With several new projects in the works&mdash;plus a Bulgari ambassadorship&mdash;Eiza Gonz&aacute;lez is nowhere near ready to slow down.

Photography by Nick Thompson
Styled by Oliver Volquardsen

When you see Eiza Gonz&aacute;lez walking down a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/red-carpet-fashion-trends-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">red carpet</a>, you wouldn&rsquo;t know it, but she might just be one of the busiest actors in the business. In late 2022, after wrapping an 11-month shoot for her upcoming Netflix series The Three Body Problem, the actor flew to <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/dior-cruise-2024-collection-mexico-city-resort" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mexico</a> to film La M&aacute;quina, then moved to <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/celebrity-influencer-fashion-trends-london-fashion-week-fall-winter-2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">London</a> for a year (where she is now) to play the only female role in Guy Ritchie&rsquo;s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Next she heads to New Zealand for the upcoming movie Ash, followed by a stop in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/jared-leto-cult-croatia-thirty-seconds-to-mars-gucci" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Croatia</a> to shoot another project. But that&rsquo;s how she likes it. &ldquo;Who else gets the opportunity to say that they can travel the world to do what [they] love? I cannot, in any shape or form, complain. I&rsquo;m actually incredibly grateful.&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s clear that Gonz&aacute;lez has a fervent love for a profession that people spend their whole lives chasing. She also has a shrewd eye for selecting her projects. Based on some of her biggest credits&mdash;Baby Driver, Alita: Battle Angel, Hobbs &amp; Shaw,&nbsp;Ambulance&mdash;one might assume that she had a penchant for action thrillers, but she dismisses that observation, saying that most of her decisions are &ldquo;director-based.&rdquo; Upon closer inspection, her filmography is, indeed, stacked with projects helmed by kinetic, acclaimed industry figures. Edgar Wright, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Guy Ritchie&mdash;the pattern isn&rsquo;t in the type of film but in the caliber of work by those behind the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/celebrity-facial-spots-joanna-czech-kardashians-kate-sommerville" target="_blank" rel="noopener">camera</a>. &ldquo;You&rsquo;d recognize a Guy Ritchie movie from a mile away,&rdquo; says Gonz&aacute;lez, recalling how grateful she is to The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare director for &ldquo;taking a risk&rdquo; on her. &ldquo;He has allowed me to do things that no other director has ever allowed me to do. One that I can probably mention without being a spoiler is that he allowed me [to] play a full British character, and I have to do a British accent.&rdquo;

Later this year, Gonz&aacute;lez will play a lead in The Three Body Problem, a highly anticipated science fiction series from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Liu Cixin. Gonz&aacute;lez views taking on the role as a &ldquo;huge responsibility&rdquo; and &ldquo;slightly scary,&rdquo; but rewarding and a way of challenging herself. While the series is unlike anything she&rsquo;s ever done, she also believes it&rsquo;s unlike anything that&rsquo;s ever been done. &ldquo;After I educated myself, read the scripts, and read the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/politics-culture/prince-harry-book-spare-bombshells-meghan-markle-royal-family" target="_blank" rel="noopener">book</a>, there was no way I couldn&rsquo;t be part of this show. I have never seen a show like this. There [isn&rsquo;t one show or one movie] that I can reference...I would have to reference seven different types of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/rege-jean-page-the-gray-man-dungeons-and-dragons-bridgerton-netflix" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sci-fi</a> to explain our show. I think that, to me, it was a no-brainer. It was groundbreaking.&rdquo;&nbsp;
With all the work she&rsquo;s done since beginning her career at 16, and now being 33, you&rsquo;d think Gonz&aacute;lez would be ready for a break&mdash;but no. She&rsquo;s not a veteran actor disillusioned by the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/how-cinema-hypersexualizes-asian-women" target="_blank" rel="noopener">film industry</a>. Instead, she&rsquo;s still as bright-eyed as the day she started&mdash;maybe even more so. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so happy; I&rsquo;m so physically tired, but I am thrilled. And I&rsquo;m finally being part of projects that really spark my curiosity, and make me feel fulfilled.&rdquo; She&rsquo;s booked, she&rsquo;s busy, and she&rsquo;s got every door open to her. And she&rsquo;s taking advantage of all of them.&nbsp;

Gonz&aacute;lez&mdash;now also a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/bulgari-emerald-venus-necklace-jewelry-collection" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bulgari</a> ambassador&mdash;chalks up her work ethic to her upbringing in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/mexico-city-city-guide-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mexico City</a>. &ldquo;I come from a culture where we work, work, work, work, work. In America, some of the hardest working people that you&rsquo;ll see&mdash;underpaid&mdash;are Mexican people or Latin people. We have been always taught to work and work harder, and then after you work harder, work even harder [than that].&rdquo;&nbsp;
She attributes most of this mentality to her mother, who used to tell her: &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll rest when you die.&rdquo; In a recent full-circle moment, Gonz&aacute;lez and her mother were going through family <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/unique-celebrity-engagement-rings-ariana-grade-jennifer-lopez" target="_blank" rel="noopener">heirlooms</a> at her childhood home, and found, among them, some Bulgari pieces. &ldquo;[My mom] had this moment where she said, &lsquo;It is so mind-blowing to me that your grandma gave me this, and I bought these. Your father gave me these <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/shopping/pearl-necklaces-jewelry-shopping" target="_blank" rel="noopener">necklaces</a>, and now you are a brand ambassador.&rsquo;&rdquo; Gonz&aacute;lez joined the Bulgari family in 2021, a move that she describes as &ldquo;personal,&rdquo; even if she didn&rsquo;t realize in the moment truly how much. &ldquo;Every single decision that I make when it comes to my career has to be aligned with what I believe and what I like. I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to carry designs that I don&rsquo;t like, or I personally don&rsquo;t feel connected with.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&ldquo;Every single decision that I make when it comes to my career has to be aligned with what I believe.&rdquo;

When reflecting on the role, she looks to her fellow ambassadors <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/anne-hathaway-best-fashion-moments-red-carpet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Anne Hathaway</a>, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/tom-holland-zendaya-relationship-timeline-spider-man" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zendaya</a>, and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/nick-jonas-priyanka-chopra-relationship-timeline-wedding" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Priyanka Chopra</a> (&ldquo;all women that I think are multifaceted&rdquo;) to paint a picture of the Bulgari girl&mdash;inside and out. &ldquo;If you pay attention, we are all&hellip;chameleons who are willing to be a different woman every day. That&rsquo;s the beauty of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/saint-laurent-fine-jewelry-collection-debut" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jewelry</a>. It is a look in itself,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Anne is just a ray of sunshine, and so is [Zendaya], so is Priyanka. All these girls are beautiful, energetic, independent, and smart, but always kind. You see them being lovely to everyone, and it just trickles down.&rdquo;&nbsp;

As the brand celebrates the Serpenti line&rsquo;s 75th anniversary, Gonz&aacute;lez sees the benchmark as a foregone conclusion of the jewelry house&rsquo;s innovation. &ldquo;They find ways to redesign and revamp the brand, bringing it to a newer generation, a new decade, a new style, a new look. It never stops being unique, but at the same time identifiable.&rdquo; She continues, &ldquo;I see jewelry the same way I see directors. You can identify [the artist] by a piece of their <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/art/multimedia-artist-cesar-talks-intersectionality-between-fashion-and-art" target="_blank" rel="noopener">art</a>.&rdquo;&nbsp;
When asked if her admiration for directors could one day inspire her to step behind the <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/tag-heuer-camera-plasma-most-expensive-watch-lab-grown-diamonds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">camera</a>, she doesn&rsquo;t hesitate with her response. &ldquo;I think that later in my career I really want to evolve into more of a director because I also really want to prioritize becoming a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/kate-moss-lila-best-mother-daughter-twinning-moments-runway" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mother</a>, and giving my children time, whenever that happens,&rdquo; explains Gonz&aacute;lez. But even the prospect of starting a family and beginning another full-time job as a mother doesn&rsquo;t dissuade her compulsion to work. &ldquo;I think a part of my <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/vivienne-westwood-spring-summer-2022-lfw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">soul</a> would die if I ever stopped working. I don&rsquo;t have it in me.&rdquo;&nbsp;
For now, she&rsquo;s building a portfolio as a hands-on producer (&ldquo;like what it means to produce, not executive producing&rdquo;), though, she admits, the gratefulness and humility that she has for her job was also, at times, a hindrance to her progress. &ldquo;After a while, I checked out of this mentality of what this industry sometimes inherently creates within you because of the way that it&rsquo;s systemically built, which is like, &lsquo;You should just be grateful to be here,&rsquo; and it was more like, &lsquo;No, I&rsquo;ve earned this place. This place is mine. No one gave it to me. I worked my ass off.&rsquo; When I transitioned from being at the mercy of it and more into I am going to create, I focused and&nbsp;started to do it. I&rsquo;m doing a couple of projects, which has been really exciting.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Eiza González for L'OFFICIEL USA Summer 2023.

