An Out-of-This-World Chat with Aria DeMaris

As early as she can remember, Aria DeMaris was an artist and storyteller. An actress and producer, her credits include DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, the British World War I drama The Bagley Boys, and the award-winning film That Burning Feeling. Additionally, she is a dialect coach who has worked with performers on several projects. Super Girl and Altered Carbon being the most recent.

DeMaris has worked as an animator with various studios, taught drawing and painting to children, and wrote, produced, and performed an original, two-woman play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Currently, DeMaris plays Izabel Azevedo in Netflix’s Lost in Space, and OUT FRONT had the opportunity to chat more with her about the show and sci-fi culture.

Hi, Aria! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I would like to begin by talking more about Netflix’s Lost in Space. Can you tell us more about your character, Izabel Azevedo? What is she all about?
She is a spaceship coder. She meets the Robinson family on the resolute where everybody is currently at in Season Two, and helps them repair their ship. Her wife is Aubrey Azevedo, and Aubrey is sort of like the spaceship mechanic, so they kind of work together. Then, we are the mothers to our daughter, Elise, who becomes friends with Will Robinson. Izabel is a very capable, strong woman, wife and mother trying to survive in this very harsh and threatening reality with her family.

I think a lot of the themes for Lost in Space are survival and family. So, it has just been awesome being a part of it and being a character who is in a same-sex relationship with a daughter. I feel it is very woman empowering, you know? Like, it’s an all-woman family, matriarchal, strong, and resilient. So, it’s great. She is Latina as well; she’s Brazilian, and I am Hispanic, so it is always nice to be able to play that because I don’t always get to.

That’s awesome. In what other ways do you and Izabel relate to each other?
Well, we are both trying to survive these difficult times in history. We are both resilient, strong, fierce, use our minds. I am definitely a lot about my friends and family, so I think I can relate to her in that way. I’m not sure if I would be able to code anything like a spaceship [laughs].

I think she has her priorities straight, and I feel like she has a good head on her shoulders. She’s strong and capable and able to combine having that tough kind of a job and still have this soft, maternal side. I’m not a mother to any human children, but I have animals; I feel it is important to be able to have that strength but also have this loving side.

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It sounds like your overall experience with the show has been amazing.
Oh, God, it has been so much fun. From the first day, everyone has been so great to work with, and the sets are amazing. Like, my jaw dropped. This is huge; it was enormous. Like the resolute itself, it just keeps going and going, and the hallways are massive. Like, where does this end?

It definitely gets you in that sort of mind space of like whoa, this is a spaceship of that magnitude in the future, where people are able to live and have communities and families. It’s unreal. Everyone has been so great to work with; I am very grateful and blessed to be able to work with such an amazing cast and crew. They are wonderful and amazing. Along with the makeup artists and hair girls, we all help each other.

Did you audition for Lost in Space, or were you asked to be involved?
I auditioned, and then I came back for another callback. A couple weeks later, I finally heard the green light from the network executives because that’s always the last stage. I was very happy and grateful to be chosen because I wasn’t sure if Izabel was going to continue. It was very vague, and that’s another thing I like about the writing and this show and this character. We don’t know a lot about Izabel just yet.

And the relationship with her wife, it’s not, like, in-your-face. I think that’s how it should be; I don’t think anything should be forced or pushed. Izabel and Aubrey have a very subtle, realistic kind of relationship. It feels natural.

Do you think the sci-fi genre is getting better when it comes to LGBTQ representation?
I think it’s slowly getting better. I do think with Lost in Space, it’s something that’s just a natural part of different families, and there are all kinds of different families. It is great that they are getting to explore that and have that in the show. I do think it is changing; it would be nice if it was quicker, but slowly and surely.

Before joining the show, were you familiar with the original, 1965 Lost in Space?
I haven’t seen it, but my mom has. That was her favorite show growing up. When I told her I was going to be in Netflix’s Lost in Space, she was so excited. Now that I’m in this, I have to watch. The next time I visit my mom, we’ll sit down, and I’ll try to find some old episodes. I would love to see it, just to see what the original concept and idea and world was. I’ve seen a lot of pictures and a little bit of clips, but I haven’t really seen an entire episode.

