Lisa Vidal talks The Baker and the Beauty, what she’s comfort-watching, and being a cancer survivor

On April 13, ABC brought us the newest family dramedy in the form of The Baker and the Beauty. We got to chat with Lisa Vidal, one of the show’s stars, about this new show.

Do you love a romantic comedy with heart and sass? Are you looking for a family-centric drama that gives you all the feels? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then you really want to check out The Baker and the Beauty starring Lisa Vidal, Nathalie Kelley, and Victor Rasuk (to name a few).

And speaking of Vidal, I had the opportunity to chat with her about this new series as part of a joint project between Guilty Eats and Culturess. From talking about food, to getting personal about her own life, Vidal was a pleasure to speak to.

With her new series giving us a bit of a foodie focus, it just made sense to talk to her for our sister site — but at the same time, this is a show about family and relationships, which is something we love to focus on over at Culturess as well. And considering this series seems to have some very strong women at its core, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dig a bit deeper with the actress.

For those unfamiliar with The Baker and the Beauty, it is a new series on ABC that focuses on a family-owned bakery. Daniel Garcia works at the bakery, doing whatever his family expects of him, and yet he is clearly looking for more out of his life. When he finds himself unexpectedly swept up into the world of an international superstar, everything in his life changes. With his family on one side of him and his new relationship on the other, sparks are set to fly.

In the series, Vidal plays Mari Garcia, the matriarch of the family. She is a woman who is still in love with her husband, and wants her children to be as happy as she is.

Speaking to Vidal, I had to know what she hopes viewers take away from the show. According to her, she “definitely wants viewers to walk away feeling a lot of love and fulfillment in this show. As far as family goes and seeing a Latino family in this kind of positive light just being a regular family, like any other family, because it’s so relatable. And I feel like it’s a little bit of an education of what a positive stereotype looks like for a Latino family.”

On top of wanting to know what she hopes viewers take away from the series, we also wanted to know more about any memorable moments she has had while on set. According to Vidal, “I think my favorite part of working on the show are the scenes with the entire family because it’s funny. We’re arguing, we’re dancing, we’re eating, we’re crying. There’s so many wonderful moments when the entire family is together, and our chemistry is dynamic. And I think that it kind of jumps off the screen. I think the audience is going to really feel that and fall in love with his family.”

Moving away from The Baker and the Beauty, I couldn’t resist asking Lisa Vidal some of her favorite things to watch, even as a comfort watch. The actress shared that, “Funny Girl, my all-time-favorite movie, is definitely one of them.” But that wasn’t the only movie she mentioned as a favorite, as she revealed, “My daughter and I just watched West Side Story the other day, and we’re about to watch Pretty Woman.” And moving away from movies, the actress also shared that she is watching One Day at a Time as well. (Definitely love everything she is watching right now as comfort watches.)

On a more serious note, as a fan of Vidal, you may already be aware of the fact that she is a breast cancer survivor. And we wanted to know a bit more about her experience and what she hopes people learn from her.

“Cancer sadly runs in my family. My mother had it, her sister had it, and then my sister and I were diagnosed two weeks apart. But what we’re grateful for is that, because we were aware of the fact that it ran in our family, we were very responsible about getting checked regularly. It was the early detection using the ultrasound that found our cancer in its early stages, which is so, so important, and which is the deciding factor of breast cancer being something curable or not, because the mammogram doesn’t always show it when it’s early on. And the problem is that, once it’s a little further, that’s when it can spread to the lymph nodes and other parts of the body and it becomes a real challenge, and a battle.”

She went on to say, “I really try to talk and encourage women to demand that their insurance companies cover their ultrasounds, especially for low-income women. I really am trying to work with the American Cancer Society and I’d like to create more awareness about this and put a little more responsibility as well on the insurance companies to understand that it’s a necessity, it’s not a luxury, and that you know this is this is a matter of life and death and giving people hope that if they catch it early they don’t have to be afraid for going in for a checkup because they know that they have that security behind them that they will automatically get an ultrasound and if anything is wrong, the problem is dealt with right away.”

Finally, we can’t have an interview for Culturess without asking the important question of who Vidal looked up to when she was growing up (whether fictional or nonfictional).

“I have to include a handful of women in my family, because I come from a family of very strong women, I come from a family of women who are doctors, lawyers, business owners, you know, hustlers. My grandma had a food truck, and she would park in front of the welfare building and she was up at 3am cooking food and,  one of my aunts became the first Puerto Rican women admitted to the New York State Bar and one of the first Supreme Court judges in New York. And so I come from educated women, who are very strong and believed in family, education, work, and hustling. I don’t think I ever saw any of the women in my family sitting around doing nothing.”

If you want to see Vidal in action as a strong woman, leading her family, and loving her husband, then you won’t want to miss ABC’s The Baker and the Beauty. And honestly, after getting the chance to chat with her, I can’t wait to see her bring Mari Garcia to life as well.

Check out the first part of this collaborative interview with Guilty Eats here.