CANADIAN ACTOR HUMBERLY GONZALEZ GOT HER JOB ON NETFLIX’S ‘THE WATERFRONT’ BY BETTING ON HERSELF

Last year, Venezuelan-Canadian actor Humberly Gonzalez was in the middle of her final week of filming the third season of Ginny & Georgia when she got potentially career-changing news. It was already a busy time too: Sophie Sanchez, her character on the Netflix hit who is the ex-girlfriend of fan-favourite Max (Sara Waisglass), is finally graduating high school, so it’s probably fair to say the 33-year-old had a lot going on. But then the call came: Gonzalez had officially been offered a role in Dawson’s Creek and The Vampire Diaries creator Kevin Williamson’s juicy new crime drama The Waterfront, and they wanted her on set in North Carolina as soon as she wrapped Ginny & Georgia. 

For Gonzalez, landing her first U.S. series regular part was a storybook moment. “It was like a bittersweet graduation, in a way,” she tells ELLE Canada. “Ginny & Georgia has been the past five, six years of my life, and this was like the cycle closing during the last week of filming. I was like, ‘I’m graduating high school to go be a journalist on The Waterfront.’ It’s pretty amazing—I think the universe always conspires to bring you what’s meant for you.” 

The Waterfront, which starts streaming on Netflix on June 19, follows the Buckleys, a family with a long history and an influential fishing empire in their coastal North Carolina town. Things, however, are starting to fall apart. Patriarch Harlan (Holt McCallany) has had two heart attacks, matriarch Belle (Maria Bello) and son Cane (Jake Weary) are failing at keeping their businesses afloat and daughter Bree (Melissa Benoist) has lost custody of her teenage son while in recovery for addiction, which has put her at odds with the rest of her family. And that’s before they become deeply entangled in the local crime scene. Think of the addictive new series as a mix between Ozark and Ransom Canyon, with its own flavour. 

And then there’s Gonzalez’s Jenna, a journalist who has just returned to her hometown to care for her ailing father. She also happens to be Cane’s high school sweetheart, and even though they’re both now married to other people, it’s clear from the second they reconnect that some non-platonic feelings still linger. It’s a plot line that is messy and sweet—two traits Gonzalez balances and embodies with captivating ease—and offers a blissful reprieve from the life-threatening scenarios the Buckleys often find themselves in. It’s also a dynamic Gonzalez and Jenna are very aware is…tricky. “It’s a tender, layered and complex relationship—it’s a blooming relationship or a reconnection. [Viewers will be] constantly finding themselves like, ‘I want them to work out. But, oh my God, they have families and that matters.’ It really tests the audience,” she says. “There’s this, like, recognition, yearning and longing [in Jenna], but she also has to remember where she’s at, that it has been a decade and that she’s a different person and he’s a different person. I was just like, ‘How can I best show all of these feelings that are happening in her head and her body?’ And I think you’ll notice that she’s constantly catching herself, but also forgetting to catch herself—she lets go and then she catches herself again.” 

Gonzalez also relished in the fact that Jenna is an adult closer to her actual age (though she, of course, has loved playing Sophie on Ginny & Georgia). It was an exciting opportunity for her to go through an energetic shift as an artist and explore a character with more control over her impulses and emotions. “Jenna is going through a hard time and is making decisions that are more conscious and intentional—even if there is a pull there [with Cane],” says the Toronto-based actor, who is also known for parts in CBC comedy Workin’ Moms, sci-fi film Star Trek: Section 31 and as the protagonist in 2024 video game Star Wars Outlaws. “Sophie acts in the moment—she’s a high schooler who doesn’t know the answers. Jenna takes a bit more time, and I think that’s something age has given her. But there’s still a natural drive to each character that came really naturally to me—I really do feel like I was meant to play both of these roles.”

Season 3 of Ginny & Georgia brought Sophie back into the spotlight. Sophie is one of the stars of the school musical and haphazardly tries to rekindle things with Max, even though she’s in a relationship and dealing with complicated family matters. Gonzalez was excited to get the chance for her character to reconnect with Max—“Fans [loved them] and we get to kind of give an homage to ‘Sophine’”—and still hopes she gets to pop back into the town of Wellsbury post graduation. “Relationships change and shift, and it was just fun to have bit of a ‘Huh, what could have been’ [moment this season],” she says. “I think Sophie always might ruffle some feathers by coming back during, like, Thanksgiving—she goes away and comes back as this grown college gal and Max is like, ‘Oh my God, I used to date her’ and the cycle almost starts over again. There could be so many opportunities for a cameo.” 

When Gonzalez first signed onto Ginny & Georgia, Sophie was written as an Italian character, inspired by a former classmate of the show’s creator. Gonzalez later asked for the character to be Latina, like she is, because she felt it would help her be more authentic in her work. The creative team agreed and when the show later shot to number one on Netflix world wide, that meant people across the globe were getting to meet this Latina character from Venezuela. “It became such a sense of pride for me, and it made me realize I could do that moving forward—I could raise my voice and, even if I’m cast as a character that doesn’t necessarily have an ethnicity or culture attached to them, I can always bring myself to the role,” she says. “It was the beginning of me really sinking into my roots, and it reminded me of my purpose in this industry. Celebrating who I am and where I come from is the most important thing, because representation does matter. Sophie was really a door opening into Humberly and bringing that to the forefront. I then became fearless with that goal, because Ginny & Georgia showed me I could. I was like, ‘If Netflix said yes, everyone else is going to say yes. They want me here.’” 

That fateful moment that led to the birth of Sophie Sanchez is just one example of Gonzalez doing what she has throughout her decade-long career: betting on herself. It’s a north star that led her directly to The Waterfront too. The actor says she has always been specific and intentional about setting goals and recognizing what is important to her when it comes to accepting jobs. And that has often meant making tough decisions, like turning down three different series regular roles that would have taken her on a completely different trajectory than the one she’s currently on—and away from The Waterfront. She wouldn’t trade anything for the belief she has in herself.

“I’ve said no to a lot of things that led me to this big yes,” she says. “I would not be here today if I didn’t say no to certain things that were very alluring—I bet on myself and knew I was supposed to be in a different space. I try to really [look at] ‘What is an Humberly project? What does she say yes to? Is there a sense of adventure? Where is it shot—here or am I international? What does it pay me? Is it worth what I’ve built my career to be? Am I being compensated fairly?’ Sometimes it’s a passion project and I’ll say yes because of a story that drives me or inspires me. There’s almost a checklist of all these things I run through rather than saying yes to something out of a scarcity mentality or out of fear that I’m not going to work again. And that takes guts. It takes courage. I follow my gut and my intuition—and it’s never been wrong.” 

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