19 Great Performances by Women Playing Love Interests

Melonie Diaz in Fruitvale Station (2013), screenshot courtesy of The Weinstein Company

2. Melonie Diaz (Fruitvale Station)

The role: Sophina Mesa is the girlfriend of Michael B. Jordan’s Oscar Grant III, whose real-life death at the hands of BART police officers sparked widespread protests.

Why she’s great: In the opening scene of Fruitvale Station, Sophina berates Oscar for his recent infidelity. Later, she berates him for losing his job and not adequately carrying out his duties as a father. So, on the surface, she seems like little more than a Latina stereotype. Yet, writer-director Ryan Coogler refuses to simplify his characters or to abide by neat, convenient narratives. Instead, he simply observes, chronicling both the mayhem and the banality of everyday existence with an unobtrusive camera and freeing the actors to, well, act. Diaz inhabits the role of Sophina so gracefully that she doesn’t appear to be acting so much as living. Emotions settle into her like waves on a shore – exasperation, fatigue, pleasure, anxiety, grief; her eyes express more than any amount of exposition could. If Jordan is the heart of Fruitvale Station, Diaz, along with Octavia Spencer, is its soul.

Standout moment: During the confrontation with the police, Sophina gets rushed outside the subway station, where she has to wait in agonizing suspense. Unlike us, when she hears the fatal gunshot, she has no idea what happened. Even so, you can sense dread mingled with the panic in Diaz’s trembling voice as she calls Oscar’s mother, Wanda Johnson (Spencer), and urges her to come to the station, as though deep down, she knows. Cinematographer Rachel Morrison shakes the camera with increased vigor to mirror Sophina’s inner turmoil, working with Diaz to immerse the audience. We are no longer merely observers, distanced by hindsight, but witnesses, implicated in the tragedy.