There’s no one like Raquel Navarro. The Paramount+ series The Game returns for its second season on December 15, and Analisa Velez spoke with HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY about the journey ahead for her fierce character and her music career.
“There’s a huge roller coaster that’s happening,” Analisa said. “You’re hopefully going to meet one of my parents, which is super exciting. And then you’re going to be diving into my relationship with Garrett, which is really beautiful. It’s so intricate.”
Analisa revealed that diving into Raquel’s backstory concerning her mother will explain why her character is so “full throttle all the time. I’m excited to show that relationship because I think it’s really interesting.”
The actress added that she’s “been building my mother up by myself for a season. I have this whole idea of her and then when I found out that she was cast, I was like, ‘You guys have to introduce me to her.’ And they’re like, ‘Analisa, no, not until the day of set.’ I was like, ‘No, no, no, I gotta see this woman.’ And they ended up introducing me to her day of, and I just started bawling. It was this instant connection between me and the other actress. It was just really beautiful.”
On top of this emotional route for Raquel, there’s the Garrett of it all. Analisa admitted that she loves the drama. “There’s a lot of ups and downs,” the actress teased. “With Raquel, the trajectory of her career is going up, so she’s just trying to figure out how to balance this love life and having a whole booming career and the ups and downs of it. I think the question is, just even for me as an actress and as a woman, can we have it all? I think we can, but there’s gonna be consequences in each side. It was actually really interesting to play that.”
In addition to her acting career, Analisa is also working on new music. She revealed the inspiration behind her latest collection of songs.
“I’m in between either dropping a couple more singles or dropping an album,” Analisa told HollywoodLife. “So the difference is a huge difference. It’s a huge difference. But the EP is basically about a really bad relationship that I had with this person. Unfortunately, it was something that I had to go through. I don’t believe I had to go through it. I grew from it, and I would love to share with other women going through that same struggle. It’ll be an EP of like the beginning, the middle, and the end of the relationship. It’s really cool. The first song is called ‘Joan of Arc.’ I really want to drop that, but we’re figuring out the right timing for it.”
New episodes will be released weekly on Paramount+. The photographer for the above photo is Jose Arellano. The photo was edited by Jose Arellano and Elizabeth Echemendia.