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Naya Rivera/Santana Lopez


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I saw that Rosie Perez news today too. Supposedly ABC said her status with the show was "unchanged". But, hmmm, where there's smoke..... Maybe they are trying Naga out. If so she really stepped in it yesterday with the whole, "white people shower more than "ethics" statement. The media and Twitter read her the riot act on that one.

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The plot thickens...I haven't yet caught up on her episodes of the View but ONTD is abuzz about this outing 

 

Here is the relevant info

tumblr_ni6eomvZvs1qkm6cwo1_r1_250.gif tumblr_ni6eomvZvs1qkm6cwo2_250.gif

 

Sounds to me like a joke but ambiguous enough to get tongues wagging, which must be her objective. 

 

Thankfully she resembles herself on the show, although I don't think she needed the veneers. So the weird wax figure photo a the GG party was her make-up team striking out, here is one other unrecognizable shot 

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Edited by fakeempress
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Honestly, Naya always looks a little....off to me in red carpet shots. It might be because she does the pout and refuses to smile. But yeah she looks like herself on those View gifs.

 

For the longest time I've tried to figure out if Naya has done something to her face. When I see the View clip, I think "Oh no, there she looks the same" but other times, even on Glee, I think she looks a little different. Something about her lips? I'm not sure. I can't figure it out. It may also just be that she's skinnier now than she was.

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Honestly, Naya always looks a little....off to me in red carpet shots. It might be because she does the pout and refuses to smile. But yeah she looks like herself on those View gifs.

 

For the longest time I've tried to figure out if Naya has done something to her face. When I see the View clip, I think "Oh no, there she looks the same" but other times, even on Glee, I think she looks a little different. Something about her lips? I'm not sure. I can't figure it out. It may also just be that she's skinnier now than she was.

I too have wondered, but I'm inclined at this point to think the difference is that her face has lost its baby fat (she has gone from 22-27, which is when that can happen).  PLUS, she goes for very dramatic make-up for the red carpet, AND doesn't smile, which makes her look very different.  

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I too have wondered, but I'm inclined at this point to think the difference is that her face has lost its baby fat (she has gone from 22-27, which is when that can happen).  PLUS, she goes for very dramatic make-up for the red carpet, AND doesn't smile, which makes her look very different.  

I suspect that's what it is for the most part. Unfortunately this make-up style makes her look older in photos. Same with Lea, her GG party photo makes her look like a 40-year old trying to pass for an ingenue. 

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If she's already announcing it publicly, I'm assuming she's far enough along that she would have known when she booked that role. So I don't think it will affect anything. She's only a guest star anyway, so she might only be in a couple of episodes.

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She knew yes, of course, but did they? I mean like you said, its just a guest role but if there was any potential for that role to be expanded into something more regular, I wonder if it is still there. Its one thing to work a pregnancy in for an established cast member, but another for someone the audience hasn't really attached to.

But good on her for making time for herself and her personal life, getting married and having a child. I read Aisha Tyler's story; one of her big regrets in life was building her career for the first 20 years she and her husband were married, but then when she felt like she was at a place in her career where she could focus on family, she found she was unable to conceive :/. I'm happy Naya is doing things in her own time.

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She knew yes, of course, but did they? I mean like you said, its just a guest role but if there was any potential for that role to be expanded into something more regular, I wonder if it is still there. Its one thing to work a pregnancy in for an established cast member, but another for someone the audience hasn't really attached to.

 

Maybe she doesn't want anything permanent, since she's having a baby soon.

 

She said on The View last week that she's doing "a couple" of DM episodes. So idk if that means literally 2, or a few more. But, I didn't get the impression that it's a huge, season-long arc. I could be wrong, though.

Edited by Ceeg
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I will admit, I was kind of side eyeing this quickie marriage, but she seems really happy with this guy. Marriage seems to have been a bit of a calming force for her. Things were getting a little trainwreck-ish during the Big Sean days. So I'm happy for her! She has talked about wanting  a family for a while now.

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I will admit, I was kind of side eyeing this quickie marriage, but she seems really happy with this guy. Marriage seems to have been a bit of a calming force for her. Things were getting a little trainwreck-ish during the Big Sean days.

My impression based on our very incomplete information is that she had a kind of perfect storm of personal/professional troubles at the end of 2013/beginning of 2014, between the final stake in her attempts to make an album (which must have been terribly disappointing, for all the time she had invested in it), the dissolution of her engagement (for whatever reason), and possibly tensions on the show set, though that last one may have been caused by the stress of the first two more than anything.  She seems a lot happier now, so hopefully the much more relaxed period she had in much of 2014 allowed her to put things back together.

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Well, since Glee ended I thought I would make one last comment about Santana.

 

Santana was my favorite character on Glee. She was the reason I started watching. She was charismatic, and fun. She had a great voice and she would light up the scenes for me. She was also a bad girl who happened to have feelings, too, and I'm a sucker for those. She was a lesbian, and I am a sucker for those too. :)  Her original story about repressing her lesbianism, and many other feelings, because of her fears of rejection I thought was quite engaging and hooked me to her character. Back then, when I believed in Glee, I looked forward to her coming out story and future romantic relationships.

 

Then Glee happened and Santana became one of the many wasted things about the show. At least she sang a lot, which I enjoyed a lot because I loved her voice, but the character seemed to go nowhere. Eventually it became clear that Santana wasn't a real priority for the show and was really a pawn that they moved here and there to fill up spaces they needed, but they were not really invested in her storyline or didn't really know what they wanted for her or what they were doing.

 

I found her relationship with Brittany specially crippling for her as a character. For a long time they were basically in different universes in terms of tone, and as long as she was with Brittany she would be Santana's main relationship in the show. I hated that because Brittany was just a messy caricature of a character and I wanted more for Santana and more for me as a Santana fan.

 

I had a huge pleasant surprise in season four, when it seemed like the things I wanted were finally happening. Santana broke up with Brittany and eventually went to NY. The time she spent in NY as Rachel and Kurt's roommate was by far my favorite Santana period. She was fun again and was interacting with characters that I felt were up to what she deserved. Both the characters and the actors worked well together and had great chemistry. I was thrilled to see Santana opening herself up to other people not called Brittany, and her relationship with Rachel was or, I should say, could've been by far my favorite relationship on the show.

 

But the good times weren't too long. Soon it became obvious that they STILL didn't know what they were doing with her, and even her storylines in NY started to go a bit bad, though it's still my favorite period of hers. By mid season 5 it became obvious that Santana was just a placeholder for the people from Lima who was still in HS, and she more or less disappeared when they went to NY. With Blaine, and Mercedes and Sam in the picture, she could no longer be a close friend of Rachel's and there was little place for her there. And with Quinn gone as well, her return to Brittany's orbit was inevitable. And back to the beginning we were. And back to my frustration I was.

 

Still, Brittana in season 6 was better than it ever had been. Brittany became more of a person, so their inevitable return and wedding wasn't as awful as I expected it to be. But nonetheless, I still missed the Santana who was Kurt and Rachel's friend and considered them family.

 

Then the latest, and LAST (finally!) disappointment came with her complete exclusion in the finale. I would have enjoyed seeing her support Rachel during her Tony award thing, and telling us what she is up to (they never even bothered with giving her a fucking career), and maybe having one last moment with Quinn. But nooo, I guess we needed a million more Sue scenes and Kurt/Blaine singing to random children.

 

In spite of all the disappointments, in a way I will miss Santana. I will miss what she could've been. What I wish she had been. But that's the problem with shows like Glee: if you have a million characters, people are always going to be disappointed because their favorite character(s) will never be all they want them to be.

 

Bye, Santana. You were sassy and fun. 

 

Here are two of my favorite Santana performances:

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F88eSda3bo

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ETA:

 

I forgot to mention, silly me, what was probably my favorite Santana moment ever: Santana fucking Quinn. That was completely unexpected and awesome.

That was one of the few times sex was a positive thing on the show. I loved it.

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Santana's tagline could be "So Much Wasted Potential, But Still Awesome" ;)

 

I do agree with much of what you said, natyxg, but I still liked Santana and Brittney. Maybe it was just another case of chemistry between actors being stronger than how on paper, it shouldn't work?

 

And even before Santana went to NYC and became closer to Kurt and Rachel, she did see the people in the Glee club as her family. And you don't mess with Santana's family.

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I really wanted to like 'Cold Hearted Snake' since it was a Santana solo, but I generally preferred those songs where Naya got to really show off her voice.  And Cold Hearted Snake is so montone (because of Paula Abdul, I presume?) that it was kind of blah for me - one of the (very few) Santana solos that I don't own on iTunes, actually.  :)

 

But I love Santa and Rachel duets - even the wildly inappropriate Every Breath You Take.  :)

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I never liked Cold Hearted Snake either. I thought Girl on Fire was her best season 4 performance. 

 

One Santana performance that I feel like gets overlooked because it's really a group number is Bad Romance. That was the first time that I took notice of her in a "holy shit that girl is amazing" kind of way. Before, I had always thought she was funny, and she had some good features and one-liners, and the Madonna episode was the first one where I felt like there was really a lot of potential for some good character exploration in the future, but Bad Romance she absolutely slayed.

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Agree about Bad Romance. Actually the only reason why I still have it on my IPod shuffle is because I love listening to Naya's part.

 

My favorite s4 performance was Nutbush City Limits though. Mainly because I don't like the original at all and I was so disappointed that that was one of her solos and then I was blown away when I heard it in the episode. It also really showed how much her singing had improved since the start of glee. Some of the other cast members either stayed the same or even lost some vocal quality but Naya was one of the few who got better year after year. Does anybody know if she took voice lessons? Or did she just work a lot with the Anders family before recording her songs? She must have done something.

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I just never understood WHY they picked 'Nutbush City Limits'.  I own it because it's Naya, but I dont' particularly like it as a song.  That's why I like This Girl Is on Fire better, too.  If they were going for Diva songs, and wanted Tina Turner, how about "What's Love Got to Do With It" - which, since Santana was pretending she was over Brittany might even have been relevant?  I guess it's not as high tempo, but still a great song.  

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I know Every Breath You Take is so wrong, but I love the beat and the idea they used for the performance.

 

And Cold Hearted I just thought was fun. Santana dancing around with a bunch of women.

 

Nutbush and Bad Romance I also loved.

 

Dance With Somebody also deserves a mention. I love fun dance songs like that. Mine was also great.

 

I loved most of her songs/performances, really.

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I just never understood WHY they picked 'Nutbush City Limits'.  

I thought the same. And context wise as well as song wise I like Girl on Fire much better. I think I love Nutbush so much because it surprised me so positively. And Naya just slays on it.

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It didn't hurt she absolutely rocked that look on " Bad Romance".

I confess at first I didn't like it as much but it has grown on me immeasurably ( to the point I'm embarrassed of my first critique) is Santana singing " Fade to Black" in Funeral.

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Anything Naya sung, I pretty much loved.

She also was really good in group performances. Her, Amber, and Jenna on "Shake It Out" is one of my favorites.

Even though I do really love Brittana (because I pay more attention to the chemistry than the writing), I wish we had more stuff between Santana/Rachel/Kurt when she did come back. Obviously something happened with Naya in season 5, and there was definitely an interview where she shaded Lea a bit, so I get the feeling something did happen between the actresses and so they tried to keep them apart. Which is a shame because I liked Pezberry until frenemies.

I'm more bitter about the lack of Sancedes, which is totally my favorite Santana friendship, and a lot more should have come of Kurtana after what happened in the Quarterback. Like seriously, she is the definition of wasted potential.

However, aside from that Kurt rant (which was at least provoked) I think she's one of the people who actually grew the most. She wasn't very snarky this season, and she did show up for people and let them know she loved them, AND we got closure on her grandmother. So even though I'm still annoyed there's so much wasted for her, she still got one of the better deals (and thank Jesus she was close enough to Klaine to surrogate for them).

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Sancedes is my favorite Santana friendship. I always felt like there was a mutual respect there that I'm not sure she had with Rachel or Kurt. I loved Santana/Rachel/Kurt scenes because I loved watching those three play off each other because I consider them the best actors on the show (plus Jane). But, as far as just friendship on paper? Santana/Mercedes was my fave.

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Sancedes is my favorite Santana friendship. I always felt like there was a mutual respect there that I'm not sure she had with Rachel or Kurt. I loved Santana/Rachel/Kurt scenes because I loved watching those three play off each other because I consider them the best actors on the show (plus Jane). But, as far as just friendship on paper? Santana/Mercedes was my fave.

Yeah, I feel like Santana always had more respect for Mercedes than Hummelberry (she did approach Mercedes in duets about doing a song together and said good things about her voice). I also feel like Mercedes is more willing to forgive high school Santana, whereas in episodes like frenemies we see that Rachel never fully got over that.

Also, the TroubleTones. My definition of an eargasm.

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I was never too much into Sancedes because I never liked Mercedes too much. I just never found her charismatic.

 

So, where is Santana five years later? After that dog episode, I kind of want her as Rachel's publicist. She just couldn't be at the Tony thing because her grandma was sick and she had to fly back to Lima with Brittany. :)

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Yeah, I love pretty much every duet that Naya and Amber ever did on the show. The only sort of clunker was The Boy is Mine IMO, but that was their first one and also not really a great song, in general.

 

But I love River Deep Mountain High, I love all the TTones songs, I loved Doo W**.

 

Actually, they didn't do this on the show, but I also really liked that they put Naya in The Lady is a Tramp on the Glee tour, with Amber and Mark. I thought she fit in there nicely.

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I hope she isn't a publicist (or at least not to Rachel). After that frenemies argument, her being "beneath" Rachel would tick me off.

I'd like to think she's got an album, of reasonable success.

 

I just don't want all of them to be performers. That was one of the things that irked me. Santana's future career was an absolute mess. She wanted fame, then she started to take dancing classes, got an understudy on broadway and didn't like it, sang with Mercedes, was Rachel's publicist and then... said she was going back to college, but didn't specify to study what? I just lost track.

 

Meh.

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I just don't want all of them to be performers. That was one of the things that irked me. Santana's future career was an absolute mess. She wanted fame, then she started to take dancing classes, got an understudy on broadway and didn't like it, sang with Mercedes, was Rachel's publicist and then... said she was going back to college, but didn't specify to study what? I just lost track.

 

Meh.

Because glee never knew what to do with her post-high school aside from have her be Rachel's friend/enemy.

If she's in college for something not related to performance, she could totally be a cutthroat businesswoman, with a killer suit to match.

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One of my favorite head canons (oh, okay, it's from a fan fic) has Santana as a cut-throat entertainment lawyer.  I think it's a good fit - in the entertainment business but taking advantage of Santana's skills with 'vicious vicious words.'  As I recall, Rachel is an entertainer, Mercedes a singer and Brittany is a dancer but most of the rest of the club have moved on to other professions.

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She also was really good in group performances. Her, Amber, and Jenna on "Shake It Out" is one of my favorites.

 

That was a good group performance. Other group performances she was in that I liked were "How Will I Know" with Rachel, Mercedes, and Kurt, and "Stronger" with Mercedes and Brittney. "Bad Romance" was also a good one too.

 

So, where is Santana five years later?

 

I hope she isn't a publicist (or at least not to Rachel). After that frenemies argument, her being "beneath" Rachel would tick me off.

 

I agree. I kind of the Santana now would be somewhere similar to where Naya is/was...Santana 5 years from now would probably on a TV show in it's second or third season, and maybe released or about to release a single on the side. And Brittney would be choreographing it.

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Is it too much to hope for some Glee tell-all in this?

 

TV Star Rivera Dishes for Tarcher

Glee actress Naya Rivera sold a memoir, Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up, to Joanna Ng at Tarcher. Inkwell Management’s Lauren Smythe brokered the world rights deal for Rivera on behalf of UTA. A cast member of 1990s sitcoms such as Family Matters and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Rivera struggled for years after finding stardom as a child. Chronicling her path from riches to rags and back again—she was a Hooters waitress at one point, before landing the role of Santana Lopez on the Fox hit Glee—the book will be a warts-and-all account, Tarcher said, in which she offers “candid thoughts on topics ranging from dating... to the challenges of being mixed-race in Hollywood.” Sorry Not Sorry is set for a spring 2016 release.

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