Leslie Grace talks her new album — plus 'In the Heights' and the lost 'Batgirl' movie on 'The De Los Podcast'

In the debut occurrence of “The De Los Podcast,” hosts Fidel Martinez and Suzy Exposito spoke with the Latin Grammy-nominated vocalist and histrion Leslie Grace astir her long-awaited caller euphony — positive immoderate of the highlights and symptom points passim her movie career.

Released successful May, Grace’s bilingual grounds “Amor, ¿Quién Eres?” is the archetypal medium she’s released successful implicit a decade. Suffused with what Exposito described arsenic “tropical eleganza,” the medium is simply a acold outcry from the Christian euphony Grace recorded successful her teen years — and a marked displacement from the Latin Grammy-nominated self-titled task she released successful 2013. She touched connected immoderate of the idiosyncratic developments required to scope the much sensual sonic scenery she explored successful her latest release.

“The biggest learning has been however to support my originative space, portion I turn it and observe astatine the aforesaid time,” she told De Los.

The 31-year-old besides discussed her enactment successful the 2021 movie philharmonic “In the Heights” — and the online backlash the movie received owed to the deficiency of different Afro-Latinos successful the cast.

“The deficiency of practice wrong movie [and] diverseness wrong the Latin assemblage is simply a speech we haven’t touched connected arsenic much,” she said. “Only truthful galore films [are] fixed a shot. There [are] definite ways that Latinos are portrayed that are precise narrowed down successful film. I deliberation it’s a worthwhile speech astatine immoderate time. I’m gladsome that radical started to speech astir that, truthful [we] tin get much stories.”

Reflecting further connected her filmography, Grace talked astir the canceled merchandise of “Batgirl,” successful which she played the titular role. The film, which was primitively for a precocious 2022 debut connected the HBO Max streaming service, was axed by its workplace Warner Bros. for fiscal reasons.

“It was disappointing due to the fact that we knew the movie that we were making,” Grace said of the movie, which was successful postproduction erstwhile it was scrapped. “I knew that it wasn’t a reflection of our work, due to the fact that this is thing that happens. But I deliberation due to the fact that of the discourse of the speech astir representation, and the mode that films tin beryllium discarded, aft a batch of enactment and clip and wealth has gone into thing ... the originative assemblage truly felt for me.”

During that period, Grace said the enactment from different creatives helped her determination forward. She has since starred successful much autarkic films successful caller years — including “In the Summers,” which won a expansive assemblage prize astatine the Sundance Film Festival successful 2024 — and the 2026 features “Stages” and “Campeón Gabacho,” which premiered astatine this year’s variation of South By Southwest.

“I truly americium grateful for each idiosyncratic that reached retired to maine and was like: ‘Hey, I’ve got you, immoderate you need,’ oregon ‘This is wrong,’” Grace said. “When thing happens to me, I absorption connected my acquisition and what I gained from it, that nary 1 could truly instrumentality away.”