BY IRVIN RIVERA

MAYAN LOPEZ's twerking TikTok may have paved the way for her major NBC show LOPEZ VS LOPEZ (with her father George Lopez) but the actress is strongly holding her own and carving her path to success. 

Mayan's infectious energy evident on her social.media posts, paired with her tenacity and hard work makes her worthy of the spotlight. 

In the family-centered sitcom Lopez vs Lopez, Mayan, together with the cast navigates around themes of reconnection, dysfunction, and the rollercoaster of relatable human emotions like pain, joy, excitement, disappointment, etc.

According to Mayan, "Love and Humor" are the key ingredients at the core of the show. Although the show treads on sensitive topics like addiction, trauma, generational issues, etc., it's delicately taken with levity. You can laugh amidst the pain and disappointments and realize that not everything is as serious as it may usually seem. 

In this exclusive interview, Mayan Lopez shares the challenges of creating a show out of your personal experiences- recreating and acting scenes that are deeply close to you.

She also dishes on the highs of.being im the show, self-discovery, life lessons, and more.

Hi Mayan! How are you?

I’m wonderful, thank you for asking!

How have you been since the conception of Lopez vs. Lopez up to this point?

It’s been a whirlwind of creativity and hard work.

What should the audience look forward to this show with your dad?

Lots of laughs. We really take the divorced family dynamic, and broken relationship between a father and daughter, and make that pain real but hilarious.

How is the show different from any other family sitcoms?

I’d say it's different because we’re a real father and daughter dealing with a lot of problems that we still have, in a comedic way on television. We tackle some really important issues like anxiety, generational trauma, and addiction but always with love and humor. 

What are the challenges and the highs that you experienced during filming?

The highs have been working with my dad who is a comic genius. To be able to learn and laugh with him every day is incredible. The whole cast of “Lopez vs Lopez” have come together as a family, on and off screen. We all get along so well, and I am blessed to be able to work with them every day. The challenges have been that many of these stories hit so close to home that it can be very emotionally draining. Making humor out of pain has always been a staple of comedic storytelling. I just didn’t realize how hard it would be to face old wounds every day and relay through the screen in a funny way. 

What’s the most memorable moment for you throughout the whole process of creating the show?

I think it’s the fact that this show started with a TikTok I posted of me twerking upside down on a wall. But seriously, it’s been an honor to work with such amazing co-stars. We had Rita Moreno on set for an upcoming episode and she and I really bonded. She told me old Hollywood stories but more importantly, she gave me impactful advice that I’m going to carry with me forever.

Now that you’re busy working on the show, has it been challenging to keep up with producing new content for TikTok?

Yes, because that’s another outlet for my creativity, so I really want to make time to do that since it really does bring me a lot of joy and I love making people laugh. I’m working very long hours, so I try to find time whenever I have a break to film or edit a TikTok with the cast and my dad.

What’s the biggest discovery that you’ve made about yourself in the last few years?

That I’m resilient.

What’s a valuable lesson that you’ve learned from your career that you think is still universally relevant?

Hard work trumps talent when talent doesn’t work hard. 

If you were a book, what book would you be and why? 

Maybe this will be my book someday, but I love this title for a possible memoir in the future: “She’s Not Yours, She’s Not Ours, But She’s Mayan.”