What The Cast Of Jane The Virgin Is Doing Today
When "Jane the Virgin" premiered in 2014, the cast wasn't sure people would love the series, but they knew they loved the material. The show was about a woman named Jane who has never had sex but ends up pregnant anyway (via artificial insemination), and the cast hoped the audience would be willing to go along with the show's unique tone. Thankfully, fans did indeed find the show. "Jane the Virgin" picked up numerous awards throughout its run, including a Golden Globe for Gina Rodriguez, the actor who played the title character. It even won a Peabody, a prestigious award given for excellence in storytelling.
Jaime Camil, the actor behind suave telenovela star Rogelio de la Vega, told Parade that he thought audiences mostly watched the show for its exceptional cast. "They connected with us, as we were connecting with the scripts and performing them," he reflected as the series drew to a close in 2019. "We all jumped on this boat together and thank God we are still afloat."
Now that the show is over, however, the cast of "Jane the Virgin" have all gone on to work on various projects. Some are still acting regularly, while others are mostly working behind the scenes. Some have written books; others have been on numerous television shows. And they all still speak glowingly of their time on The CW. If you're a fan looking to check in with your favorite cast members, here's what the cast of "Jane the Virgin" is doing today.
Brett Dier cried when he had to let Michael go
In the pilot episode of "Jane the Virgin," Jane is engaged to a detective named Michael, played by Brett Dier. Though they are planning to get married, the unplanned pregnancy understandably throws a wrench into their relationship. Over the course of the show, Jane has romantic entanglements with other men, but Michael was always there ... until he died in Season 3. However, he came back at the very end of Season 4, revealed to have been alive all along. Hey, "Jane the Virgin" draws inspiration from telenovelas, after all! Dier told The Italian Reve that he cried when he filmed Michael's "death" scene. "I felt really close to Michael at that point, I played him for three years so he started to become a part of me in a way," he recalled.
In 2023, Dier starred in "Maybe It's You," an E! Original rom-com that he was unable to promote due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Before the strike, he appeared in "About My Father," a Robert de Niro comedy. In a behind-the-scenes video on YouTube, Dier reflected on working with the acting legend. "I mean, he's de Niro, so," Dier said. "But he's a very gentle, approachable person, and I love being around him. I love watching him do his thing ... I just love him."
Gina Rodriguez wasn't much like Jane Villanueva
There would be no "Jane the Virgin" without Jane Villanueva, the character played by Gina Rodriguez throughout the show's run. In the show's first episode, Jane is accidentally artificially inseminated. The series then follows Jane as she raises a child, becomes romantically entangled with several hunky men, and advances in her writing career. When the show came to an end in 2019, Rodriguez — who won a Golden Globe for her work on "Jane the Virgin" — waxed poetic on Instagram about the emotional finale. "Five years of love, laughter, growth, pain, surprises, deaths, new births and a s*** ton of memories," she reflected. " ... Art is my savior. Art is what makes me feel like I can fly."
As of 2023, Rodriguez leads the cast of "Not Dead Yet," an ABC workplace sitcom where she plays a woman who writes obituaries. The show was renewed for Season 2, though production was presumably affected by the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Speaking with ET, Rodriguez compared Nell from "Not Dead Yet" to Jane. "It's really wonderful to go from a character that felt vastly different than myself because Jane was so A-type personality and organized," she said. " ... But Nell is wild and flawed and failing and learning and growing and shedding and trying and making mistakes. And that's a little bit more like myself."
Fans can also see Rodriguez in "Spy Kids: Armageddon," a Netflix reboot of the classic franchise, out September 2023.
Justin Baldoni learned a lot from Rafael Solano
Justin Baldoni played Rafael Solano, one of the show's main heartthrobs. Rafael is, inadvertently, the father of Jane's baby, and the two grow very close over the course of the series. He told The New York Times that playing the character changed him as a person, explaining, "What's interesting about the journey of Rafael as a character is it in some strange way resembles and intersects with my journey as a man. I explored masculinity, digging into the parts of myself that are uncomfortable, and learning about equality and privilege. And it really cracked me open."
Toward the end of "Jane the Virgin," Baldoni began directing some episodes. "This was my first time directing scripted television and my first time acting at the same time as directing, and I learned a lot," he told Variety of a Season 4 episode he helmed. He found that he was not giving himself as many takes as his co-stars, and he learned that the project is better when he lets himself act how he needs to.
