Image via NBC
Making a name for yourself when George Lopez is your father can’t be easy, but Mayan Lopez is making it happen.
The 26-year-old is starring in the new sitcom Lopez vs. Lopez alongside the popular comedian. The NBC comedy is premiering on Nov. 4, and it is inspired by the strained relationship they had in real life. They will play a once-estranged father and daughter who are navigating dysfunction and generational traumas, as they attempt to reconnect when he comes back into her life.
Lopez says that she wasn’t on speaking terms with her famous dad just a couple of years ago. Now they are using the sitcom as a vessel to iron out their personal issues with the world as their witness. “Two years ago we weren’t truly speaking and now we’re having these conversations that we would’ve had in private, but we’re putting them on the screen,” Lopez tells Complex. “We know that this is our cause, our relationship represents so many and it’s bigger than ourselves.”
The George Lopez show premiered on ABC in March 2002 and aired for six seasons. The sitcom was about a Mexican-American dad raising his family in Los Angeles. The show went into syndication on Nick at Nite in 2007 and had an almost 13-year run on the network, gaining even more fans than when it originally aired. The new NBC sitcom will follow a similar format; it is a situational comedy covering familial topics but will have a slightly different premise.
Lopez vs. Lopez centers around Mayan who works at a veterinary clinic and has a white partner named Quinten (Matt Shively) and they live in her late grandmother’s home. The couple share a son named Chance, played by Brice Gonzalez. The 7-year-old social media star is known for making hilarious lip-sync videos with his dad Randy as the EnkyBoys. Lopez and the show’s showrunner Debby Wolfe discovered Gonzalez’s videos on TikTok and knew right away they wanted him for the role.
Lopez vs. Lopez is not a reboot by any means. But the actress does promise that fans of the OG George Lopez show will get their necessary dose of nostalgia here, too (including some special appearances from the original cast). Complex hopped on a call with Mayan Lopez to chat about healing her relationship with her dad in front of a live audience, representing Latinas on TV, the cast, and more. Check our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Congratulations on the show. I watched the pilot and it was so funny. It’s so heartwarming. How are you feeling before the show premieres?
I am so excited for people to see this and to be able to see a very unique father-daughter dynamic and it’s really life imitating art. It’s about my dad, a once-estranged father and daughter, really trying to reconnect and realizing, I think especially with the pandemic, that time is really precious and that this relationship was so important to the both of us and that you don’t have to be perfect to heal and that you can find laughter is sometimes the best medicine.
For sure. And our parent-child relationships can sometimes get complicated as we get older.
Yeah. You start to see your parents as people and you may understand more as you understand your own humanity. And maybe you don’t agree with things but you can understand them and we kind of educate them. I think [in] Lopez vs. Lopez, as well as the older generation versus the younger generation, we cover topics of generational trauma and it being OK to talk about your feelings and that you don’t have to be perfect to have some sort of healing.
I think about having that in a sitcom aspect and performing in front of a live audience as well. Being in my dad’s kind of foreground—I was on the set of George Lopez ever since I was 5 years old. I always watched it and absorbed it and to now be able to collaborate with my dad in this way and on a medium that it’s kind of in the family business. It’s kind of a family format. It’s a family show and it’s just an honor and I can’t wait for people to see it.
I read that you two were a bit separated. Can you talk about using your art as a form to heal the relationship?
Yes. I’ve always wanted my pain to mean something. I didn’t know when that was going to happen and that time is now. But I’ve always wanted for people to feel like they are not alone. Because I think just the exposure and because sometimes you just feel like the world is your own and all your problems are just your own. You don’t feel like anyone can relate to that. And just simply having that exposure out there can make such a huge difference in someone’s life. I can’t wait for this show and I’m hoping that people will come up to me, hopefully, and show how the show relates to them. Tell me stories. And I just really want a core of connection.
Image via Getty
Working with someone like your dad has to be really kind of nerve-wracking.
Oh yeah. It’s challenging. It’s challenging at times. But that’s what makes it such an incredible dynamic, is that it’s real. And putting that in a sitcom, which is already kind of situational. Two years ago we weren’t truly speaking and now we’re having these conversations that we would’ve had in private, but we’re putting them on the screen. But we know that this is our cause, our relationship represents so many and it’s bigger than ourselves. Even my dad’s show, with the original, it was kind of his life if he didn’t become a comedian. And now it’s a different father-daughter that’s still based on that sort of reality. And so it’s the Lopez way—we put ourselves out there for a bigger cause.
The dynamic between you two is so great. Did you learn anything about him as a professional working with him or about his work ethic?
