnt even know about, like awards season.
I didnt understand that people campaign.
I realized, like, it wasnt just me.
It wasnt my doing.
It was so much ofeverything.
And what I learned from that situation is that youre not going to love everybody, and thats okay.
Not everybodys going to like you, andthatsokay.
But youve got to find people that get you.
This business, while it feels small, is gigantic.
And in this business, you keep roaming around until you find the people you click with.
And now I realize,Oh yeah, Imready.Im ready now.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
