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Patricia Velásquez Opens Up: The Mummy, Indigenous Roots, Modeling, Human Connection | Fan Expo Q&A
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Jun 20, 2025
Patricia Velásquez brings depth, warmth, and honesty to her unforgettable Q&A at Fan Expo Dallas 2025. Best known for her iconic role as Anck-su-Namun in The Mummy, Velásquez shares her powerful life story—from growing up in Venezuela without running water to becoming the first Latina supermodel and a celebrated actress and activist. In this conversation, she discusses how dance taught her discipline and presence, how she found her voice through performance, and the emotional story behind landing her breakout film role. She also reflects on her foundation (Wayuu Tayá), the power of kindness, raising her daughter with compassion, and the weight of representation in the modeling industry. This panel is a heartfelt reminder of how personal struggle, purpose, and action can create real impact. 📍 Filmed live at Fan Expo Dallas 2025 📸 For more celebrity Q&A panels and pop culture moments, subscribe now. 🧠 Let us know in the comments: What’s your favorite Patricia Velásquez performance?
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hello Nice to meet you Hello Nice to meet you
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How are you okay Hi Hi Welcome Thank you so much Do I sit here yes Take a seat
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So great It's so nice to see you Have you come to many conventions some common
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I know you go to other conventions which we'll talk about but have you been to many common conventions like Fan Expo i
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I've I started doing Fan Expo this year Uh yeah I've done I did five conventions
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this year and this year I'm doing a few more It's been wonderful I have fallen
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in love with this community It's really great to share with people I mean it
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just you know we do what we do because we love our work for act for acting but
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when you get to share with the people that watches you know the work that we do and you inspire them you feel like
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you can say a few words that might encourage or help people in their lives
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is very is as rewarding to you as it is to to us So we're just so grateful and
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you can see it now how how many actors are wanting to come to the conventions
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Everyone everyone we all want to come It's so great It is great because we all
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connect so much through social media now which uh Priscilla Presley and I discussed yesterday is how it's meant to
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kind of connect us to the rest of the world but it's really really kind of separated us from others in real life
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having these inperson connections healing that chemistry from somebody else you lose through social media and
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you can also put out there what you want other people to see and we can kind of
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see the human that you are a lot of people know you from the mummy asam
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and but really you're much more than the person that you play on the big screen
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Can you give us I know that you have a book straight walk that you released in 2015 about your life and your growing up
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but for the people who haven't read it could you give us just a small synopsis of um synopsis of just your origin story
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and where you came from yeah Uh thank you so much You're so sweet Uh I come
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from Venezuela but I left my country 36 years ago Um nothing to do with politics
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Um and yeah we grew up my parents were both educators and you know when we grow
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things a little bit challenging for us like we had no we lived in the 50th floor and the elevators most of the time
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didn't work We had no water and carrying buckets of water upstairs to the floor
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Um and I think that's when my certainty was born Uh because I thought I wanted
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to help my mother and my family And it's amazing I'm sure when we look back each
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one of us has that moment whatever that moment was where your certainty was for
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Um and and it's that unshakable belief in your purpose that keeps you moving
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forward no matter what Uh and that's that's what to me So um I I was a dancer
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and then I was really I was studying and then I went to the university and I got
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offered to go work as a model in Milan in in those times I mean most of you
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can't relate to this but we had no cell phones There was no internet So I could very well have been one of those girls
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that got trafficked but I it was a G agency And for me when that opportunity
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presented itself I thought if I get to produce $30 a month that's going to pay
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water for the whole building So I have to go And because I was a dancer my mom
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was used for me to travel a little bit So if it would have been any of my sisters she would have not let me go but
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she let she let me go Um anyway I'm going a little bit on the origins but in
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relationship to the book um I wrote this book with the hopes that it will inspire
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people to live in truth whatever that truth might be you know whether you are in the religion but whatever that truth
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might be for you Um and I thought if I can help one person and that means I would have done the job and so far you
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know got those cells like crazy So I'm I'm very very excited that it continues to sell and you know I think for what's
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most important for me to tell you is and in relationship to what you said it
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is true social media can be very beneficial it can also I'm sure you know
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very very hurtful uh because we're putting images out there that don't really represent who we are so it's
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normal you look at a post and you start feeling really bad about yourself because you start feeling believe that
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everyone has a better life than yours People are not posting their sad moments or the things that they're going through
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and it's really challenging We don't have the tools to really overcome this
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tremendous amount of information that we're receiving that makes us feel bad So I think if coming to the conventions
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talking to people and letting them know that we all have
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issues uh that we are all humans and that it we need to understand that
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what's out there sometimes can be very helpful and sometimes can be very not very helpful
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So this opportunity of being places like this talking to you it allows you to say
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you know what you can do to have hope Life can change Anything can change Just
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being just just keep in that certainty because what happens is
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you know fear is something that is very much present in our lives nowaday And
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it's the fear of the uncertainty And when we have that certainty that
