VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Lorenza Izzo On ‘Women Is Losers’ – And Why She’s Angry About Texas Abortion Law

Lorenza Izzo reflected on the meaning of her movie Women Is Losers, and its connection to the Texas abortion law.

“It’s a story of a woman in — a single mother — in the mid-60s in San Francisco trying to make a life for herself when the resources and choices available to her are little because the system is set up for her to not succeed,” Izzo told uInterview Founder Erik Meers. “So it’s a single mother, a very smart woman, trying to make a life for her and her son and knowing and understanding that at every corner she will be — the doors will be closed to her and she will have to figure out yet another way to understand a system that is not for her.”

“The script and the story attack so many issues and we knew that going in, it was a very ambitious script. But, at the same time the meta-ness of the movie, of her Lissette [Feliciano], first time Latina director, and me, also Latina, trying to come up with all the resources and figuring out how to do each shot and each day was mirroring the struggle of Celina in certain ways,” she said. “I won’t speak for Lissette, but she said it previously, this all happened and was born from a conversation she had with her mother about how the same struggles her mother was having back then are still relived in certain ways today. And how the through-line and all the issues we speak in the movie, you know, women rights, abortion rights, it comes down to the fact of having agency over your body and agency over your choices, and how the reality of the matter is a lot of people, a large population, specifically women in this story, don’t have that.”

These issues, including women’s rights to abortion, became more relevant to audiences as Texas moved to ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy during the movie’s release.

“We were filming that ending, and Lissette and I turn up the radio, and we hear that verdict, it was such an emotional experience on a very personal level. You have to understand like the last thing I expected to happen was to be releasing this movie and having that be the backdrop like it’s insane that we’re still having that conversation.”

According to Izzo, the movie’s choice to “break the fourth wall” allows her character to form a deep connection with the audience.

“It does a little thing where it has all the drama that’s happening in her emotional life, and how she’s going through the motions and at the same time you have these beats where she will turn to the audience and just level with them,” she explained. “And that for me was the biggest attraction of the script. As an actor to get to dive into such an emotional arc, of going from 18-years-old, which I don’t think I will ever be able to play again, to a woman in her mid-to-early 30s was such an incredible and challenging. And it also allows you to really get to know a character so much better. But then on top of that, being able to break the fourth wall and level with what I think personally is happening and have that intimate moment with the audience was something that was really, really special to me.”

Watch Women Is Losers streaming on HBO Max starting October 25.