Inde Navarrette on representation and becoming her characters

Going back to your earlier days as an actor, what sparked your interest in acting, and what was your first exposure to acting as a career?

I have a very young mom. She solely raised me and my older brother, [and when] I [turned] seven, [she had] my younger brother [as well]. She grew up loving movies, but nobody in my family is in the industry or anything like that. [My mom] would put on films like Funny Girl, Gladiator, and Moulin Rouge. I was a very sensitive kid, and I still am [a sensitive person], so I feel things deeply. We went to see The Greatest Showman — granted [this] was a little bit later in my career, and I already [knew] what I wanted to do — but it was the best example of sitting in a theater and [getting] chills all over your body because it tells a story.

People ask me who [I] look up to, and they [find it] so crazy [when I say Hugh Jackman]. He made me feel deep understanding as a kid. I felt represented by the loss that he has to go through — by the sense of love, friendship, and everything within that film, even though it’s a very adult film. I felt those as a kid. [That sparked my interest in learning] how to represent another person or become a different person. I watched Twilight a lot, and whenever I put on a ring like Bella did, I would go to school, and I was Bella. I really love becoming other people and [getting] in people’s brains and understanding why they do what they do. As a kid, those films really sparked that [passion for me].

You mentioned Hugh Jackman being one of the iconic actors you looked up to growing up. Are there any others that really spoke to you?

Robert Downey Jr. and Matthew McConaughey. I never really was a princess kid, [although] we did watch Disney movies growing up. The characters that [these actors] played had such strength in them. Now we can use words like masculinity, but for me as a kid, not understanding anything like masculinity or femininity, it was very much just the strength [and intelligence] that these characters had. It [made me realize], “I know how to do that.” As a kid, [those were] the [people I was inspired by].

Talking about your earlier childhood, it sounded like you were not a very feminine child. What were some of your hobbies that you liked to do growing up?

My aunt had two kids, and my uncle is extreme with boating, wakeboarding, kneeboarding, dirt bikes, shooting guns in the backyard, and doing backflips into the pool. My cousin TJ was in high school when I was a little kid, so all of his friends would be over, and I would be with them. They’d be doing back flips into the pool, or shooting in the backyard, or riding bikes. Most of my hobbies as a kid [were] these extreme things. I remember watching this skateboarding movie and really trying to learn how to skateboard. To this day, I’m [still] trying, but my body is not built for it at all. I really loved collecting a lot of things as a child. I would have these Walmart plastic drawers filled with rocks. I loved collecting rocks for no reason, and now that I’m older, I collect crystals. [They’re] fancier and nicer, and they’re prettier.

I grew up with an older brother and mostly male cousins, so they did all the physical outdoors stuff. My brother got me into watching professional wrestling, so at age seven that’s what I was watching on TV, instead of all the little cartoons they had. And he also got me into video games, so I totally understand that. I was very much a girly girl at first, and my room was pink and purple with Dora, princesses, and the Backyardigans, but that disappeared around age eight or nine.

My brothers would play Call Of Duty. I still play Call Of Duty to this day. I’m playing The Last Of Us right now. I love playing video games. I [thought], “I’d love to show people this,” [so] I started [Twitch streaming], and it’s been so much fun. The community is amazing. Similar to you, when I would leave to go live with my dad, I would come back, and my room would be completely redecorated with zebra stripes and pink bean bags. [I told my mom], “I want jorts, long sleeves, and if you stick me in a dress, I will fight you. This is not how this is going to work.” She’d [ask me], “What about these sparkly shoes?” and I [would] be like, “Absolutely not! What about these Converse?”