Leal portrays Mikayla Bell in the television series Cloak & Dagger in Disney’s Freeform. Mikayla is a woman who meets lead character, Tandy (Olivia Holt), in a counseling group for abused women. “That was great. It was an incredible experience,” she recalled. “I didn’t know what to expect but it was the gift that kept on giving.”
“Now that you’ve seen the first two episodes, you need to wait and see what happens,” she hinted.
In addition, Leal portrayed Camila opposite Stella (played by Haley Lu Richardson) in the romantic drama, Five Feet Apart from CBS Films and Lionsgate. “Going into it, I didn’t know it was going to be so big. It has such a following because of Cole Sprouse and it is doing so well at the box office. It was so exciting,” she said, prior to adding that it raises awareness on cystic fibrosis.
Leal listed Joaquin Phoenix and Argentine actor Ricardo Darin as her dream male acting partners. “I would love to do something in Spanish with Ricardo Darin. He is the most famous actor in Argentina,” she said. “That would be so cool to work with Richardo.”
Each day, she is motivated as an actress, simply by putting herself in someone else’s shoes. “Acting is an impossible thing because you memorize the lines and what is supposed to happen, but then you have to pretend that you don’t know any of that and you need to put yourself in the present moment,” she said.
“You have to spend your whole life trying to get better at it. You can’t get complacent with it because acting is not that kind of thing,” she added.
Digital transformation of the entertainment scene
Leal feels that the impact of technology on the entertainment business is a double-edged sword. “First and foremost, it is amazing because there is so much content out there. There is more content now than ever. There are more opportunities in that respect,” she said.
“On the other side of that, there is a lot of content and it is hard to get people to chose. Ultimately, people don’t watch everything since it gets really overwhelming,” she said. “One thing is booking a role but you have no idea if that project is going to be successful. There is so much out there,” she added.
