On the Hulu original series Marvel’s Runaways, Gertrude Yorkes—Gert, for short—has telepathic powers that allow her to control her genetically-engineered pet dinosaur named Old Lace. She also just so happens to be a teen living with anxiety. For actor Ariela Barer, who plays Gert, it’s important to point out that these two qualities are not at odds with one another. In fact, they’re simply two characteristics that make her character strong enough to be a superhero in her own Gert way.
Adapted from the popular Marvel comics with the same name, Runaways follows a group of teenagers as they discover that their parents’ charity, Pride, is actually a front they use to commit ritualistic human sacrifices. For the purple-haired, social justice-championing Gert, this revelation means switching gears from leading a club called “Undermining the Patriarchy” to quite literally trying to figure out how to fight the Man—in this case, it’s a mysterious villain known as Jonah. During the first season, the teens figure out that he’s been the one pulling the strings of Pride. Luckily, the high schoolers also realize they each hold a special power that can combat Jonah’s evil while still trying to figure out what’s his master plan that’s wreaking havoc throughout Los Angeles.
The show’s second season, which premieres on Hulu on December 21, finds the six friends on the run after they’ve been framed for one of the murders committed by their parents. Although the stressful situation away from home affects each character differently, it especially challenges the way Gert lives with her mental illness.
“One of the things I talked to [series creators] Josh [Schwartz] and Stephanie [Savage] about early on with the anxiety plotline was that I wanted to address a way for her to live without her meds for a while, just because for a homeless teenager, it’s not really likely that you would have access to medication,” Ariela tells Teen Vogue. “Health insurance isn’t the most accessible thing to people, and a lot of people have to learn to how to cope without it, and so that was something that I wanted to address and that we explored for a few episodes.”
And as the fiercely feminist and independent Gert grows closer to her boyfriend Chase along with the rest of the group, she must also learn that it’s alright to depend on other people. Needing someone to lean on doesn’t make her weak, it makes her “more of a team player,” as Ariela puts it. When it comes to Gert’s snarky intellect and radical politics, the 21-year-old actor says she wishes she was more like her character in real life. But the truth is, she’s not far off. In November, she tweeted about creating a Bumble and Tinder profile for the sole purpose of asking people if they were registered to vote—a move Gert herself would certainly approve of.
Born and raised in Los Angeles in a Mexican-Jewish household, Ariela took an interest in acting as a young child, but didn’t become serious about learning professionally until she turned 18. She continues to diligently attend classes at Stuart Rogers’ Studios when she’s not working on the show and hopes to continue studying for a long time to come. “I think everyone, no matter how far into their careers, should be in classes,” she notes. “I’m in classes with people with incredibly established careers. It’s inspiring to see that even people late in their careers are constantly growing and want to do better.”
Her own career has been a long time in the making. She played a young Cece on New Girl, landed a guest role on Modern Family, and appeared in several Disney Channel shows before earning rave reviews as Elena’s goth BFF Carmen on One Day At a Time. And although she says nothing prepared her for the way Runaways fans deeply love her character, they connect with the actor on a personal level, too.
Last year, some of Ariela’s tweets about her sexual orientation and bi culture gained some attention on Twitter and Tumblr, which were followed by several articles welcoming her to the LGBTQIA community. She says reactions to her queer identity have helped her realize how significant it is to be that representation for younger audiences.
“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,” she says, referring to the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star and Teen Vogue Summit Speaker who penned a powerful essay about being bisexual earlier this year.
Now Ariela’s taking time to write her own projects, while still staying close to Gert by reading feminist literature such as bell hooks’s Feminist Theory: From Margins to Center and Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me during her time away from set. Though she’s always been interested in writing, it’s been a process for her to feel comfortable taking the leap, which is why she has encouraging words of wisdom for anyone thinking about tackling a creative challenge.
“I would say you have to do it and without ego. I think that’s something that’s held me back because ego doesn’t always look like someone who is obsessed with themselves in like an overconfident way,” she says. “Ego can be being so terrified to embarrass yourself that it stops you from doing things, and that’s something I’ve really had to overcome.”
And she certainly has, since now she’s been busy fighting the forces of evil and saving the world.
Related: Marvel's Runaways’ Lyrica Okano Talks Hulu’s New Series and Diversity for Superheroes
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