Similar to some of her contemporaries like <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/margot-robbie-best-red-carpet-moments" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Margot Robbie</a> and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/selena-gomez-iconic-roles-movies-tv-shows" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Selena Gomez</a> who have also moved into the production sector, Gonz&aacute;lez is focused on telling women&rsquo;s stories&mdash; something that she&rsquo;s passionate about on and off screen. &ldquo;I think that a lot of the conversations [about <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/taylour-paige-ma-raineys-black-bottom-netflix-chadwick-boseman" target="_blank" rel="noopener">womanhood</a>] happen around either superficial questions, or are about what you have coming up, or what you&rsquo;re going to do or achieve. I think that girls out there might read an interview like this, and feel like, &lsquo;Oh, my God! She&rsquo;s unstoppable.&rsquo; It can come across as unattainable. There always has to be a balance, especially now more than ever, within these types of conversations about the level of losses that come with this industry.&rdquo; She specifically calls out documentaries like Selena Gomez: My Mind &amp; Me and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/biggest-bombshells-pamela-anderson-documentary-memoir-baywatch-playboy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pamela Anderson&rsquo;s</a> Pamela, a Love Story as examples. &ldquo;You see how you get on this train, and you can&rsquo;t stop the train because it won&rsquo;t stop for anyone; therefore, you can&rsquo;t get off the train. But [you don&rsquo;t see] what that looks like, personally, especially as a woman, and how complicated that is, and how scary that is, because we are thrown into this.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve earned this place&hellip;no one gave it to me. I worked my ass off.&rdquo;

Gonz&aacute;lez recalls her own upbringing as a teen star in Mexico&mdash;she starred in the telenovela Lola, &eacute;rase una vez and in the popular teen drama series Sue&ntilde;a conmigo&mdash;and the pressures of fame at such a young age. &ldquo;I grew up in the public eye the same way that a lot of these pop culture kids did&mdash;I did it in a different country, but I did it as well&mdash;and the no-tolerance rule for mistakes at such a young age, and how hard that can be, actually dampens the desire of people to want to follow their dreams; it becomes something scary. Because I&rsquo;m sure that if I&rsquo;m a girl at home, and I am Selena Gomez&rsquo;s biggest fan on <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/wellness/earth-day-tips-for-living-sustainably" target="_blank" rel="noopener">planet Earth</a>, but I&rsquo;m seeing that she&rsquo;s being dragged through the wringer, you&rsquo;re going to be like, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s too scary. I don&rsquo;t know if I want to do that.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/politics-culture/how-social-media-became-the-new-tabloid-magazine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Social media</a>, she believes, is a particularly strong factor in this distortion of reality. Seeing someone on a screen, through a filter, in curated moments, can create a false narrative&mdash;and reading the comments can break someone&rsquo;s spirit. &ldquo;We need to stop with this idea that we have to show [ourselves to] the world, and prove that we&rsquo;re a role model. It doesn&rsquo;t matter. The world is messy and everyone&rsquo;s figuring it out as they go. You don&rsquo;t have to show everything [as] positive all the time. But what you have to do is honor yourself, honor what you need, and honor your happiness,&rdquo; says the actor.&nbsp;

Reflecting on the common themes of online criticism, Gonz&aacute;lez hones in on the topic of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/taylor-swift-matt-healy-dating-rumors-relationship-singer-1975-joe-alwyn" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dating</a>. While she recognizes this is an issue that impacts everyone, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s be real; it happens way more to women than it happens to men.&rdquo; She continues, &ldquo;We grew up with all these idols, and when men did something crazy, they were like, &lsquo;He&rsquo;s cool. He&rsquo;s a badass. He&rsquo;s a <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/ultimate-celebrity-heartthrobs-by-decade-brad-pitt-harry-styles" target="_blank" rel="noopener">heartthrob</a>.&rsquo; They like to use the word heartthrob for men when they&rsquo;re breaking girls&rsquo; hearts and having different girlfriends. But if a woman is in search of her forever partner, and she&rsquo;s not one to settle because she knows better, because she&rsquo;s a hardworking woman and knows her value, and she&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;I am not going to settle for the bare minimum,&rsquo; and she moves on, then, as <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/every-taylor-swift-eras-tour-look-outfit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Taylor [Swift]</a> says all the time, you are [called] a slut, you get slut-shamed, you get called cattle, and you get minimized.&rdquo;&nbsp;

&ldquo;Yes, I am ambitious, and yes, I date, and I go out, and I will not stay with someone if they&rsquo;re not making me feel and be a better version of myself. If that takes me going through 150,000 people, I will, because I deserve someone who is going to make me a better person.&rdquo;&nbsp;
After 17 years in the industry, Gonz&aacute;lez has found satisfaction in doing what she believes is right. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always done, and I will always continue to do, what aligns with the woman I really am, which means I am going to continue to make decisions throughout my life that will align with the values and morals that I have, and my standards, and my expectations, which are pretty high. I am not going to settle for less, ever.&rdquo; Because, regardless of her success, she will always &ldquo;keep being the same girl [from] Mexico City.&rdquo;&nbsp;

HAIR Daniel Martin&nbsp; MAKEUP Valeria Ferreira THE WALL GROUP&nbsp; MANICURIST Edyta Betka using Manucurist&nbsp; SET DESIGN Madeleine Hunter and Josie Hunter&nbsp; LIGHTING Benjamin Kyle&nbsp; PHOTO ASSISTANT Benjamin Kyle and Ian Tillotson&nbsp; SET DESIGN ASSISTANT Jack Needel&nbsp;

Eiza González Is on a Roll

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