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transforms that fear into courage and then from courage comes action And then
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that action turns into wisdom And then from that wisdom turns change And that
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is as I said that unshakable belief in your purpose that keeps you forward no
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matter what Because life challenges can keep us leaving stuck you know unsure or
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undoubtful of the next step that we should take because we go "Yeah what if we make a mistake?" You know what what
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if we make the wrong decision what if we fail and these are all all feelings that
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are based in fear So how do we change that and it's by feeling that certainty
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and and what a better place to talk about it and to share with all of you
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about letting go of this fear and just go back to your root because your your that certainty it always tells you it
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always tells you you know sometimes it's just funny you want to do things we know we have to do but we don't want to hear
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it and it's right there even when you're young you you might not be as mature you
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always know because your inner always tells you what to do even when you don't want to hear it So the more you learn to
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we learn to listen to that inner God that has nothing to do with maturity but
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is a wisdom then I guarantee you that all of our lives will get better I went
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on [Music]
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fear to hold you back but the moment that you step through that fear is when you grow Yes you're growing if you
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accept it And it's something that's very hard to do is take that first step to do it And you did that by take that first
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step the action of wanting to help your family Most people do it because they love to perform I love performing It's
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great That's that's that's a reason that doesn't have to be a reason of of a lack
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of something Actually what a great thing that it can be based on abundant feeling because you
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love doing something so much which is really where we have to go to You love
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doing so much that time doesn't exist when you're doing it and that's when you know you're in the right song Yeah When
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time stops Yeah You said you danced for many years Yeah Many years What kind of
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contemporary dance anyone here dance i dance for 20 years Oh okay
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What's your choice now like it takes a toll on your body My doctor told me it's
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like being a football player because there's so much when you're jumping that
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actually happens in your joints and your body takes a lot of abuse when you're a dancer What's one skill that you learn
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from dance um that you've taken with you throughout your career because dance
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takes dedication and determination What have you taken from that and applied it to your life wow I love your questions
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Thank you Um two things Uh the first one is
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discipline I I think when you practice uh sport or dance or when you practice
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an activity uh it gives you it gives you a discipline that no one else has So
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that already becomes an advantage in your life uh because you have that discipline And from that discipline
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comes patience Right so every time you're working on a movement or choreography you're taking a class every
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day it's pretty much the same movement or uh it it gives you it it it brings
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you um it makes you a very patient Um and I think now going back to what we
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were talking before look we are in a time that is wonderful with what's
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happening with AI I mean our lives and our productivity has grown to a
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thousand% more right and it will need to go grow bigger bigger but the big
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question for most of us is okay but how can we really just not let AI control us
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and um I really believe in my heart that the way is this is going to be
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controlled is by making sure we do these activities that keep us present in the
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moment because when we are so bombarded with information that sometimes I I
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don't know if it happens to you but you go I don't want to think anymore just let me just stop for a second just let
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me stop my brain for one second so when you do these sort of activities like where you have to be so present like
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doing what you love or or whether it's the time doesn't exist and that is the
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only way I believe that we are going to be able to have our mind not controlled
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and when we are going to continue to be in control Um so it would just it brings a clarity almost You leave your problems
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at the door and you're focusing on what's the task at hand and then once you leave the room you go oh those
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problems came back but it's a nice reprieve from the everyday everyday and it also brings you enjoyment being
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present so out there Yeah You can't change the past We really don't know what's happening in the future You have
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this moment right now The moment Yes You got into modeling How
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did you end up on The Mummy as such an iconic role so sometimes I think my life
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has had so many magic moments Um you know I got into modeling because an
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agent came to Venezuela and picked me up I wasn't even there was a photo of me
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that fell out of my best friend who went to this casting and there was a photo of the jewel bus and he asked what it was I
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mean that's how crazy Um but that would lead me to something else And then I was
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you know a model for so many years I lived in Milan I lived in Tokyo lived in Madrid and then I of course you go to
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Paris because that's where where you end up and eventually I became very well
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known as a model Then I moved to New York Um that's where you're supposed to
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really make more the commercial side of it Um but when I was working as a model
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it was the type of supermodel So we are here we are I used one time I took the concrete and I stayed in Paris six hours
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Wow That's it Do some papers and came back Oh my god I mean it was amazing the
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the lifestyle we had So you know it's a time of superm models and we are everywhere Um and I some of the models
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started like seeing the Crawford did a movie you know Naomi and these girls
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they want to kill Fidel like they they were either turning into politicians or
