She’ll shave her head and manifest a role in the Marvel Universe

By Ada TsengAssistant Editor, Utility Journalism

Photography by

May 24, 2023 5 AM PT

For Annie Gonzalez, success as an actor is about being able to do what she loves, without giving up her sense of self.

That means tuning out the immense industry pressure to look a certain way and to chase external praise. She’s determined to set her own standards based on what brings her joy.

A woman holds her hand up to the camera.

“Success is just a feeling, so it’s about where can I find that feeling?” she said. “I don’t want someone saying, ‘You booked this job’ or ‘We want you on this talk show’ to be the only thing that gives me that feeling. That feels like I’m giving away too much power.”

Gonzalez booked her first acting job from her very first audition when she was 9. It was for the 2000s procedural drama “Without a Trace.”

“I was probably Girl #3,” she said. Her character’s family was trying to migrate from Guatemala to the United States. “My parents couldn’t pay the coyote that was smuggling us, so they kidnap me and cut my ear off,” she remembered.

People tried to warn her that acting would be a a tough career path, but she thought, “What do you mean? This isn’t hard. This is fun!”

Hollywood careers

What defines success?

This profile is part of a series about what success looks like to working actors in Hollywood.

Gonzalez feels lucky that she’s known exactly what she wanted to do since she was a kid growing up in East L.A. Her first agents were “two badass women from New York who were old-school,” she said, laughing. They told her, “You got a lazy eye, and you’re a little chunky. We gotta fix that!”

But she took a break from acting from about 16 to 23, which she said are awkward transition years for child actors.

She needed to learn how to live her life outside of acting, she said.

“Sometimes we look at the entertainment industry like it’s different than other industries,” she said. Actors are told all the time what they should look like, what they should do and how they should do it, she said. They’re told they need to make all these sacrifices for the job.

A woman sits on the corner of some railing.

In her mid-20s, she booked a key recurring role on the half-hour Mexican American dramedy “Gentefied.” It was a big win for her career, but she fell into a deep depression, she said.

“I was in a great relationship,” she said. “I had money. I was working. I was doing all the things [I was supposed to do]. And I was still miserable.”

When she broke up with her boyfriend, decided to go to therapy and shaved her head, “the first thing someone asked me was, ‘Don’t you think that’s going to affect your booking?’” she said.

She was angry at the mere suggestion that an industry that plays make-believe wouldn’t make room for an Annie Gonzalez with a different hairstyle, she said. She was tired of being boxed in.

Like many actors, Gonzalez had a job as a waiter for almost a decade. She loved that job.

“I would go to different tables, speak in accents and create whole narratives for each,” she said. “I would just play. It was so fun.”

When she was starting to get attention for her work on “Gentefied,” she was still doing bottle service at a bar. On a beautiful sunny-day walk with a friend, she had an epiphany.

“Nothing changes,” she told him. “Maybe my pockets will get a little fatter if I start working on a film instead of at a bar. But other than that, I’m still going to experience heartbreak. And I’ll still be working toward the next thing. ... We’re still going to be hanging out and cracking up.”

Once she saw life like that, she realized she was already successful.

Lately, she’s been finding a lot of joy in trying to manifest opportunities for herself by writing about them in her journal.

She wrote that she wanted to get offered a role without having to audition. Soon, she got an offer.

Next, she wrote that she wanted to work on a project that took her out of the country. And she wanted a chance to sing musical theater.

Gonzalez just finished shooting the authorized biopic about singer Jenni Rivera. It was shot in Bogota, Colombia, and Los Angeles. She stars and executive produces.