Yoli’s decision to come out was a pivotal moment in the first season of Grand Hotel. During the July 29 episode, Gigi throws Yoli a coming-out party and it causes a breakthrough in Gigi and Yoli’s relationship. Gigi gives a speech about her love for Yoli, but she makes a terrible mistake. The memory she has is actually of Carolina and not Yoli. Gigi and Yoli eventually have a heart-to-heart and Yoli admits that she feels like she’s never been noticed by her mother. Gigi and Yoli finally see each other in a way they never have before.
HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Grand Hotel star Justina Adorno about this incredible moment for Yoli and discusses the emotional talk between Yoli and Gigi. She also teases that more will be revealed about Yoli and Sky’s relationship as we near the end of the season and there will be some “sister bonding” between Yoli and Carolina. Grand Hotel is known for its unexpected twists and turns. Justina promised us that “no one has any idea what’s about to go down.”
What was your reaction when you learned Yoli was going to come out?
Justina Adorno: I thought it was great. The biggest thing for me with acting is to be able to tell stories of those who aren’t being able to voice their story and definitely in the Latin community kind of not really talked about, at least in my generation. Now things are changing. But I remember back when I was younger, my teen years and even in college, it was still kind of like, we don’t really talk about it. We may know, but we don’t really talk about it. And I just think it’s really important and I’m super grateful that I was able to be a part of that.
Gigi and Yoli actually have a very emotional and candid conversation about everything and are now trying to moving forward with this. How is this going to impact their relationship? Because it’s not just about Yoli coming out, it’s about Gigi noticing Yoli for the first time.
Justina Adorno: With episode 7, you think it’s Yoli’s sexuality that’s going to be what’s in between the two, but as Yoli figures out, her mom just never really connects with her. She doesn’t really know who she is, and she always thought that her mom knew that maybe she’s not your typical daughter, per se, but it wasn’t even that. It was she didn’t even see her daughter. It’s a really hurtful moment. Even for me, it was just really sad. For me to even think that someone feels this way in real life, with their parent in this specific circumstance. I think everyone knows that Yoli’s a very open-minded, forgiving person and so it’s all about whether or not they’re both willing to really work on their relationship on a real level. The love is there. It’s just always so much harder when the love is there and there are opposing views. It gets a little tricky.
On another note, in last week’s episode, we learned that Yoli and Sky had a relationship and the big mystery of the season is what happened to Sky. Are we going to see more of how Yoli is involved in that?
Justina Adorno: We’ll definitely find out more about what really happened between Sky and Yoli. And if that had anything to do with her disappearance. All those questions are going to be answered. We’ll just give you a little bit of time because it’s messy. It’s not as simple as everyone may think.
How will Yoli coming out impact her relationship with her sister?
Justina Adorno: Like with any relationship, when you feel free in whatever you’ve been holding back is brought out to the surface there’s so much more room for intimacy, more closeness. I think I see some sister bonding in the near future.
What else can you tease on the Yoli front for the rest of the season?
Justina Adorno: Next week is definitely a more emotional moment for her and a lot of the other characters as well. There’s a lot of more meat coming up within the next couple episodes and then we just tie everything else up for the remaining of the season. No one has any idea what’s about to go down. With each and every episode everyone gets a little more shocked. It gets me so excited for the season finale, because with each episode I don’t know how our writers did it, but they keep you at the edge of your seat and wanting more.
