Vincent Rodriguez III Talks ‘With Love’ and How the Series Helped Him Through the Pandemic [Interview]

Amazon’s newest upcoming romantic comedy series, With Love, is a show that revolves around family and the importance of those connections. It prides itself on the overwhelming feeling of joy and happiness that it delivers in only a five-episode timespan.

I recently spoke with Vincent Rodriguez III about why depicting accurate realities is essential and why With Love is a much-needed show with the current climate. (You can watch the full video of our interview below.)

With Love follows the Diaz family as they better themselves and figure out love during the holidays. The series will begin its timeline on December 24th, Noche Buena, and end on the same note twelve months later.

Rodriguez plays Henry, the boyfriend to Jorge Diaz Jr, portrayed by Mark Indelicato. 

For Rodriguez, getting to be a part of With Love brought back a piece of him that Covid-19 had stripped away.

“We were in the middle of a pandemic, so I was really hurting. I was just so down and depressed and missing people, missing friends, telling stories, doing the plays, and things like that. So, when we actually got to filming, I was already doing home workouts and taking acting classes. I was training, working with various acting coaches, and reading a lot of books on mindset and mental health awareness,” Rodriguez said.

“Then when With Love came along, I read the script, and I just thought ‘this is really heartwarming.’ And, this is unique, like, I’ve never seen these kinds of characters interacting in this way before.”

“Then I read the scenes, and I just felt like, oh my gosh, like you wrote a Filipino character, your Filipino knight in shining armor, in a holiday rom-com? Which, growing up, I just saw a bunch of white people,” he said. “I get to be a Filipino and represent the Filipino community, and the LGBTQ community, queer community, by playing a bisexual character.”

With Love is nailing representation in all aspects without it looking forced.

“Cast members are playing queer characters and trans characters; we have nonbinary characters and actors, performers. We covered so much ground, and we got to amplify these voices of the unsung, or not as represented people, in real life.”

“We got to shine a light on them on screen, and that’s one of the things Gloria [Calderón Kellett] really wanted to do is have more representation, diversity, and inclusivity, not because you need to, but because it is an important aspect of how we progress forward as a society,” Rodriguez said.

Watch the full interview with Vincent Rodriguez III:

Rodriguez understood the gravity of what his character represented and was grateful for the opportunity. “For me to be able to lend my hand or be of service to playing this character and bring some of my personal experience and knowledge to it was an honor. It’s also something that I’m not used to experiencing.”

“It’s tough having people kind of pigeonhole you or put you in a category that they made and has nothing to do with who you actually are or what you’re capable of or aspire to be. So, I did feel that responsibility in playing this part. It also felt very special to me. I felt so much love and affection for Henry and our queer, transgender, LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez believes that With Love is something that many people need right now. Its heart-warming stories about family, friends, and acceptance are bound to fill any void one might be feeling this time of year.

“We’ve been so challenged the last two years. Not only do we need something that shows us hope, that is aspirational, but we also need something that’s going to make us feel good, laugh, and just remember, like, the joys of being alive. And that’s partly why Gloria wrote it. It was a response to the pandemic and like, what will people need?”

“They’ll need to feel cared for, want to feel joy, and they’ll want to, you know, like acknowledge the sadness, and the ups and the downs. But ultimately, they want to feel love, they want to belong, and that’s what our show has. It’s filled with that, and I’m pretty sure the audience will feel that virtual hug come through the screen. Because that’s what we felt when we were filming,” Rodriguez said.

The content within With Love is overwhelmingly relatable for many LGBTQ+ people globally, and that’s an aspect that stuck with Rodriguez. “There’s a lot of realities out there right now that are not being depicted on screen. One of the many realities is joy, interracial couple joy or, you know, homosexual cisgender monogamy, and that gets touched upon.”

“In the first episode where my character, Henry, gets asked to explain bisexuality to a room full of Latinos at a Noche Buena party, which just made me cringe. I still feel awkward about it right now, but that’s because we know what that feels like, where maybe you were in the room, and maybe you didn’t want to have that conversation. So we can all relate to that.”

Watch the trailer for With Love:

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With Love will be available to stream Friday, December 17th on Prime Video.

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