Aimee Garcia as Lucifer's Ella Lopez. Photo copyright of FOX.
Most people at one time or another have become fed up with their job and or/daily routine and longed to try something different. Who would have ever imagined, though, that The Prince of Darkness would fall into such a mortal rut? In FOX’s hit supernatural dramedy Lucifer, the most famous of fallen angels turned his back on Hell and, along with his right-hand demon Mazikeen, came to Los Angeles to begin anew. Under the guise of Lucifer Morningstar, he opened an exclusive nightclub called Lux, where the beautiful people drank and danced the nights away, but when a murder was committed right on his doorstep, Lucifer helped LAPD Detective Chloe Decker find the perp and solve the case. That whetted his appetite for crime-busting and he became an advisor for the LAPD, working with Chloe and her ex-husband/fellow detective Dan Espinoza.
In the show’s second season, our heroes’ ranks grew with the introduction of forensic scientist Ella Lopez, Having previously worked alongside a serial killer as well as the police – fictionally speaking, of course – the ebullient and talented actress Aimee Garcia was the ideal choice to play Ella. “I had just finished work on the CBS series Rush Hour, which ran for a season and was then cancelled, when Lucifer came up, and the [casting] process was really quick,” says Garcia.” I think they [show’s producers] were already familiar with my work from Dexter, and then I read the breakdown for the Ella role and loved it, especially the fact that the character was a professional Latina scientist. I felt like I could really make her my own; it was just the perfect fit.
“So they wanted me, I wanted them, and the next thing I knew I was on-set working on my first episode [Everything is Coming Up Lucifer]. I was the new girl coming in on season two, and Tom Ellis [Lucifer Morningstar]. Lauren German [Detective Chloe Decker], Lesley-Ann Brandt {Mazikeen], Kevin Alejandro [Dan Espinoza] and D.B. Woodside {Lucifer’s brother Amenadiel] couldn’t have been more gracious and generous. It’s like being the new kid at school – it’s your first day, you walk into the cafeteria and you don’t know where to sit. Everyone else has history and could have had their clicks, too, but I didn’t feel any of that. The first thing I remember is Lauren being so kind. When it came to my close-up, she made a point of asking the director [Nathan Hope], ‘Where do you need me to stand for Aimee’s shot?’ It was such a lovely thing and I felt so at home.
“The other thing that sticks out in my mind is my first scene I shot with Tom Ellis, who is beyond talented. It was his close-up, and after we did a few takes, I decided I was going to hug him, but I wasn’t going to tell him. It wasn’t written in the script, though, so after I got the OK from our director, I told the camera guys, ‘The director is allowing me to go in for a hug. I don’t want to tell Tom, so please make sure he’s in focus because I’m going to totally invade his space.’ That’s probably a huge risk when you don’t tell the headliner of the show you’ve just joined that you’re going in for the killer hug, but I did it on the last take. Being the consummate professional, Tom carried on with the scene, completely uncomfortable and readjusting his suit because I had just wrinkled it with a very committed huge. When the director said, ‘Cut,’ Tom said that he loved what I’d done and the hug changed the entire scene. Again, like Lauren, he was incredibly gracious and welcoming, and I thought, ‘These are the types of actors I want to collaborate with; the kind of actors who provide a working environment where you feel safe enough to take risks and you know they have your back.’”
Like Lucifer Morningstar, there is so much more to Ella Lopez than first meets the eye. A dedicated and talented professional, she knows just what to look for when examining a crime scene and the victim or victims. Ella has a tremendous amount of respect for the dead, and will leave no stone unturned in order to solve a case. She also has a penchant for details when determining the cause of death, and is not averse to lightening the mood when presenting her findings. “My character will for example, be explaining that the cause of death is external exsanguination from a corroded artery,” notes Garcia, “which means you have blood spewing out of your neck. Ella might compare that to a cross between a zombie in The Walking Dead getting killed and a champagne bottle being opened. She would then likely tilt the side of her neck and make a, “pffttt,’ sound, like the popping of a champagne cork.”
Along with her quirky sense of humor, Ella is also a pop culture diva who, among other things, loves Star Trek and speaks Klingon. She is hardly a cookie-cutter forensic scientist and, therefore, someone who would be a kindred spirit to someone like Lucifer. Ella, however, has no idea that he is, in fact, The Devil, or at least that appears to be the case. As far as she is concerned, he is an under-employed method actor who has some issues surrounding his father. All he needs is a little understanding, right?
“What I love about Ella’s and Lucifer’s relationship is that there’s no baggage, it’s not heavy, and there’s no drama,” says Garcia. “My character is so clear about where her North Star is, and she has a very clear relationship with God. Ella knows exactly the strength that God gives her, and in Lucifer’s eyes, he was abandoned by God. I liken the relationship between Lucifer and God to that of a rock star and his child. All over the world, people are inspired by rock stars. They lift them up, they inspire them, and they help them find their way, but the child of a rock star might not feel the same way. In Lucifer’s case, he feels like his dad was never around, abandoned him and was great for everyone else but crappy to him. So I think it’s really fun to have Ella, who is deeply religious but not preach y – which I love about her – say things to Lucifer like, ‘Don’t worry, he’s [God] listening,’ or, ‘I know you think it’s a one-way street, but you hang in there’ These types of off-the-cuff remarks she makes hold so much meaning for him, and Lucifer is intrigued by that.
“As for Ella, she’s not at all judgmental and thinks that The Devil gets such a bad rap. Being so open, she goes along with Lucifer thinking that he’s The Devil, while she thinks he’s a method actor in need of a job. So Ella is hitting him in the arm, going in for the hugs and patting him on the back, almost like a little sister, which I think is just so funny.”
When she was a very little girl, Garcia became enamored of acting after seeing a theatrical production of Annie. When she got older, the actress began performing in high school plays, and after graduating, enrolled at Northwestern University where she majored in economics, journalism and French. “I did a lot of acting work to pay for school, and then after graduating from college, I moved to New York where I got a job in finance,” she recalls. “I did that for a year, and then decided to go back to doing what I truly loved.
“Before college, acting was solely a hobby that just happened to pay for my tuition It was fun, it was playtime, but it wasn’t real. I never really considered it as a career option because I didn’t have anyone in my family who was a performer or anything like that. It wasn’t until I tried the real world for a year that I thought, ‘You know what, I like my fantasy world better.’ So I went back into acting, and I credit that to my dad. He’s a big kid at heart. He’s a huge Disney fan, he’s had this Star Wars jacket forever that says, ‘May the Force Be With You,’ on the inside, and when I was a kid, he would take me to see Indiana Jones and all those sorts of movies.
“So I feel like that has always lived inside of me. I’ve always wanted to make people laugh and smile and forget about the bad days, even for a little while. One of the most flattering things this season on Lucifer has been the fans saying that Ella is the avatar of them. They see her as the voice of the fans and someone who says what they want to say. When people feel like they’re not alone, that, for me, is the most rewarding part of my job. Sure, Ella is a little goofy, she isn’t the coolest, she doesn’t know when to stop talking, and she can be super-klutzy sometimes, but we all are, right? So when fans say, ‘I see myself in her,’ it’s a reminder that we’re all in this together.”
Steve Eramo
Season two of Lucifer continues to air Mondays @ 9:00 p.m. EST on FOX. As noted above, photo copyright of FOX, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
Comments