It feels like just a matter of time before we all know Ariela Barer. She might only be 26, but the Latina-Jewish actor has already been on numerous TV shows and films, and even co-wrote and co-produced the feature “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” in 2022. Now, their latest project has been taking out post-apocalyptic zombies and seeking revenge in the second season of “The Last of Us.”
Here are 18 things to know about them.
1. Ariela Barer was born on Oct. 14, 1998 in Los Angeles.
2. She’s a Libra! (But, according to her, her rising sign, Scorpio, is more present in her personality.)
3. “Both my parents were born in Mexico. They’re also both Jewish. We’re pretty much from everywhere, in all honesty,” Ariela has said of her background.
4. Their older sister is actress and writer Libe Barer. “She is a lot of what inspired me to pursue acting and now as adults we collaborate creatively all the time,” Ariela said in a 2021 interview.
5. She started acting around the age of 4 in kids’ theater. While she started acting professionally at 9, Ariela says that her parents made sure she prioritized her education.
6. Some of their earliest roles include roles on “Yo Gabba Gabba!,” “ER,” “New Girl” and “Modern Family.” On “New Girl” she played young Cece.
7. She considers “One Day at a Time” on Netflix to be her big break. “It’s what got me every major job I had for the next couple of years,” she explained. “It also just shaped the way I interact with the art form and collaborate on set.”
8. Music is important to her! Her dad is a classical composer and she grew up playing piano, guitar, bass, drums, ukulele and also briefly played the cello. In high school, she was in an alternative punk, feminist band called The Love-Inns.
9. Ariela is queer! “I think just existing and taking up public spaces when you have any identity other than, like, cis white male, is powerful in itself. I know for me, seeing someone like Stephanie Beatriz is really inspiring just because she exists,” Ariela told Teen Vogue.
10. On the Marvel TV show “Runaways,” Ariela played Jewish superhero Gertrude “Gert” Yorkes.
“I looked up the character before going in for the screen test and got so excited,” Ariela told Remezcla. “She is someone I relate to completely. She’s exactly who I was when I was 16. I felt immediately connected to the character and was able to let all my insecurities go out the window.”
11. Ariela starred alongside their sister in the 2021 short film “Disfluency.” In it, they reversed their real-life roles with Ariela playing the older sister and Libe playing the little sister. “I’m such a little sister,” Ariela said in an interview. “I just got through life because Libe did it first.”
12. Ariela collaborated with director Daniel Goldhaber and producer Jordan Sjol on the movie “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” an eco-thriller which is lightly inspired by the Andreas Malm book of the same name.
“It was at a time in lockdown before vaccines that Danny and Jordan and I were all just hanging out a lot. We were all very frustrated with our careers just because that was such a dead zone in the industry at the time,” Ariela told The Cut. “But also it felt like all these movements in the world kept popping up and getting squashed. So we just felt so powerless and helpless, and Jordan had always had this idea of adapting a piece of academic text into a movie.”
13. Ariela and their co-collaborators consulted a real bomb expert during the filmmaking process. However, they decided to leave out a few key steps of the bomb-making process out of the movie.
14. In the film, Ariela plays Xochitl, the ring leader of an activist group trying to blow up an oil pipeline.
“I wasn’t originally writing Xochitl for me to play her, but she was always a very personal character, and she kind of represented my personal disillusionment with systems of power and institutions that I’d once believed in,” Ariela explained in an interview. “I once believed that I could change the system from inside. I think when I was a kid, I would tell people I wanted to be, like, an actor-singer-dancer-scientist-politician, you know. I volunteered for Obama in fifth grade.”
Please enjoy these behind-the-scenes photos from “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.”
15. Before getting cast in the show, Ariela tried to play some of the video game “The Last of Us.” Listen to them talk about that experience with The Hollywood reporter:
16. Ariela says she isn’t cut out for the conditions of “The Last of Us.”
“Honestly I don’t think I am built for surviving an apocalypse… I’d just lay down to die and let people eat my flesh,” she told Wonderland Magazine.
17. They’re slated to star in the Jay Duplass movie “See You When I See You,” alongside Kaitlyn Dever, David Duchovny, Lucy Boynton and more.
18. Plus, Ariela has an idea of who she could play in a biopic. (Swipe through the carousel for the answer…)