That realization will likely help Baldoni with his next project. He hasn't acted on screen since "Jane the Virgin," focusing instead on directing films like "Five Feet Apart" and "Clouds." In 2024, however, he will write, direct, and star in an adaptation of Colleen Hoover's "It Ends With Us." The film is set for a February 2024 release, according to Deadline.
Rosario Dawson was kept in the dark about Jane Ramos
Rosario Dawson joined the cast of "Jane the Virgin" in the show's fourth season. She played Jane Ramos, better known as "J.R.," a lawyer who helps Petra get out of a murder charge ... and then falls in love with her. In an interview with Buzzfeed, Dawson revealed that she was the second choice for the character. Someone else had been cast and even started filming, but the part was recast with the "Rent" alum. Dawson also told the outlet that she didn't initially know she would be playing Petra's love interest, but that being in the dark actually helped. "I had no idea where the character was gonna end up going. It was kind of great, because I don't think my character obviously knew that either," she said.
After playing Ahsoka Tano in "Star Wars" shows like "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett," Dawson now leads the cast of her own spin-off — titled, fittingly, "Ahsoka." She told Entertainment Weekly that getting the role made her almost too excited. "I was literally doing jumping jacks. I remember seeing [producer] Jon [Favreau] and Dave [Filoni]'s faces, like, 'Ooh, did we make the right decision? She's a little bit ... hyped fangirl.'"
Dawson is also still close with her "Jane the Virgin" co-stars. She was pictured on the picket lines on Yael Grobglas' Instagram in May 2023, striking with members of the "Jane the Virgin" cast alongside the WGA.
Jenna Ortega had imposter syndrome about playing Young Jane
Starting from the very first episode of "Jane the Virgin," at least two actors have played Jane Villanueva. Gina Rodriguez played the twentysomething version of Jane, the character we follow for the bulk of the series. However, almost a third of the episodes include flashbacks to Jane's youth; in those scenes, Jane is played by Jenna Ortega. Ortega was only 12 when the show began, and she told a podcast called Podcrushed that she even messed up the audition. However, she got the role anyway, and for years she was insecure about that fact. "I associated myself getting the job with the fact that I look like Gina, so every time I went there I felt I had something to prove," she recalled.
Since "Jane the Virgin" ended in 2019, Jenna Ortega has transformed into a certified scream queen. Since 2022 alone, she has appeared in "X," "Scream," "Scream V," The Foo Fighters' horror movie "Studio 666," and Netflix's "Wednesday" series. She told Elle that a scary movie she saw as a kid was what inspired her to act, and now she can't get enough of working in horror. "I'm definitely the actress who's like, 'More blood.'"
Jaime Camil loved his castmates
On "Jane the Virgin," Jaime Camil played Rogelio de la Vega, a telenovela star who turns out to be Jane's father. He told Parade that he had an idea the show was going to be great from the very beginning, explaining, "I knew that we had a beautiful project on our hands, the material and the storytelling was solid and that the characters were developing so brilliantly." Sure enough, five seasons later, Camil was sad to part ways with his castmates. "I think I'm going to miss going to a beautiful place to work every single day," he said, emphasizing that everyone was friends off-screen. "It was just a lovely environment to be in, to act and deliver this incredibly well-written material."
In addition to voice acting on shows like "DuckTales" and "Mickey Mouse Funhouse," Camil has been on both seasons of the Apple TV+ musical show "Schmigadoon." The second season was released in 2023, and Camil spoke with Screen Rant about how his extensive Broadway experience helped prepare him for the show. Once again, the best part of going to work for Camil was his co-stars. This time, that camaraderie reminded him of the theater. "We have such a sincere and deep love for each other as cast members that it feels like arriving to the theater and just carrying out another day of shows," he said. "It feels like that, and that's the beauty of it."
Andrea Navedo wrote a memoir
Andrea Navedo played Xiomara "Xo" Villanueva throughout "Jane the Virgin." The character was Jane's mother, who had Jane when she was a teenager; as a result, the women are particularly close. Xo's arc included a cancer diagnosis, which Navedo discussed in an interview with Starry Mag. She recalled being given a heads-up about the storyline ahead of time so that she was able to do research and preparation as an actor. Thankfully, the storyline was well-received by fans. "I got a lot of feedback from fans that said they had been touched by cancer personally or through family members or friends and they said that 'Jane the Virgin' hit the cancer note really well," Navedo said. "They felt included and they were grateful for the storyline."
