Why Rita Moreno Asked For Her New Character To Be Sexual, Marlon Brando, And More

On Netflix’s One Day at a Time, an excellent reboot of the Norman Lear original, Rita Moreno stars as 70-year-old Lydia, the grandmother in a multigenerational Cuban-American family living in Echo Park, Los Angeles. Moreno herself is a living legend. The star of West Side Story, Singin’ in the Rain, and countless other films and TV shows, is one of the few talents to have an EGOT, and we wouldn’t be surprised if she took another Emmy home this year for her scene-stealing work on One Day. She recently joined the Vulture TV Podcast in studio to discuss why she asked for her character to be sexual, doing her first-ever scene sans makeup, and how Marlon Brando was an “absolute lunatic” about keeping their eight-year-long affair private.

Listen to the conversation, and read an edited transcript at Vulture.