I Love Dick Star Roberta Colindrez on Playing a Queer Texas Cowboy

Actors often go to great lengths to land dream roles. In Roberta Colindrez's case, roughly 1,000 miles. Last year, the Monterrey, Mexico, native was up for a pivotal role in Transparent showrunner Jill Soloway's new Amazon comedy I Love Dick, but because she was starring in the Tony-winning Broadway musical Fun Home at the time, she was unable to audition in person. She'd made a tape to send to Soloway, but when she played it back, it felt lackluster. So rather than send it off, Colindrez made a snap decision.

"I found out Jill was in Chicago, and I flew there on a show day," the 31-year-old actress recalls. "I was there for three hours: It took me one hour to drive to Jill, one hour to audition, and one hour to get back to the airport. I went back to New York and performed [in Fun Home] that night."

The gamble paid off: Colindrez was cast in the series, which chronicles the sexual awakening of Chris (Kathyrn Hahn), a writer who lives with her professor husband in an artist colony in Marfa, Texas. Up until then, she'd had spots on Girls and Boardwalk Empire, but Colindrez had yet to achieve real TV stardom. She sees her turn as Devon, a butch cowboy who works as a groundskeeper on Chris's property, as the part she was literally born to play. "My character is a queer playwright who's brown and living in Texas," she says, "and I'm a queer playwright who's brown and who grew up in Texas."

Photography: Austin Hargrave
Styling: Mark-Paul Barro
Shirt: COS
Hair: Ananda Tuyes
Makeup: Michelle Diaz

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