On the Set of JANE THE VIRGIN: 7 Things To Know About What’s to Come

JANE THE VIRGIN is mid-way through its original 13-episode run, and things are moving fast! The CW ordered the back nine episodes — granting the freshman drama a full first season — but that doesn’t mean show creator Jennie Synder Urman and her writers room are resting on their laurels or dragging storylines out, old-school soap opera style. Instead, this comedic play on a telenovela about a young woman who gets artificially inseminated and has her whole world turned upside down is picking up the pace and changing relationship statuses to introduce all new dynamics.

I visited the Manhattan Beach (standing in for Miami) set of JANE THE VIRGIN earlier this week to sit down with the cast and find out all the juicy secrets about to unfold. Here is some of what I learned…

1. Jane is at multiple crossroads.

The next all-new episode, “Chapter Six,” will see Jane (Gina Rodriguez) taking a step in her professional career — though it is not the step she necessarily wants.

“It’s that human shift of ‘Okay this is what I said I was going to do,’ and then that bite of like, ‘Okay, but this is what I want to do.’” Rodriguez said. “And I think it’s beautiful that she goes through that because she has a mom who’s following her dreams, and a grandmother who works. So it’s great she gets to see the two, and it’s also, I think, wonderful for the audience to see somebody that is battling stability versus dream, passion —and it doesn’t meant the passion…dreams cannot be your stability. But we live in a world and a culture where because it’s not as safe, maybe it’s not something you should be doing. And Jane definitely grew up in that world, so that’s going to be a huge, heavy thing on her heart.”

But it’s not just her career that’s up in the air right now. Things with her fiancé Michael (Brett Dier) are tougher now that she is pregnant but still holding onto her virginity, and having Rafael (Justin Baldoni) in her life is proving a much deeper distraction than she ever expected. It’s not just hormones that are making her have crazy sex dreams; she is starting to draw some connections between her professional and her personal lives.

“Jane has been looking at her career like stability [equals] teaching, dreams [equal] writing, and it’s very much so a vision of like, Michael’s the teacher, Rafael’s the writer. You know, he is that dream versus the stability. And now all the plans she has set up are thrown out of whack, it’s like, ‘Hold up, what have I been doing this whole time?…I’ve been so safe, I’ve been so this, maybe I need to take that leap,’” Rodriguez said.

2. Petra’s abuse allegations are not nearly the worst thing Rafael has to deal with.

At least according to Justin Baldoni, that is, who said of the end of “Chapter Five”: “It’s just another one of the things that he has to deal with…In the scheme of all of the things that are a part of this telenovela universe, it’s not the biggest thing, but it’s definitely an issue.”

So what is the biggest issue for Rafael right now? “Being able to raise his future child with whoever Jane is to him in his life without the distraction of anybody else. I think the idea of new life coming that’s going to be his, a second chance, is huge for him,” Baldoni said.

3. Rogelio’s “sort of” other family is just plain awful.

“Oh, you mean the evil twins?” Jaime Camil (Rogelio) responded when I asked him what to expect from the dynamic that comes when we meet his teenage stepdaughters in “Chapter Six.”

“They’re very nasty, and they’re very mean,” he added, noting, though, that they are only his ex-step-daughters, since he is divorced from their mother.

“In the next episode, we’re going to have a very funny family dinner with Xiomara, with Rogelio’s ex-wife, with Abuela, with the evil twins, and with Jane. You can just imagine how that will turn out…it’s a mess; it’s a complete mess,” Camil said.

4. Rogelio is still trying to buy everyone’s love, and sometimes it comes with surprising results.

Coming from a world of superficiality and grandness, Rogelio believes in big gestures. Camil believes this is because he has a big heart, and it’s easy for him to show it in this specific way. He certainly tries to win over everyone from Jane to Xiomara to Alba with cars and music performances and a very special event.

“Rogelio invites us to this awards ceremony, and he sends hair and makeup and wardrobe; we’re going to a red carpet, and Alba is totally star-struck,” Ivonne Coll (Alba) said.

“They did get some Mexican stars for that award ceremony, and [Alba] recognizes their faces because [she] sees them through the television, and every time she sees somebody, ‘Oh my God!’” she continued. “So that day she starts to drink champagne to celebrate, and she’s a little drunk!”

5. Xiomara will have a new suitor.

Andrea Navedo noted that Xiomara is not necessarily “looking for love” because she is struggling with feelings for Rogelio, as well as with just focusing on her daughter’s situation, but hey, don’t they say love can find you when you’re not looking for it? Nicholas Gonzalez will guest star in two upcoming episodes as a romantic prospect for Xo, whom she meets at work. Two episodes doesn’t sound like real love, but it definitely provides opportunity for a fun double date story.

“It’s totally a lot of comedic relief because the inner conflict for Xiomara and Rogelio is that they’re so attracted to each other — they love each other, truly, they do care about each other…but they can’t be together,” Navedo said. “And now they have to deal with seeing the other with someone else.”

“It’s like saying, ‘Oh, I’m going to go on a diet, and I’m not going to eat anymore carbs’ and then everywhere you turn, there’s just carbs!”

(Hint: Rogelio’s the carbs, but then what does that make Nick??)

6. Magda manipulates more than just her daughter.

As we saw in “Chapter Five,” Petra’s mother knows how to work a system to get what she wants, but the Solano family isn’t the only one in her crosshairs in upcoming episodes. One might assume Jane would be a likely target, but it is actually the Villanueva matriarch who she sets in her sights.

“I have an interesting encounter with Magda,” Coll said. “We’re meeting for the first time, and it’s going to be a very fascinating encounter, and the outcome is going to lead as a conflict to the next episode [as to] what she does to me. Or what she does, we don’t know if she does it to me…but it happens after I meet her [so] she’s involved in whatever happens to me, which is not very nice.”

7. Fans won’t want to miss the end of “Chapter Six”!

“The end of episode six will be the moment that I think defines a lot of this season that I think people are going to really, really enjoy,” Baldoni said.

We’ll just let you speculate on what that could mean in the comments below…

In the meantime, check out the full videos for more from the cast!

Gina:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/tLZ_NbuTKHs[/youtube]

Jaime:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/WYqCF9tc5Mg[/youtube]

Justin:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Zt3Zz-biNdY[/youtube]

Andrea:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/qb8gGBtHbPs[/youtube]

JANE THE VIRGIN airs on The CW on Monday nights at 9pm.

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