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actors And uh it was a time where I had to ask myself well what is it that I
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want to do next because you only have a short period of time with this career Um and during that during that time I got a
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call I happened to be in LA for something and I received a call from my agent in France saying that they were
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going to do a movie called Leang which is the biggest film ever made in France
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from with you guys know and it was recent It was by a wonderful
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huge film and I I said no I'm not going to meet with these guys because I grew up in the dance theater Uh I had too
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much respect for the industry So my agent modeling agent said Patricia this
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is about saving an indigenous village and you're indigenous and this is what you live for Uh because I am indigenous
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So I said okay fine I'll go meet with the guy I met with the director and they
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offered me the boy just like that and I almost said no but then I remember
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that wanting to know my family I went back to that certainty that we talked about before So I accepted the film and
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had two months to work two and a half months So I went to New York and work with an acting coach every day So I went
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to the jungle Brazil and then Venezuela in job and fell in love with the industry Just fell in love with the
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experience I have never had so much fun in my work life ever It was incredible
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So I went back after the film went back to New York and said "I'm going to study." Uh and I told my agents at the
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time I said "If you want to work with me I think it's wonderful but I'm not ready yet I need to study." And they did They
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waited Uh so I studied studied studied and I started going for auditions and
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one of those I was in I was in LA and was meeting uh we used to do general
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meetings in the past We don't do this anymore but in the past in person so uh
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this is probably the part you want to hear but I went to Universal to meet an extraordinary woman named Johanna
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Colbert She was the head of casting at Universal Studios but I I didn't think
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twice about it So um I'm telling you all these great stories of amazing things
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that happened to me but just know that I will also walk Paris with you know holes
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in my shoes Uh like I've done the work right i know what it's like to not have
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anything Uh so anyway I I go to the meeting and I just had a wonderful
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meeting with this woman That was it I left and that same day I get a call to
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say that I had been moved to the movie called The Money and I was going to London That was it But I didn't know
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what kind of movie it was I didn't know who was in it I didn't know how big it was Nothing They sent me a script
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And I was like "Oh what do you mean I have to get a body
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how long?" But anyway I rallied it and I went to
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London right away It was I don't remember exactly but it was like going to London in a couple days It was that
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fast Um and I walked into the set and that's when I realized wow this is a big
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film This is so the the makeup took 10 hours I have four people drawing on my
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body and then I they made a special chair and special shoes and then every
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day they retouch the makeup between two and four hours Um and anyway that movie
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changed my life I mean it was just we we had no idea that the movie was going to
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be that big by the way No they they didn't it was a it was a big and wonderful surprise for everyone at
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Universal Of course Brenda was extraordinary and Rachel and and he
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really taught me so many things because you just never know who you're going to
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meet and you never know how important you and you should know we should know
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how important is to be kind to everyone because you never know how things can
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change Yeah I mean out of this meeting my my life changed right So that's why
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I've always done wonder is to make the important the importance of kindness Even when people aren't kind to you they
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might be happy about it It's a great superpower It really is It really is You know and I
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I'm going to go a little personal My daughter she's very pretty She's crazy pretty Um and she gets it from her mama
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Well it doesn't look much like I me and and she's had a lot of issues
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growing up because all the other girls there's always that judgment you know
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Yeah I was a model all that but I think indigenous so it's not a threat you know Um and it's it's it's been challenging
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for her all these years growing up because all the other girls they judge her and the one thing we always talk
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about is you are going to be judged more than anyone else So you need to be extra
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kind Not only don't you know but don't not be strong but you have to be extra
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nice because right away you're going to be judged from the beginning And it's true It's true Now She's young so she
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has to balance like okay now you're too calm man bring it up a little bit and create that strength but but we all have
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challenges and we all are uh t cast in in our industry everyone is um so it's
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how do we turn that into a exactly what you're saying did you ever feel pressure for I'm
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Puerto Rican uh for representing Latin America when in your career did you ever
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feel that pressure once you became a supermodel and people are looking at you and I'm like wait she's not she's not
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Caucasian she's not where is she from did you feel that way do you still feel that way no I I learned I learned uh
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that we are all typosted as as we said before and I was so focused on helping
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my family that I became a big model and I didn't realize that I was opening
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doors for other Latin girls and I remember I was in New York on 16th
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Street and 8th Avenue one day um and out of the blue this girl just threw herself
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at me I almost pushed her away [Music]
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and then she started crying and and and I said "Oh okay." And she started
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telling me how I have changed her life because she has never seen any other
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girls that look like her in the cover of magazines And that's when I used to wait
