You went from an IPVCE (Pre-University Vocational Institute) to ISA (Higher Institute of Art). When and how did you discover that acting was your calling?

“I was the typical girl who loved doing everything: dancing, singing, like almost all actors. I was in several workshops, I loved it, but I didn't know you could make a career out of it. I saw actors as unique gods. When I finished high school, I learned about the ENA (National Art School) auditions, but they didn't offer any spots for my province, and I didn't feel like I was on par with the people who were applying. I saw acting as something much bigger than that. While I was at Lenin School, there was a theater instructor who told us about the ISA (Higher Institute of Art). We did several plays together, and he encouraged me to audition, and that's how it happened.”

On television, right now I could mention three completely different characters in which I've seen you perform like a fish in water: Yoanka, the weightlifter in *Tan lejos y tan cerca* (So Far and So Close); Muñeca, in *El derecho de soñar* (The Right to Dream); and Zuleica in the current soap opera, *Ojo de agua*. Are there no limits for Yaité Ruiz when it comes to choosing or accepting a role? What can't be missing?

“Regarding limits, I’ve spent several minutes thinking about how to say this because it might sound a bit, I don’t know, puritanic, if you will, but yes, there are limits for me. How can I put it? There are no limits when it comes to creation. I believe an actor can play any character they set their mind to, any character, because an actor is a person with the tools to transform themselves, and for me, that’s the best thing about my career and what I enjoy most. But there are limits in that I would never play a character who defends racism, homophobia, or who belittles women. I could play a character with these characteristics if the message of the work or the artistic endeavor were to defend all human beings equally; then I could do it.

“What a character I read about must have is a story that makes me learn something. That is, when the character has a conflict that makes me investigate, that stirs things up for me.” A character with emotional nuances, someone who can really get under your skin, as we say in our world, that's what the character absolutely needs.

As for Zuleica, she's a very complex character. What would you say in her "defense," you who know her better than anyone?

"It was difficult to understand her when I first started reading about her. I thought: well, how do I approach this woman? And well, I approached it from my perspective as a mother. As I've said before, I don't consider her a good mother, because for me, being a good mother means supporting your children with understanding, but also with respect and high expectations, and that's what education is all about. In other words, being a good mother isn't what Zuleica does, which is supporting her son but covering up all the bad things he does, accompanying him in his failures." In my opinion, doing wrong isn't being a good mother. However, Zuleica recognizes that this is what being a mother is all about, because she lacks the resources or emotional intelligence to guide her son down the right path, because she herself is going down the wrong path.

"So she's raised her son based on her own experience, but the fact that she does everything for him, whatever it takes, the fact that she's an enterprising woman, a lover of family togetherness, well... at any cost and at any risk, but that's what I take away from her as a positive thing, and that's why I defended her, because, eventually, she recognizes that what her son is doing is wrong, but she doesn't know how to guide him either, and that's why she supports him to the end. That's something very positive about her."

No spoilers, but is Zuleica still going to stir a lot of trouble in Ojo de Agua?

“Yes, yes, Zuleica keeps fighting for her goal until the very end, although we don't know if she'll achieve it or not. But, well, according to the conventions of soap operas, endings are always happy, so yes, Zuleica is still going to put up a lot of fight, and she's going to push herself to the limit in terms of lessening herself even more as a woman to achieve her goal.”

Yaité, you've had positive experiences in film and television, yet you always return to theater. Is it a special language for you?

“I always like to say that I feel like the theater is my home. When you graduate from the academy, it's the theater that helps you fully utilize all these tools I was talking about. It helps you test your voice, your body, to express yourself completely. Furthermore, it's the theater where I can bring together all forms of expression, and that's why it's the medium where I feel most comfortable and fulfilled, of course, without belittling other audiovisual media.

“I love musical theater, for example, because you can dance, sing… I believe in the performer in general; I don't believe in the actor, the musician, the dancer. I believe that an actor can possess all those qualities, if they so choose, to create a theatrical experience, even in the visual aspects, because the set design, the props, the costumes, the designers make the staging a unique visual work every day.”

“I’m still learning a bit about the technical aspects of the media, the lighting… things that go beyond acting itself, but it’s in the theater where you have that unique connection with the audience, where a story begins and can unfold over years, but you finish it on stage in a single day. The character begins a journey and, without interruption, without cuts, it ends, and that energy, for me, is life. It’s a leap of faith, a risk, because any mistake can be made, but there’s no exchange of energy like that in other media as there is in theater.”

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff