‘Jane The Virgin’ Q&A: Yael Grobglas On Playing Petra & Anezka

It’s been a big season for “Jane the Virgin’s” Yael Grobglas, who spent the last several months playing not just new mom Petra, but her recently-discovered twin sister, Anezka.

Playing the two roles has meant much more planning, as Yael told AccessHollywood.com when we spoke to her ahead of Monday’s “JTV” Season 2 finale.

“I have to decide in advance exactly what each character is going to do,” Yael explained of how she prepares for her scenes. “[If] I film the Petra side first — I have to know what Anezka is doing; I have to know how to react as Petra. So I have to plan that ahead of time,” she said.

PHOTOS: ‘Jane The Virgin’: Scenes From Season 2, Vol. 2

‘Jane The Virgin’: Scenes From Season 2, Vol. 2

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Yael told Access more about her process for playing both characters, and hinted at what’s to come for the twins.

AccessHollywood.com: Can you believe it that we’re already at the Season 2 finale?
Yael Grobglas: No. I can’t believe we’ve done 44 episodes. That’s 44 hours of pure, ‘Jane the Virgin’ joy.

READ: Justin Baldoni Talks ‘Jane The Virgin’s’ ‘Frozen’ Baby Names, Rafael Meeting His Brother

Access: I know it’s a little back in time for you, but I definitely want to know what your fellow castmates did when you first had to read [Anezka for the first time at a table read]?
Yael: There was a lot of laughter because suddenly I whipped out this accent and everyone was like, ‘What? What is going on?’ It was so funny. So basically, at the table read — I didn’t even think about this before the table read, but there were so many scenes of just me acting with myself and switching between the two characters. So I was doing one line as Petra, one line as Anezka, one line as Petra, one line as Anezka, and it was just this really funny one woman show of those scenes and everybody was just really having a blast.

Access: We found out at the end of [the last] episode that Anezka and Petra’s mom are plotting something together. How much of their plan is going to get revealed before the end of the season? It feels like it’s a bit of a seed that will – it’s probably developing roots and we may not see a full bloom yet.
Yael: Oh, I don’t know. You’ll have to watch the finale and see.

Access: How devastated do you think Petra would be if she found out that her twin sister is secretly working with her mother? That’s probably something that crossed your mind at some point.
Yael: Well, mainly it’s more like… in playing Petra… I kind of lived with her for two years, so I consider her a close friend in a way — like a bizarre friend, but a close friend — so you kind of want to see her have this happy ending, and you want everything to work out for her. And you’re like… ‘Can’t she ever catch a break? Can’t ever anything go right for her? Why is it always going so wrong?’ But then as an actor, it was the opposite because you want to keep getting into these amazing situations that our incredible writers have been tossing at me and these opportunities to get into these situations that you’d never get into in real life, and it’s just been wonderful. So I’m kind of always torn between the two – on one hand, I want everything to work out great, on the other hand, I love these circumstances that she has to deal with.

Access: Do you think if they all of a sudden threw a triplet at you – a third character – you’d be [up] for that?
Yael: That would be amazing.  Eventually, I’ll end up like ‘Orphan Black,’ I’ll have like nine characters. That would be so cool.

READ: ‘Jane The Virgin’ Q&A: Brett Dier

Access:  So how many women are actually working with you [as you play these two characters]? I saw the [photo you put on your Instagram, of Barbie, who films the scenes with you].
Yael: Yes, Barbie is a genius and I couldn’t do any of this without her because she is wonderful. First of all, she’s an actress herself, and second of all, she remembers – sometimes, between filming the Anezka side of a scene and filming the Petra side of the same scene, or like all the scenes of the episode, the Anezka side, and the Petra side, we can have eight days in-between… so Barbie helps me really remember every single thing, every body language, everything and she’s been such a gift to my job this season. She’s been amazing.

Access: At home, are you working in front of a mirror, or do you tape yourself in order to figure out what you’re going to do?
Yael: I try to read it with someone and then have them read one of the characters and then have them read the other one, and kind of build it that way.

Access: So this must have really changed your process in the sense that you have to have a lot more prep time in order to do your job.
Yael: You definitely have to come much more prepared, and it’s been incredible. Our crew is definitely one of the best crews out there and they’ve been wonderful and so helpful, and you know, it’s just been a process of figuring out how to do this altogether and I think everybody’s done such a wonderful job and it’s really made my job so easy.

Access: For sure. That’s so nice.
Yael: Absolutely. And we’re all having a lot of fun. I don’t think there’s been one Aneska scene where I couldn’t feel that people were just trying to not burst out laughing because she’s just so much fun to do. She’s really the complete opposite of Petra.

Access: I’m already hoping for an Anezka/Rogelio scene, just the two of them.
Yael: That would be amazing. That would be great. Well, how about a Petra/Rogelio scene, there haven’t been any of those.

https://youtu.be/-xzIEo2mQXw

Access: I’ll take any of that. … So this week’s episode, Monday’s episode – it looks like there’s going to be a wedding. There are a couple of scenes in the trailer online. We can see Jane’s dress, we can see Petra sitting next to Rafael. Is Petra ready to open up to Raf about her own feelings for him in kind of the way he’s opening up to Jane right before she goes to the altar, which is also in the trailer?
Yael: That’s a good question. I think Petra’s never been one to really hide her feelings from Raf. I think what she told him last time they had a conversation was that she doesn’t want to be with him, as long as he’s still in love with Jane, and I think she’s sticking to that. And that was actually a moment that I was very proud of Petra because I felt that Petra actually began to love herself and to trust herself and to believe in herself, and she wasn’t just relying on other people, and she found she has the talent for running the hotel, and she’s a fantastic business woman and she started to like these traits about herself, so she doesn’t want to be second best, but I think she’s never really hidden it from him – the fact that she’ll always kind of love him, I think. And he is the father of her children, and so now they’re actually family.

“Jane the Virgin” airs Monday at 9/8c on The CW.

— Jolie Lash