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a minute what I'm doing here I thought I was just modeling and helping my family
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No no no What I'm doing is much more important I'm actually creating representation And it is true When we
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used to work it was if there was a job it would be uh one it was either one
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type of beauty and all the um minorities people will always be thrown in one pot
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Now it's all separated but uh there were not really people like me on the mainstream media and Covergirl was
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actually the first band that did that Um so then I understood that I had a responsibility but it was never a
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pressure No it was a source of source of joy because even for me you you feel
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like you're minority and you know there is something to say about what you've
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been told from the outside that maybe you're indigenous that you're lower class that you're less than that you're
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you know your brown that you are That's that's hard to hear But uh then when
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when I saw that I was representing other girls and I it made me feel very very
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proud and it also made me feel good about myself Does it make sense because I also felt that way So her words made
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me feel accepted Accepted Yes Yes Thank you for that Yeah Um before I get to
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some fan questions and some presubmitted questions I want to talk a little bit about your foundation Uh why you
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say that correct uh I believe you started in 2002 and you have helped so
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many people education Can you give us just a a brief yeah So
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you know white Thai means I am indigenous and in 2002
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uh my uh and my my my uncle passed away
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and he was my mom is almost the youngest of 12 brothers and sisters and when he passed because he was basically my mom's
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dad Uh so he my mom was very sad and he said do not forget about the white and
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this is a community right on the border between Venezuela and Colombia It's a metrical community Um so I found out
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because I saw my mom so disappointed and sad uh that through unisep we found out
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that one kid was dying a day So because my parents are both educators I thought oh what if we start with a little
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preschool and this will guarantee that the kids will have to eat two meals a day So we started with a a little
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preschool for 30 children and then that uh grew to like 8,000 kids many schools
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and we started doing uh health drives and uh uh entrepreneurship
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programs for women and just we grew grew grew up but little did we know that we were just getting prepared for what was
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to come So when things got challenging you know Venezuela as you know it's a
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country of about 30 million people and more than 9 million people have fled the country already Um the good and some of
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the bad too as you and um so because we
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have had so much credibility then we started becoming the cond of sending
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humanitarian aid into the country Uh so like you know medicine supplies more
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than 12,000 kids are eating every day because of the food and last year yeah we've helped over 1 million people any
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other kids trying to get schools and uh it's just it's really wonderful to see
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what can you do in times of crisis and how people come together uh and you
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organize yourself like we're sending medicine supplies we send over 12 million medicine supplies here so it's
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great it's really really wonderful It takes a lot of the time So for me you know the foundation was never meant to
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take over my life Uh but certainly these last few years unless there's a project
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that really really calls for my heart I I I'm really working a lot in the
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foundation because I mean what if I can send a what am I going to say no because I have to shoot something So I'm I've
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become very very picky about projects Yeah Yeah you should be No it's fine
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It's fine You're doing amazing work So that some of us we all wish we could help and it's it's hard because you get
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stuck in your own life and helping yourself so much that there needs to be somebody out there that's helping others
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and I think you're doing such a wonderful job representing all of us in that Thank you So I I feel that uh if
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anything that I have felt is in taking care of myself and it is true you have to take care of
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yourself first So that's something I've learned I maybe have pushed too much the foundation side and pushed the work away
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uh too much So now I'm kind of trying to balance it out Uh and even coming to
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these conventions and meeting your own is important to me because it's like I'm an actor I love acting This is my thing
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Um and so yeah I I think it's important and sometimes you don't have to
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help in such a big way I started with just one little thing Uh and and
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it doesn't take much to help someone A smile could help someone I don't even realize it but really a smile can help
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someone Passing along that kindness as he said is a superpower because we don't know what they're going through and that
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might make their day special their life Yeah Yeah Um Zara from Nashville wants to know
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"From high fashion to Hollywood you can sell to multiple industries How do these different creative worlds inform each
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other in your work?" Yeah I think being a model the camera
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is non-existent and is existent So you you learn you're not um overwhelmed by a
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camera ever because that's what you do every day front camera only it's about you it's about looking at the camera but
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definitely gives you uh a space of um being comfortable I am very
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comfortable in front of the camera that that then when you go into the acting world you're not overwhelmed or but
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you're not overwhelmed right which happens to a lot of actors that they have a hard time you might be in a class
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or you might be rehearsing and then you have the camera in front it's hard for Um but but they both they do feed each
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other for sure when you d in dancing as a dancer you look in the mirror a lot
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Yes And then you have to tell your dancers I taught for years Turn around We're not looking at the mirror anymore
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You have to feel it inside yourself Believe in yourself Not just stare at what you're doing but like feel it from