In 2023, Navedo starred in a movie for Hulu called "Miguel Wants to Fight." She also released a memoir, called "Our Otherness Is Our Strength: Wisdom from the Boogie Down Bronx." Speaking about the book with Latinitas Magazine, Navedo explained that she viewed reading as a punishment when she was a child. Now, though, she prides herself on having written a book. "As I got older you know, I had a lot of different life experiences that I felt like I've always been able to pull away and kind of observe my life and see things as playing out almost like a movie," she said.
Ivonne Coll's Alba Villanueva was important representation
In a sense, "Jane the Virgin" is a show about mothers. Jane becomes a mother inadvertently, but she's also extremely close with her own mother, Xo. Xo, too, is close with her mother, Alba. Ivonne Coll played Alba — Jane's grandmother — throughout the show. She told Starry Mag on the occasion of the show's final season that she was going to miss Alba, especially because of how important her path to American citizenship was for representation. "I'm very saddened I'm ending with this character after five years," she said. "I hold her life close to my heart and her journey is so important in terms of what it means to so many people in the states that are like her."
In 2022, Coll starred in a Hallmark film called "Love in the Limelight." She played a TikTok-famous grandmother alongside real-life Hallmark couple Alexa and Carlos PenaVega. Speaking with Latin Heat, Coll gushed, "It was such a different and welcomed experience to play a modern grandmother part of an upscale family. My character is on TikTok and holds a glass of wine in her hand instead of serving food in the kitchen." Furthermore, she noted that the character was "definitively a more realistic grandmother, not the usual stereotype."
Justina Machado would love to bring Darci back
Starting on Season 3 of "Jane the Virgin," Justina Machado played a matchmaker named Darci Factor. The character frequently dispenses rhyming pearls of dating wisdom, things like "When it ends, don't be friends." The "One Day At A Time" star played Darci for 19 episodes of the show, so she wasn't a main character, but Machado would be more than happy to reprise the role someday. Mere months after "Jane the Virgin" aired its finale, she told Forbes that she was up for a reboot. "I'm open to any reunion for any show that I've ever been on and I really mean that," she said. "I love 'Jane the Virgin' and everyone on that show."
In 2023, Machado led the cast of "The Horror of Dolores Roach," an Amazon Prime Video original series about a recently-released prison inmate who is desperate to make a life for herself at any cost. Machado told MovieWeb that she had listened to the podcast that the series was based on, and she loved the character. "When I read the script, I started mouthing the words. And that's how I knew," she recalled. "I was like, 'Oh my god, I love this part.'" The series was a critical hit, garnering an impressive 80% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Judy Reyes loved playing Dina Milagro
"Scrubs" vet Judy Reyes played a recurring character named Dina on "Jane the Virgin." Dina is the showrunner of "The Passions of Santos," the telenovela that Rogelio de la Vega stars in when the series begins. Though she wasn't a main character, appearing irregularly throughout all five seasons, Reyes loved being on the show. She discussed her experience in depth with Vulture, explaining that she was grateful to the series for providing even recurring characters with richly fleshed-out personalities. "You don't get to see a Latina showrunner at all," she said. "So it was just an exciting opportunity to do that and, as a Dominican American, to put those flavors of force, of strength, of power, of sexuality, and use it to my advantage."
Reyes is a prolific actor. In 2023 alone, she's been on "Dr. Death," "The Horror of Dolores Roach," "Florida Man," and "Party Down." She also starred in "Birth/Rebirth," a critically acclaimed horror movie on Shudder about a morgue employee who brings a dead child back to life. Reyes's character, Celie, is the reanimated girl's mother. She told Collider that even though the subject matter was difficult, it was a particularly rewarding experience because of how many women were involved in making the film. "We had ... let's say, 75% women on the set," she recalled. "Queer, diverse ... and that fits like a glove. You feel safe. You feel comfortable."
Tyler Posey rooted for Adam
Tyler Posey joined the cast of "Jane the Virgin" for Season 4. He plays Adam, a former love interest who makes his way back into Jane's life, disrupting the various other romances she has up in the air. "Adam's a sweetheart," Posey told Vanity Fair. "And he has everyone's best interests in mind, and all he wants to do is kinda have fun and I think Jane kind of needs that in her life. She needs somebody to rely on and just kind of get out of the dark place that she's in."
Posey has been busy since his storyline on "Jane the Virgin" concluded. He voiced Tony Toretto on "Fast & Furious: Spy Racers," an animated show set in the world of the hit car-racing franchise. He starred in the Starz series "Now Apocalypse," from iconic New Queer Cinema director Gregg Araki, and he even popped in for two episodes of "Scream: The TV Series." In 2023, Posey returned to the role that made him famous, reprising teenage werewolf Scott McCall in "Teen Wolf: The Movie." He told Collider that no matter what shape the Paramount+ Original film might have taken, he still would have wanted to do it. "Thankfully, the script was great and everyone killed it in their performances," he said. "I'm happy with how it turned out, but it could have been different. It could have been weird, and I still would have been involved."
Bridget Regan liked being on multiple shows at once
Bridget Regan played Rose for 32 episodes of "Jane the Virgin" spread across the show's run, roughly a third of all episodes. It's probably for the best that she wasn't on every episode, because otherwise Regan wouldn't have been able to simultaneously star on "Agent Carter" and "The Last Ship," both of which she acted while still playing Rose. She told Entertainment Weekly that she sometimes struggled when her schedules overlapped, but in general, she liked being on so many shows at once. "My family is like, 'This is incredible, we get to see you on TV all the time,'" she said. "It's really fun ... they're just really delicious characters."
During the 2022-2023 TV season, Regan was on "The Winchesters," a prequel to "Supernatural." She appeared on The Wayne Ayers Podcast for Sheen Magazine TV, reassuring fans that the series would be everything they hoped for. "The vibe that I have picked up on from set and from all of the creatives is that they want to give the fans what they want, cause they know their audience. ... I think you're gonna be really happy," she said. Unfortunately, despite that approach, the show was not picked up for a second season. Not to worry; in 2023, Regan also appeared on "The Company You Keep" and "The Rookie." She doesn't seem to rest!
Yael Grobglas is still close with her Jane the Virgin castmates
Yael Grobglas played Petra Solano on "Jane the Virgin," the woman who was originally supposed to have Rafael's baby before the mix-up that left Jane pregnant. She has an on-again, off-again relationship with her husband, and Petra goes through quite the rollercoaster over the course of the series. In a classic telenovela twist, she even ends up paralyzed by a jealous Anežka Archuletta ... also played by Grobglas. Grobglas loved her time on the show, telling The Italian Reve, "I'm extremely spoiled now because it was a dream. It's one of those rare occasions where you don't have to search for good things to say, everybody is just actually wonderful, the crew, the cast, the writers, the directors, and the vibe was wonderful."
She hasn't done much on-screen acting work since the show ended, but in 2022 she starred in a Hallmark Original movie called "Hanukkah on Rye." She told MediaVillage, "The moment I heard they were doing a Hanukkah movie, I was like, 'Yes, sign me up!' Hallmark always does charming holiday movies, and I found the script delightful," she said. "Plus, I've always wanted to do a rom-com."
Grobglas has been vocal about the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes on Instagram, including posting selfies with a number of "Jane the Virgin" co-stars on the picket lines. "These people are just the best," she wrote, "and I love them with my whole [heart emoji]."
Diane Guerrero was proud of her Jane the Virgin and Orange is the New Black families
Diane Guerrero played Lina on "Jane the Virgin," one of Jane's best friends. She only appeared on 24 of the show's 99 episodes, perhaps because Guerrero was also on "Orange is the New Black" throughout the same time period. Speaking with Popsugar Entertainment on the red carpet of the 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards, Guerrero reflected on how both of her shows are important because of their diverse ensembles. "I'm so proud of it," she said. "They both celebrate family and our culture, and I think it's great."
After "Jane the Virgin," she voiced Isabela in Disney's hit animated musical "Encanto." She also stars in "Doom Patrol," a superhero show where she plays a super-powered woman called Crazy Jane. Guerrero told Collider that her character's storyline once again allowed her to bring important issues to the screen. Crazy Jane hit close to home because Guerrero has been open about her own mental health journey, including on a podcast she hosted in 2021 called "Yeah No, I'm Not OK." "I feel very fortunate to get to explore the theme of mental health through a superhero story that's unlike anything out there," she explained to Collider. "So, I'm feeling pretty good."