He’s just a class act and how quick he is and how smart and how he’s already three, four steps ahead. He actually told me, he’s like, “Oh this is great. There’s two of me.” That we are able to bounce off one another and I’ve done my own studying. I studied at The Second City in Chicago and really thought I was going to be on SNL. And so being able to perform in front of a live audience and also get that tutelage and mentorship from him is… I’m going to have this forever.
I can’t wait to show my children. We get to kind of test run. I’m a mother on this show. I’m not a mother in real life, but we get to practice in some parts of the show. So it’ll be fun to watch back how many years from now and that hopefully, I think, it’ll always hold up.
His show was so iconic. People still talk about how they used to wake up in the middle of the night to the theme song, “Low Rider” by War. Can you talk a little bit about making sure that this show was different from his?
Yeah. I think it has a lot of the same aspects. A lot of heart, really authentic storytelling. It’s a Latin family but we’re a family that just happens to be Latino and I think that’s something that George Lopez did very well. People from all sorts of different backgrounds were able to create and to be able to relate to the show as well because it was just telling the stories of a family.
Lopez vs. Lopez covers that very well and I think we have quite some star power coming in this season. We just shot an episode not too long ago with Cheech Marin and Rita Moreno and even had the original cast of George Lopez cameo. So the fans won’t get a full reboot but they will get a little bit of the nostalgia factor back. Being able to have such great icons of the Latin community as well, I think is important for representation in our culture today.
We don’t get a lot of shows about Latinos just being Latinos on TV or in movies. What does it mean for you to be able to make this show? Just being able to simply see yourself on-screen is so empowering. I know for me personally, until I saw two Latina leads on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, even with my dad’s show, I didn’t think it was possible for a comedy like that. And it pushed me, propelled me forward. It made me feel like I can do that too.
I am now stepping into a place where I hope women and men of any color will be able to see themselves in me and know that they can push forward and anything is possible and we are, I am getting into these rooms, we’re going to all these events. And I think it’s important to know that you’re not alone in pushing for change, pushing for representation and representing and pushing the culture.
I also love the cast. Selenis [Leyva] plays your mom and she is wonderful.
I’ve loved and admired her. Even seeing her on Orange Is the New Black. That whole cast is wonderful and she is just a dream. I can’t wait for people to see how funny she is. We have such an incredible cast and we really are like a family already. We get along so well with one another and I think people will be able to see that on-screen.
What makes it so unique is that it’s a real father and daughter and I think you’ll see that there are some times when I really just talk to my dad even in those really hard moments. There are sometimes when we have to, after a scene, be like, “All right. Are we good? Are we OK? Do we have to have a talk after backstage?” But it’s really brought us closer and I think as the show goes on, our relationship is in real time getting stronger and stronger.
I also love that you cast Brice [Gonzalez] as your son on the show. He’s so funny.
My mijo. I can’t wait for people to see him on this because he is too much.
Did you guys discover him on Instagram like everybody else? Or did he audition?
Yeah. I saw him on TikTok. I became a huge fan of his. Our showrunner and creator, Debby Wolfe and I, actually at the same time when we were casting, we sent each other I think almost the same TikTok and we were like, “This is the kid, this is the kid. We have to have him.” And he has just been—it was the perfect choice. His timing, he had such a great dynamic and I can’t wait for people to see him and George together. Especially because if you think I can put it back on him too, Brice can as well.
Having a sitcom like this is huge for the Latin community, but just in general, just having a sitcom is a big deal as a woman and for you to be the lead. How are you feeling about that?
I feel ready for it and I understand that I feel like there’s a great responsibility to it as well. But I feel that I am just ready to have the world and I’m ready for the world to see it. And hopefully, I’m looking forward to the future and I just want to make as many people laugh as possible.
I have to ask about Latinxs in Hollywood. Do you feel like the community is progressing?
Yeah. I feel like we are making great strides. Even personally, I went and presented at the Imagen Awards not too long ago and attended an event that was hosted by Elle and Netflix for Latinas in Hollywood. And I think it’s so important for us to be in rooms with one another because I feel like you can feel that you are making strides, but you feel like you’re going at it alone. And I think the more that we’re in rooms with each other, we realize that we’re having the same issues, and just feeling that you’re not alone and that we’re telling stories about us and with us, not without us. And I think what is important is that no one can tell our stories like we can.
Even with Lopez vs. Lopez, we have a Latina showrunner. Most of the room is Latinx or diverse minority writers. We have a core. Lopez vs. Lopez is loosely based on my life, but it’s also the amalgamation of the experience of the writers and the communities in general. And so I can be a vestibule for that. I think Lopez vs. Lopez is very on their way to doing our job.