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the inside Exactly Yeah Uh Aiden in San Antonio wants to know "You've worked
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across multiple genres or comedy which genre challenges the challenges you the
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most as a performer and why wow that's a good question Um every genre is every
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genre is a is challenging when it's you know horror films like even when we shot
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by your I mean was number one film worldwide James one from the country
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world it was challenging because every time you do horror films they're very physical but they're also very emotional
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So they seem like not so hard to shoot but horror films are really really
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challenging Dramas are obviously very hard because you have to be in that space of of pain for long periods of
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time So you're kind of in and out in and out of the pain And comedies are great
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They're hard too Yeah I wish you could do more comedies Oh you're great You're
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Martha in um Arrested Development and you are fantastic Thank you Yeah I do
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love comedies Actually there's a movie here you can see when Committed that I did with Heather Graham and Mark Ruffalo
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and Casey Al We shot it years ago We had such a good time It's a really good comedy Um but
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yeah I think they're all It's hard to It's hard to pick Yeah Um Maya in
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Pittsburgh asks "Having worked internationally how do different cultural perspectives enhance your
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creative process i think it it what it does definitely
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their humans and emotions are universal
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you know it doesn't you can you can do a scene in Spanish and then you can do it
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in you can see you can watch a film in Japanese or German and you will understand the scene even though you
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might not understand the language Um so he so emotions are universal and that
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does not require language but there are difference differences cultural
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differences uh that once you understand these cultural differences
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you become less judgmental uh for example um Russia you know
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Russians when you're there uh they're very you think they're mad stoic
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What you say angry Not in a bad way But not in a bad way No they're wonderful
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Not in a bad way because they look in all that area of the world Even Ukraine
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was Ukraine last year They look all that area is very stoic very serious and you
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think they're mad All that area of the world cannon So once you understand
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inside it's a hard Uh and so you're not judging the face just because we as
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Americans are all bubbly and happy you know or same thing even with Japanese It's very it's very uh you don't know
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what's going on inside So once you know a little bit of specific cultural uh
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behaviors then you you become less judgmented I would say more compassionate uh with
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yourself and the way you judge people Yeah knowledge is a source of power Yeah
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for sure Um I'm going to just do a couple quick rapid fire questions that are just more personal uh before I let
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you go if that's okay All right Um who would be on your Mount Rushmore
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who has inspired you oh definitely my mom Uh
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I just don't want to get political
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No No judgment room
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I think most of us would put our moms up there Yeah You know there there are many people that have that spot in me I
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definitely would say somebody like Christian a journalist I I love her love
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her work Um war zones and I she definitely will be in mine Um
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yeah Yeah I'm a singer What's the last song you listen to
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everything but I didn't listen to yesterday Uh I tend to listen to a lot of Latin music
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Uh what's your favorite genre then of music latin music No world music I love world
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music Yeah it's my favorite by far Um
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oh I listened to Gloria Estan this morning right yes And I just because they're doing a
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thing in my head we're honoring her so I I played it Yeah
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Uh but yeah I love I love music Um I tend to That's one thing that takes my
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spirits my spirit Yeah What's your favorite room in your house to escape to when you need just some
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time away from everybody else well I'm very blessed because I live by myself My
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partner lives in in Vancouver so we go back and forth and my daughter comes back and forth so I spend a lot of time
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in my house by myself Um I love my office because it's surrounded by trees
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and windows Uh I even put a little hammock there So yeah uh I I I order and
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I now what I really really love doing is doing high yoga classes Yeah So if I do
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it at sometimes that is called yin It's like a meditation movement and you sweat
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it all out
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What song would you perform at karaoke if you were to sing a song probably
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Goodbye No Okay Yeah love that Um we've been talking
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about everything that you have been doing that's unbelievably fabulous but
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what are you terrible at what do you suck at
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okay Okay I I would have to respond that question with an updated version which
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is my boss Anybody here can relate to us
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yeah So my blurry mind like even you asking me
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these questions of something that I have to remember is a nightmare
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and the thing is that I wake up in the morning and I know oh today is going to be that day from my memory So that's the
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one thing I struggle with lately and I will say I suck at uh that is like
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every time people are talking about movies and actors even here you know everyone
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looking at the phone like yeah of course and then they mention the
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same person and you still don't know who it is So I I think have to do with
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memory I struggle with tremendously right now I suck at it I was always bad Now now it's really bad But I do make
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everything Yeah Yeah That's okay We all suck at something So well you've been
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fabulous today Thank you We're so glad that you come to Inventions now Inventions
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Thank you