A suite of emotions swept over Paulina Reyes: awe, disbelief, gratitude.
She had just ended a Zoom call with director Ross Boothe, who had asked her to join the cast of his upcoming independent feature film “Brotherhood: A Cinematic Musical.” The movie centers around two next-door neighbors and their families: Jon, a white U.S. citizen, and Fabián, a Mexican immigrant who has applied for asylum.
Reyes has been a background actor in feature films and has served as the lead in short films, but this is the first time that Reyes, a 21-year-old musical theater senior at Northeastern University – New York City, will play one of the leads in a feature film. It premieres in New York on Thursday, Oct. 1 and opens in select theaters on Oct. 9.
Without her education and the connections she’s made over the past three years, “none of this would have been possible,” she said. “I don’t think I would have felt as prepared.”
When Reyes first read the Instagram casting call notice that her mother sent her, she instantly knew she would be right for the role.
“Oh my God, that’s me,” the young Latina recalled blurting out. She is Mexican-American and was struck by how much she had in common with the character of Fabián’s daughter, Sofia.
Reyes’s mother emigrated from Monterrey when she was 15 and her father grew up living between the border cities of Matamoros, Mexico and Brownsville, Texas. Growing up in a household in San Antonio, Texas, where Mexican and American cultures combine, she’s familiar with the practice of “code switching” – changing language and behavior to fit in with a particular group.
Reyes mused how when with friends, the character Sofia feels like she’s “too Mexican” and when she’s at home “too American.”
“She feels like she’s never one thing,” Reyes said. “I can definitely relate to that my whole life.”
Two weeks after she was hired for the role in the middle of her 2026 spring semester, Reyes boarded a plane to Salt Lake City, Utah. The filming took place over five weeks. That experience, which melded her love of musical theater with her affinity for film, changed her perspective, she said.
From a young age, Reyes had had a “New York or nowhere” attitude. Today, she’s keen to widen her horizons, accepting opportunities wherever they might arise – whether that’s the burgeoning film scene in Austin, Texas or the open seas as a cruise ship performer.
“I don’t feel like I have to stay in one place. I want to see where it goes. I want to keep auditioning and do it all,” said Reyes, who as a youngster loved the Disney Channel TV show “Hannah Montana” and the movie series “High School Musical,” and would take any opportunity to burst into song, act in school plays or perform community theater.
Her mother, Tatiana Csitkovits, said she was filled with pride watching her daughter chase a dream that Csitkovits once had for herself.
“We’re very happy with how much she’s learned. There’s always an opportunity for you to keep on getting better and better and better,” the mother said. “Every time that she comes home or we get to see her (in New York) on a show or something, we see how much she’s grown as an actress, as a singer, as a dancer.”
Reyes has used her classes to hone her craft, learning everything from finding a suitable audition song to how to develop a character from scratch.
When practicing to become the character Sofia, she incorporated her own experiences in addition to those of her mother and aunt, the latter who immigrated to the U.S. at age five.
Through this character, she said she wanted to honor and truthfully depict the immigrant experience.
In a class called “Scene into Song,” taught by then-assistant professor Michael Mendez, Reyes and her classmates learned about how to connect spoken dialogue with song, and worked to understand characters, their relationships and their motives.
“I think that class set her up for this movie because she spent so much time going through scene work and music,” Mendez said. “And now she got to do it at the highest level.”
He said getting to have this professional experience and then come back to school to learn more presented an enormous opportunity to grow. And he offered Reyes some advice before her audition.
“Be yourself and trust in yourself,” he told her. “It’s your job to take this character and make it your own.”
Reyes said she’s looking forward to sharing the movie’s message with audiences, who can pre-order tickets or request the film be shown in a theater near them.
It’s just about loving your neighbor, she said. “It doesn’t matter who the person is. We’re all the same. We all bleed red,” she added.
