The actress also opened up about representing the Latinx community with her first action film, 'Miss Bala.'
Gina Rodriguez put in hours and hours in the gym for her latest role.
The Miss Bala star went so hard with her workouts that her co-star Anthony Mackie didn't recognize her while training.
"[Fiance] Joe took me down his path of training and he's a hardcore athlete," Rodriguez told ET's Courtney Tezeno during the film's junket. "So that was definitely a world I had never entered into. It was a strict diet. It was working out seven days a week. Way too many hours a day. It's a lifestyle I don't think I wanna do. No, I'm kidding. Hopefully for a character but that's what you go through, and the cool thing is having the opportunity to go through it, because, to be honest, if I wasn't Miss Bala, I probably wouldn't have put my body through that because it's so strict."
Mackie was so impressed by her workouts, saying, "Her hair pulled back, sweaty, [breathing hard]. I'm on the treadmill, like, jeez Louise these girls are going at it." The funny moment came when Rodriguez went to say hi to the actor, and he didn't know who she was.
"So she comes over and she goes, 'Hey Anthony, how's it going?' I'm like, 'Hey'," he recalls. "She goes, 'It's Gina.' I'm like, 'Gee, you a rough. You are working. You are going for this character hard. Way to go champ! Like, whew, you're burning a thousand calories today.'"
It's that determination and effort that the Jane the Virgin leading lady puts into every project, especially one which represents the Latinx community.
"This was my first action film. Taking it on, I'm very proud of the fact that our community made it," Rodriguez expressed. "And when I say 'our community,' I mean the entire Latinx community, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Colombian, Argentinian."
"What was beautiful about that that's very rare," she continued. "That was a very exciting experience. So I hope that [fans] walk away having fun, and the studio sees that. Latinas know how to make [a great film]. Not even with Gina, like put other Latinas and Latinos in front of the camera, and put them on your films and have them be your leads because we're capable and we can do it. That's just very exciting to me to show that we made a really fun action movie. They should go."
Miss Bala arrives in theaters on Feb. 1. See more of ET's coverage of the film in the video below.
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