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How a ‘Dexter’ Star Is Singing Her Way Through Spanish Harlem
Luna Lauren Vélez, who played Capt. Maria LaGuerta on the serial killer drama, is making her own projects now (with much less blood).
Luna Lauren Vélez has the dogged detective drill down cold.
After her breakout role as Detective Nina Moreno on the police drama “New York Undercover” in the 1990s, she went on to widespread acclaim as Capt. Maria LaGuerta on Showtime’s bloody hit drama “Dexter.”
“When I first got the script, I thought, ‘I don’t know if I want to be part of a series about a serial killer,’” she said, adding that “the pilot was so brilliant, I couldn’t say no.”
Though her career has often taken her to Hollywood, Ms. Vélez, 61, said she has maintained a connection to her Puerto Rican roots through her home near the Spanish Harlem neighborhood in Manhattan, where she lives with her 9-year-old rescue cat, Lucy.
She recently spent a Monday with The New York Times as she worked on a few screen and stage projects and sang with her twin sister.
9:08 a.m.
Ms. Vélez grew up in the Rockaway Beach neighborhood of Queens, one of eight siblings, including just one brother and her identical twin, Lorraine Vélez. In 2010, she bought a three-bedroom townhouse near Spanish Harlem. She helped raised her stepdaughter, Ellie, there. Everyone who visits adds to a mural with flowers, bumblebees, jellyfish and a mermaid her sister drew.
9:44 a.m.
“Nice to see you,” the barista at Settepani in Harlem said to Ms. Vélez when she walked in, giving her a hug. It’s one of her favorite bakeries.
She’s often recognized when she’s out and about. “People are always lovely,” Ms. Vélez said. “The other day, I was walking down Fifth Avenue, and some kids asked me for a recommendation for an acting coach. It’s really sweet.”
10:20 a.m.
On the way to Sound Lounge in Midtown, where she’s recording background vocals for a film she’s making with her sister, Ms. Vélez goes over lines for a reading of a play. She writes the first letter of each word on a copy of the script with a No. 2 pencil, a favorite memorization technique. “All my scripts look like word search puzzles,” she said.
11:13 a.m.
Growing up, Luna and Lorraine Vélez would skateboard and roller-skate to the beach to hang out after school. They now speak on the phone at least three times a day. “People often ask us: ‘Can you feel each other’s pain? Do you know when one of you’s in trouble?’” Luna said. “And it sounds so silly, but yes, pretty much.”
Their film, “I’m Not Her,” follows twin sisters who enter a singing contest that Ms. Vélez described as “like a Latino Coachella.”
“It’s about identity and womanhood and what happens when you’re a certain age,” she said. “Can you still pursue your dreams?”
1 p.m.
Ms. Vélez’s film debut was in the 1994 cult classic “I Like It Like That.” Her co-star in that film, Jon Seda, is rehearsing with her at Producers’ Club for the play “Freestyle: A Love Story.” Like the characters they play, they’re meeting again after decades apart. “That’s crazy,” she said.
3:14 p.m.
They go through the play line by line. When they reach a dance-floor scene set to George Lamond’s “Where Does That Leave Love,” they bust out some moves. “Stunt double, stunt double, cowboy switch!” Mr. Seda says. Ms. Vélez laughs. “We should be on the poster,” she says.
Ms. Vélez has starred in dozens of movies and TV shows over the past three decades, but “Dexter” has an especially passionate fan base and several spinoffs. “He’s so human,” she said of the murderous main character. “The struggles that he has, the things that he deals with, are things that I think, as humans, we all question, struggle with, ruminate on.”
The diversity of characters who populate the “Dexter” universe, where she played a Cuban American police captain in Miami, also means that “everybody can relate to” at least one of them, she said. “It’s this little microcosm of different people, different cultures, different ethnicities,” she said.
She is always surprised, though, by how polarizing her character can be.
“There were a lot of people who didn’t like her at all,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘But she’s the good guy!’”
4:09 p.m.
Working on “I’m Not Her” with her sister has consumed Ms. Vélez’s life for the past few years. She remortgaged her home to help finance it and trained herself to function on four hours of sleep. “Everything I grew up with, somehow I got to bring it all together to use in this movie,” she said. “So it’s a pretty sweet moment.”
4:57 p.m.
Ms. Vélez and her sister consulted with James Manos Jr., the creator of the “Dexter” TV series, about their film. He’s one of its producers. “They had brilliant instincts,” Mr. Manos said. “It wasn’t hard.” An early dinner at a favorite spot in Harlem, Vinatería, a Mediterranean restaurant, brought them together again.
Ms. Vélez is grateful for the roles that have come her way. “I’ve been really lucky in my career to play these female characters who are really strong,” she said. “To be part of these groundbreaking shows is really something.”
