The actor known to fans around the globe as the exuberant soccer player Dani Rojas in the hit Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso” is back — but this time as a botanist, healer and love interest in the adventure-comedy movie “Las Tres Sisters,” out in theaters on Friday.
The movie, which he also executive-produced, was filmed in Guadalajara, Mexico, where Cristo Fernández grew up.
“I’ve learned so much from other cultures,” Fernández told NBC News in a video interview with the movie cast. “Personally, the more I travel, the more I am away, I appreciate more my hometown, my family, my friends.”
The film focuses on three sisters: María (Marta Méndez Cross), Lucía (Valeria Maldonado) and Sofía (Virginia Novello), who try to untangle their complex relationship — and years of estrangement —while toggling between their Americanized life in the U.S. and their family’s Mexican homeland.
Viewers will soon learn that María was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she tricks her younger sisters into going on a six-day hike through rural Mexico to follow the footsteps of their grandmother: It turns out to be a 135-mile trek to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Talpa de Allende.
“It’s a road trip on feet,” said Maldonado about the sisters’ journey. “It has to do with connecting to your roots — but in a very difficult way,” she said laughing. “But also in a fun way, with all the adventures that come with it.”
Talpa de Allende is a former silver mining town with more than 425 years of history. It’s located in the state of Jalisco, and roughly 3 million people travel on the pilgrimage route each year.
The sisters experience madcap but also poignant moments as they go on their unlikely trek.
Fernández says the sisters deliver a heartfelt message that speaks personally to his experiences: Traveling can make you feel like a fish out of water, but it can also help you rediscover important things that you overlook at home.
“I’m very Mexican,” Fernández said. “I was born and raised in Guadalajara and I lived there my whole life until 2016 — my parents, they barely speak English, but they encouraged my sister and I to learn languages; we learned German and I did some exchanges. And they encouraged us to discover other cultures.”
Fernández moved to England in 2016, where he graduated with a master’s in acting. This experience ultimately helped Fernández land his breakout role as Dani Rojas in “Ted Lasso.”
Pilgrimages are characterized by personal growth and self-discovery. Fernández and his three female co-stars — the three women also co-wrote the movie — say this type of road trip story can resonate with viewers from all different cultures.
“A pilgrimage usually means that a lot of people have walked it ahead of you. And a lot of people have had experiences. So it has to do with connecting to your roots and connecting to your ancestors,” said Maldonado, who was born in San Diego and moved to Mexico with her family at age 6.
On camera, viewers can see the sisters connecting with their ancestral Mexican roots through foods, religious holidays like the Day of the Dead, and Indigenous medicine.
Fernández, who becomes the love interest of one of the sisters, gathers plants as a botanist for what’s known as a farmacia viviente Ijiyoteotl, which is a pharmacy that focuses on natural medicine.
The curanderas, or healers, at the pharmacy treat one of the sisters with plants, and all three sisters are invited to participate in an Indigenous ceremony at a temazcal, which is a sweat lodge used for healing and purification.
A ‘clash of culture’
For Méndez Cross, “Las Tres Sisters” shows how U.S. Latinos are far from monolithic.
“I’m an Army brat. My father is a U.S. veteran and Irish American. My mother is Costa Rican. And I was born in Panama,” she told NBC News in the video interview.
Méndez Cross said her first language was Spanish, but when her family moved to Germany, she was raised in an English-only environment, so she had to relearn Spanish and embrace the idea that all Latino experiences are different.
For Novello, who was born in Guadalajara like Fernández, her own experience has meant learning how to go between places.
“I have made my life in the U.S., and so I can appreciate both cultures, and I go back and forth all the time,” she said in the video interview. “I do that on purpose because I just feel so connected to both things.”
Fernández told NBC News that “on my side, the things that I want to produce and be part of as a creator, I love stories that embrace multicultural stories.”
That was the case with the role that launched his career. In a 2021 NBC News interview, Fernández said that in “Ted Lasso,” he “wanted to play the most Latino/Mexican football player,” adding he was grateful the show allowed that space, “because around the world people are getting to know who we are.”
Now, some years later, he’s taking audiences to his own city through a movie that offers a “clash of culture,” as Fernández called it.
“I think ‘Las Tres Sisters’ does that,” he said. “I love it.”
The post ‘Ted Lasso’ actor Cristo Fernández went back ‘home’ for his new movie appeared first on NBC News.
