Exclusive: ‘Bullet Train’ Actor Andrea Munoz Reveals Her Unique Audition Process: ‘Whatever I Wanted To Do’
Most actors wait years before they work on a big-budget studio movie. Andrea Muñoz bucked the trend. The former psychology student made a drastic switch to acting, and her first major production was a role in the Brad Pitt movie Bullet Train, where she plays Mrs. Wolf. In an exclusive interview with Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Muñoz discussed how she reacted when she landed her Bullet Train role, how her free-wheeling audition helped her win the part, and her dream role in the DC Extended Universe.
Andrea Muñoz couldn’t believe producers wanted her for ‘Bullet Train’
Muñoz performed in a youth acting club in her native Colombia as a child, but she pursued a psychology degree in college. Still, she could never quite get rid of the acting bug.
She received a scholarship to attend New York Film Academy and starred in a handful of shorts before auditioning for Bullet Train. Producers called Muñoz back four weeks later to offer her first movie role in a major production.
“I was like, ‘What? Are you sure? Are you sure they didn’t make a mistake?’” Muñoz said. “I asked that question so many times because I was a non-union actor and I didn’t have any credits. I was a very green actor.”
Rapper Bad Bunny, who plays Muñoz’s on-screen husband, Wolf, in Bullet Train, had more acting work on big movies than she did. Muñoz didn’t want to disappoint her co-stars or producers, and she battled nerves up until she walked on set.
“My reaction was I couldn’t believe it for the longest time until I was on set,” she said. “Then I was like, ‘OK, this is actually happening for sure.’”
Muñoz had free reign during her ‘Bullet Train’ audition: “I had the opportunity to create whatever I wanted”
So how does a non-union actor like Muñoz, with no big-budget movie experience and only a handful of shorts to her name, land a role in a movie like Bullet Train? By nailing her audition.
Instead of reading lines against a stand-in, Muñoz created a scene based on a simple direction.
“So this was an audition that was with improv, so you had to create a whole scenario. … I loved it because this audition had so much freedom to create your own scenario. It wasn’t set up in, like, a context or anything. They just gave you one line of like, ‘You’re meeting the love of your life,’” she explained.
“I had the opportunity to create whatever I wanted to do. So I feel like that permission to be so creative in creating the space and the dialogues that I wanted to create, that was the thing that would stand out for them. And yeah, I think that was the reason why [I got the part]. Because when I can do whatever I want, I’m wonderful.”
Once filming started, her scene with Pitt got canceled when the star had contact with someone with the coronavirus (COVID-19). Still, she shared her first on-screen kiss with Bad Bunny, a scene she filmed before locking lips with Sebastian Stan in an episode of Pam & Tommy.
Her dream role would be a starring part in the DCEU
Muñoz stays busy with the day-to-day grind of finding roles and attending auditions, but helping underprivileged communities is one of her extracurricular passions. It’s one she hopes to find more time for in the future after volunteering her time to the Junior Foundation in the past.
Bullet Train gave Muñoz a breakthrough in her career. Viola Davis inspired Muñoz to pursue acting, and like Davis, she hopes to star in a DCEU movie at some point in her career. She has her role all picked out, too.
“I would love to be a superhero. I would love to represent the Latin community in the superhero world because I feel like we don’t have that much [representation] on the screen right now,” she said. “I will love for girls in my country, in Latin America, to see themselves and be like, ‘Oh, there is a Latina Wonder Woman,’ which actually is in the comics. So we need to make that happen for sure.”
Bullet Train, complete with Muñoz’s first on-screen kiss, is currently in theaters.
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