Baz Luhrmann announced he’s found his female lead in the upcoming Netflix series The Get Down. 18 year old Herizen Guardiola will be making her acting debut with the original series which is set to premiere in 2016. Guardiola joins previously announced cast members Justice Smith, Shameik Moore, Skylan Brooks, and Tremaine Brown, Jr. in the 13 episode music-driven series.
According to Netflix and Luhrmann, Guardiola will play “Mylene Cruz,” a shining, tenacious girl with a voice from God who dreams of disco stardom from the confines of her family’s fiercely religious church walls.”
Commenting on Guardiola’s casting, director/executive producer Luhrmann said, “So many really talented actors were seen to play the lead female role of Mylene Cruz, daughter of Reverend Ramon Cruz and niece of Papa Filipe Fuerte Cruz in The Get Down. It’s always thrilling to find a fresh unknown talent, particularly one who is not only a terrific actor but a magnificent vocalist. The entire The Get Down team welcome Herizen Guardiola into our story.”
The Plot:
The Get Down will focus on 1970s New York City – broken down and beaten up, violent, cash strapped — dying. Consigned to rubble, a rag-tag crew of South Bronx teenagers are nothings and nobodies with no one to shelter them – except each other, armed only with verbal games, improvised dance steps, some magic markers and spray cans. From Bronx tenements, to the SoHo art scene; from CBGBs to Studio 54 and even the glass towers of the just-built World Trade Center, The Get Down is a mythic saga of how New York at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to hip-hop, punk and disco — told through the lives and music of the South Bronx kids who changed the city, and the world…forever.
-By Rebecca Murray
Follow Us On:
