The InBetween star Cindy Luna on her new adventure

Cindy Luna tells Hidden Remote how starring as Det. Maria Salinas in The InBetween has been a new journey for her, and which other NBC show she loves.

Cindy Luna’s work on The InBetween isn’t like anything she’s done before. Not only is the NBC drama a supernatural adventure, but it’s allowed her to further stretch her wings as an actress.

She spoke to Hidden Remote about what’s gone into her portrayal of Detective Maria Salinas, as well as if she brought anything from her previous work on The Last Ship to the new show and why this role resonates with her personally.

Learn more about Cindy Luna in our interview below, before tuning in as The InBetween returns with new episodes tonight on NBC at 10 p.m.

Hidden Remote: The InBetween is a very different kind of show. What about it, or the role of Maria, made you want to be a part of it?

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Cindy Luna: The hook for me personally, as an actress and a Latin woman, was seeing a role like this one—where I had the opportunity to play a detective. Lately, we see a lot of drug-dealing
shows for Latinos. When I saw a woman who was on the other side of this, [the] detective side of it and the legal side of it, I definitely wanted to play that.

[Series creator] Moira [Kirkland] wrote such
amazing female roles in that pilot, and it just grabbed me. The strength of the women in the script. And I always wanted to play a detective!

HR: Maria is a character you could be playing for years. So how did you decide what you wanted to do with her, once you read that first script?

CL: I approached it in a way that was very open, because we didn’t know much about Maria. I just wanted to put my signature, bring my truth to it. My life experiences, my life and the truth of who I really am. I am hard-working, I love collaborating with a team. I just brought myself into it, even my vulnerability.

HR: So far, the season hasn’t revealed too much about her character. Will viewers learn more about Maria Salinas in future episodes?

CL: There’s going to be a ton of procedural work. We’re just going to see her figuring out the cases
pretty much, but we can tell who she is—her personality and such. We can tell she stands on her
own. She’s used to being under pressure and totally fine being around men, and she’s a strong Latin woman who works really hard.

HR: There’s a lot happening in this show, but how does it compare to the intensity of your role on The Last Ship, where you portrayed Conchita Barros?

CL: There’s a different intensity, because in this one I got a chance to do research with detectives and police work and stuff like that,  and it’s so much fun to do that. On The Last Ship, it was very different. [Conchita] was a wife, and [I] played a Colombian woman.

I was acting in Spanish, and I was acting against Maurice Compte, who is such a strong actor.  I would say both are intense and both I had so much fun working on, but I just can’t compare really, because they’re both different.

HR: They’re both complex characters, so was there anything you learned from being on The Last Ship that you were able to utilize on The InBetween?

CL: I really had to start completely over. When I played Conchita Barros for The Last Ship, she had a lot of strategy—on how to manipulate her husband to do what she wanted, what she believed she wanted her husband to do as leader of her country. For Maria, she’s more about justice, more about doing the right thing, more about being very logical. She uses strategy, but to the good and looking out for saving people and making sure that the law and justice gets served.

Meryl Streep said this—and I don’t want to compare myself to Meryl Streep but I get inspired by her—she looks for herself in the character. I always try to look for where I can bring myself into those characters, and that’s what I did.

HR: Maria is passionate about justice and doing the right thing. What are your passions outside of acting?

CL: I’m very passionate about people. I’m also very passionate about justice, which was also something that attracted me to the character of Maria Salinas. One of my mentors has an organization called Justice Speaks and they fight against human trafficking, so that’s something that I’m super-passionate about. I’m also passionate about lifting each other up, especially women supporting women. Those are things that are really personal to me [and] very close to my heart.

HR: Do you believe in the supernatural, like the things we see in The InBetween? Or are you more of a skeptic?

CL: I am attracted to supernatural stuff, and I do believe in it, like I believe in God and all the supernatural stuff that deals with God.

The InBetween airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on NBC. For more on The InBetween and other NBC shows, follow the NBC category at Hidden Remote.