Gina Rodriguez on 'Not Dead Yet' season two, motherhood, mortality and "Jane the Virgin"

Gina Rodriguez, star of the ABC sitcom "Not Dead Yet" spoke ahead of season 2 about motherhood, mortality, playing writers and the ongoing legacy of her award-winning "Jane the Virgin" role.

Gina Rodriguez doesn’t know why Hollywood has continued to tap her to play writers.

After five seasons of playing aspiring novelist Jane Villanueva on the acclaimed CW romantic dramedy “Jane the Virgin” and portraying a New York sports writer in the new Netflix romantic comedy “Players,” Rodriguez has stepped into the role of an overwhelmed, ghost-seeing journalist in the heartfelt ABC sitcom “Not Dead Yet,” which returns for its sophomore season on Wednesday.

“The other day, I was like, ‘I think I’m being typecast into being a writer.’ But actually, I don’t write at all,” Rodriguez, 39, told NBC News with a laugh. “I’m a terrible writer, but I can identify good writers. A skill I think I have is I can identify when somebody’s going to write very well for me.”

For her first leading TV role since wrapping up “Jane” in 2019, Rodriguez chose to team up with “This Is Us” co-executive producers David Windsor and Casey Johnson. Adapted from Alexandra Potter’s novel “Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up,” the comedy series follows Penelope “Nell” Serrano (Rodriguez), a 37-year-old self-described disaster who, after having uprooted her life five years earlier for a London-bound ex-fiancé, moves back to Southern California and returns to her old newspaper job. Tasked with writing obituaries, Nell soon discovers that she can see her subjects — and they don’t hesitate to give her advice from the afterlife.

Lexi’s father and owner of the SoCal Independent, Duncan Rhodes, comes into the office and forms a bond with Nell, much to his daughter’s dismay.Temma Hankin / Disney“When I got the script, it made me laugh and cry; it made me think about how flawed I am and how much growth I need to keep working on, and how you’re constantly evolving and shedding,” said Rodriguez, who also executive-produces the series. “I just found that to be really relatable.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/gina-rodriguez-not-dead-yet-season-two-rcna136965

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