The dexterous actor takes on Season 2 of the timely and adventurous series, Sweet Tooth.
Dania Ramirez was ready to step back from her acting career to focus on her young children when COVID struck and the world went on lockdown. But then she was offered the role of Aimee Eden, a pivotal figure in the fantasy adventure series Sweet Tooth, adapted from the comics by Jeff Lemire. It was too tempting — and too timely — to refuse and brought her all the way to the film’s shooting location in New Zealand.
Set 10 years after a devastating, fictional global pandemic, which coincided with the mysterious births of the first animal-human hybrids, Sweet Tooth imagines a world in which many of the remaining survivors blame “the Sick” on the hybrid children. Ramirez’s Aimee becomes the unlikely guardian of one such exceptional and adorable girl named Wendy (Naledi Murray), who happens to be part pig. In a world where hybrids are rounded up and subjected to cruel scientific experiments, or worse, Aimee becomes her valiant guardian.
Amid its darker themes, Sweet Tooth has a strong emotional core, something that resonated deeply with Ramirez. “The show is just such a beautiful and optimistic way to look at life,” she says. “Where I was in my life, I was like, Okay, I’m going to give in to nature and love and motherhood. That’s the path that I was on. And then I read five pages of this one scene for Aimee Eden, and I was like, I have to play this role.”
For the second season of the series, Ramirez returns as Aimee, who has united with gruff loner Jepperd (Nonso Anozie) to rescue a group of hybrids, which includes Wendy and Gus (Christian Convery), the boy with the striking antlers who’s known as Sweet Tooth. The series, which boasts such executive producers as Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, and showrunner Jim Mickle (Hap and Leonard), has also been renewed for a third and final season.
For Queue, Ramirez reflected on her experiences shooting the timely adventure — and how her career has evolved in ways she never imagined.
An edited version of the conversation follows.
Aimee (Dania Ramirez)
Krista Smith: The world was in lockdown when you got this role. Did you go with your whole family to New Zealand, where Sweet Tooth is shot?
Dania Ramirez: We couldn’t go [together] for the first season. I had to leave the family and go by myself. We shot for five months in New Zealand, and it was a very difficult time because being away from my kids was so hard. From a mother’s standpoint, it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. You feel good about the fact that you’re doing something for your family, but it is very difficult. Everybody just poured their hearts into this job. And I think people really responded to that. Then we went off to do Season 2.
It’s the plight of an actor, too. You don’t want to say “no.” Most actors always feel like their last job was potentially their very last job. There is that fear in the profession, I think, always.
DR: It’s very challenging. And for me, I grew up in the Dominican Republic in the middle of nowhere with no running water, no electricity. I’ve constantly worked. When something finishes, I still have that feeling of, Am I going to work again? In Hollywood, too, you can do a comedy and then not work for six months or do something dramatic and then they forget you were funny.
If you can see yourself as something much bigger than some people see you as, then the doors will open. You just have to keep knocking on them.
Dania Ramirez
Your parents left you and your sister behind to pursue the American dream. You were 10 by the time you came over, right? That’s a long time to be living with your grandmother or your aunt. And, like you said, there was no running water. You didn’t have a TV; it wasn’t part of your reality as a child. How did you know that performing was for you?
DR: It’s funny because, looking back, I do think it was my path. I didn’t have television, but I was very creative since I was a little girl. I would just make up stories or make up songs. I’ve always been very emotional and able to relate to people. But I never thought [that] I could become an actress. When I was living in West New York and New Jersey I was always a hustler and a go-getter. At one point, I was modeling for Wilhelmina Models, and they were sending me out on commercials. When I was 15, I walked into a casting call for Subway Stories, short stories that they were making for HBO, and Spike Lee was directing. That was where I got my SAG card. He spoke to me that day, and I thought that was a huge deal, right? I was like, I’m a star. Spike spoke to me. Somebody told me, “You should really do this for a living, but you should take some acting classes . . . ” I got an agent. That was my true big break.
Wendy (Naledi Murray) and Aimee (Dania Ramirez)
I can’t imagine your parents were excited by this. You’re going to go be what? An actress?
DR: They were both very, very old school. They felt like they sacrificed so much for us to come to America. They saw I was a very smart girl, I was going to graduate high school at 16. [My dad] wanted me to be a lawyer, mostly because I would argue with him constantly. At the time when I started modeling, they didn’t really understand what it was and really wanted to not have anything to do with me if I did it.
So that just motivated me to play a sport. I started playing volleyball in high school and got into Montclair State University at 16. I didn’t speak to my parents for two years. It was a very difficult time because I come from a big family, so I definitely missed going home, but at the same time, I had this newfound freedom. I made a ton of mistakes, got myself into so many bad situations, but was able to put myself through college, graduated at the age of 20 with a communications degree while taking acting classes in the city.
So you graduate, and you’re in this business for one minute, basically, and you land X-Men: The Last Stand, playing Callisto. You played young AJ’s big love, Blanca Selgado, on The Sopranos; Maya Herrera on Heroes; there was Devious Maids, of course. You have so much dexterity in your gift. You can be so physical. You can be so vulnerable.
DR: I’ve constantly allowed myself the freedom to tap into all these different things. And that’s a gift. Also, I think it’s a choice in life of just saying, “I don’t want to be one thing, so let me look at everything.” If you can see yourself as something much bigger than some people see you as, then the doors will open. You just have to keep knocking on them.