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Have you always been a sci-fi fan?
I think so. I grew up with boys, so I was the only girl, and they were really into sci-fi. It wasn’t something I gravitated towards right away, but I think it is because I sort of wanted to poke fun at them because they were big Star Wars fans, and at first, I didn’t get it. I was probably five or six. I liked the Wookies and those characters, but I didn’t catch on right away until I saw Princess Leia. That was what sold it. Like, whoa! There’s a girl, and she’s a princess! This isn’t just about guys with guns and machines.

I think we need that. Both sides. There needs to be a bit of everything. Especially in the future. You are going to have it all. So, I think that’s where I really started to appreciate the story. I started to become more involved with watching the movies.

What makes Netflix’s Lost in Space unique and worthwhile? Why should we watch it?
Number one, just the values that are in the show. Family, love, cooperation, survival, being in the pursuit of a better life, which I think we can all relate to. Wanting to do better for ourselves, our children, our family. I mean, no matter what year we are in, that is always going to be a part of us as humans. We are always going to want to continue to get better and be better.

Obviously, we are always on this journey of wanting the end results. We want our final destination, this outcome, but it is also, like, the journey itself that’s the most important. I think a lot of the show has these sorts of elements to it. That love, friendship, support, all of those things that we go through. I think it is something we can all relate to, and we have robots! The show, on a visual aesthetic, is very beautiful and stunning. The background, wardrobe, everything is very well-done.

If you could travel anywhere in space, where would you go?
There are so many places! More than that, so many places that I don’t know about! I would just love to be able to go to a new planet where I can meet some new faces and beings and just something completely, literally out of this world. Something completely different from what I have ever seen. Hopefully, a friendly planet. If I could be in space and just look around and just, like, admire different planets, that would be amazing.

Outside of acting, you are a dialect coach. Can you tell us more about what that is like?
I started learning about dialogue in a course I did a few years ago, and then from that, I didn’t know this was something I was going to be good at. It was a huge surprise to me. I was learning four different accents; we got to choose whatever we wanted to learn. So, I went home and studied and made notes and then basically, by the end of the course, my teacher said this was something I was really good at, and he thought I should pursue it.

So, I started learning more on my own, and then I became my teacher’s apprentice. I started working with some of his clients on the side, and if I was available, he would ask me to go coach this person. The first time, I was scared. Like, I haven’t been doing this for that long, but I ended up loving it. I make sure everything I teach is 100 percent correct and accurate. I feel good about what I do, and I feel fulfilled to be able to instill confidence in actors. An accent can be something that is very important to the story of the character, and being able to get them to that point where they can just completely immerse themselves in that role is just awesome.

I hear you are also a proud paranormal fanatic. Me too! Do you have any ghost stories to share?
Yes, I do! Not going to lie, my family has a lot of strange ghost stories. There’s, like, some energy that’s been around for generations because it’s not just me. My grandma, great-grandma, different people. But my story, I was having a seance with my friends when I was about 12. I don’t even know how we made it, but we made this giant pentagram in my friend’s basement.

We had all these candles lit, and the basement was already kind of creepy. We are sitting in the dark, and we’re calling on spirits to come around. Well, one thing led to another. We started hearing things; things were falling, and, of course, no one else was home. I remember this energy coming into the room, and I was scared. I remember saying that I was done, and I was going to go back upstairs. When I turn the corner and open the door, I see this very large figure of a man like an outline in the dark. I was in shock. I ran upstairs freaking out.

What’s next for you? Any other upcoming projects we should be on the lookout for?
I have a feature film that’s coming out by the end of the year. Hopefully, it will hit festivals around autumn-time. It’s not a sci-fi, but it’s sort of a wild, Grindhouse thriller. It’s currently in post-production, and I can’t say too much about it, but it is sort of a gritty, over-the-top story. It’s got some quirky, very stylized characters, and the majority of the cast is women. It was great to write the script and give this strong female presence to the story, characters, and dialogue.

To stay up-to-date with DeMaris, follow her on Facebook and Twitter, or visit ariademaris.com. 

Photo by Stephan Pisko