The actress also reflects on her overnight success and journey to Hollywood's biggest night!
Yalitza Aparicio, the star of Roma, is sharing her joy with ET Live after earning a Best Actress Oscar nomination.
“I’m really very happy,” the 25-year-old actress stated through an interpreter when asked for her reaction. “This really almost seems to be part of a dream. It’s been incredible to be part of this team and now be part of all these nominations.”
When asked how she initially reacted to the announcement on Tuesday morning, which included a grand total of 10 nominations for the film, Aparicio shared that she was completely freaking out.
“So, from the first one, the second that I heard that Marina de Tavira was nominated [for Best Supporting Actress] I started screaming, just out of excitement, and then by the end of it, we were all crying after all these nominations," she said.
Aparicio later added that her nomination, the first for a Latinx actress in 14 years, was “really very surprising and, I think, for me it’s the fact that being a woman who doesn’t really have an acting career who doesn’t really look like the kind of women who usually get these kinds of nominations and awards, it was amazing to me to think that I had been nominated.”
The rising actress shared proof of her tearful reaction to the exciting news with a clip of herself crying on Twitter, along with a message to fans.
“Extremely happy, when I woke up today so early, (of course, at the time of here) I was not expecting this news,” she wrote in Spanish. “Thanks Ale A. García and @ marielmmayorga for waking me up.”
In the film, Aparicio plays Cleo, a live-in maid to a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early ‘70s. The story is a semi-autobiographical interpretation of a chapter in director Alfonso Cuaron’s childhood. In December, the filmmaker spoke with ET about working with Aparicio on such an intimate project.
“Yalitza is the heart of Roma,” he said. “It's a film that without the presence of Yalitza and the performance of Yalitza, it wouldn't work. This film in many ways, in my life, has been a before and after. So, Yalitza is very important in my life.”
Roma is playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix.
Get more awards season news down below.
RELATED CONTENT:
Oscars
