Hey everybody, welcome back to Latina to Latina.

On this podcast, I talk with Latinos about how they got to be so amazing.

If you've watched Vida, or even if you've just heard the buzz about the new star series,

you know that Melissa Berera, one of the show's two leads,

is a star on the rise. But Melissa's not new to show business. She had a career as a telenovela star

in Mexico. Vida is her first break in the U.S. Today, I'm in her L.A. apartment, which she shares

with a roommate. Melissa answers the door with wet hair and seems genuinely unfazed

by her own stardom.

Thanks for inviting us into your home. No, thank you for coming. I'm excited.

What a cute little apartment does this feel like home?

It does. Yeah. Every time that I'm flying to Monterey, I'm like, oh, I'm flying home. But then after a few days, I'm like, I need to go home. I need to go where I have my own space and where I'm working. I feel like wherever I'm working is where I feel the happiest. So it's LA right now.

When you were at NYU, did New York feel like home?

It did.

And it felt like it was my favorite city in the world.

And it was my dream to go to NYU to go to musical theater school because you know that's like the

epicenter of like Broadway and theater and that's where I wanted. That's where I pictured myself.

So it felt like I belonged. When I arrived to New York, I was like, this is where I was supposed to be

all my life. And this is where I'm going to be all my life. That's what I thought.

And well, no, that didn't happen. What did you do to audition to get into NYU?

Oh my God. I don't even know. I don't even remember. I think I sang on my way from Violet, the musical, because I'm a huge fan of Sutton Foster.

And so I saw her singing that song and I was like, I can sing that.

I was very confident before.

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