In Boots Riley’s new movie I Love Boosters, Eiza González plays a cashier who moonlights as an expert in dialectical materialism. She dresses like a goth, hits her vape constantly and deep-dives on Reddit. But for González, the most radical thing about the role was acting alongside a group of women for the first time. “It’s always, like, five men and then me,” she says of her career. “I’ve always wondered why I get cast in things like that.”

But González, 36, is working on a theory. She’s found that the business tends to give women two windows: “The first is, ‘We don’t really know who you are’; and then they’re like, ‘This is all you are.’ ”

During her first window, she was a child star. González grew up in Mexico City and got her start at 16 in the children’s telenovela Lola, érase una vez before starring in Nickelodeon’s teen sitcom Sueña conmigo. She moved to Los Angeles in 2013 and toiled through auditions until she finally met casting legend Francine Maisler, who was looking for an actress to play opposite Jon Hamm in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver. “I was competing against a lot of big names. But she fought for me and was like, ‘There’s this random girl out of nowhere from Mexico that I think you should hire.’ “

Baby Driver was her breakout — and the start of her second window, in which she was typecast as the token woman. Not that it was all bad; she had a lot of fun in action flicks alongside the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham and logged three Guy Ritchie films — and counting. But she found ways to construct more of an inner life for her characters whenever possible, starting on Baby Driver. “I had this idea that she has this childlike free spirit, and that came with a fixation with things like lollipops and bubble gum,” she says. “We were about to roll on our last wide shot, and I just asked, ‘Can I try it with bubbles this time?’ ” Edgar was like, ‘They’re plotting a heist, but OK, sure.’ And he let me do it, and then he loved it.”

But she still wanted to be challenged in new ways. A few years ago, when she heard about the Netflix adaptation of the extraterrestrial thriller 3 Body Problem from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, she threw herself at the audition process and was shocked when she landed the role of troubled nanotechnology expert Auggie Salazar. “No one would ever think of me for the role of a physicist, but Dan and Dave saw something in me.”

When she read the script for I Love Boosters — Riley’s surrealist portrait of a group of shoplifters taking aim at an evil fashion mogul — she no longer needed to prove herself. González had a long Zoom meeting with Riley, during which the director, famous for his determined activism, lobbed questions about her stance on political and social issues. “I remember hanging up and being like, ‘I need to be a better citizen,’ ” she says with a laugh. “As a Mexican woman, if I’m driving in my car or something, there are privileges that I don’t have, and I have to be hypervigilant — but I also have what most people don’t, which is the ability to speak up about it.”

This time, it was Riley who was outnumbered on set. In addition to the ensemble cast (Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu and Demi Moore), Boosters had a female director of photography. González describes the Atlanta production as a “sisterhood” that revolved around discussing their shared experiences as women of color in Hollywood. “It was like looking in a mirror,” she says. “It was so interesting to see how everyone relates to the more difficult parts of this business differently.”

Next, González plans to keep the momentum going — she recently wrapped the second season of 3 Body Problem, which delves into the theory that extraterrestrial life exists in abundance throughout the universe. “It’s weighty, but honestly I’m more freaked out by what’s happening in reality,” she says. “I find AI dangerous.” And she’s set to star in the female bodybuilding drama Iron Jane, which she describes as I, Tonya meets Monster meets Requiem for a Dream. González also has been working out with Grant Roberts, the trainer behind Hilary Swank’s transformation for Million Dollar Baby and Sydney Sweeney’s for Christy — an experience she describes as a “rewiring.”

But, she says, she doesn’t want to be all serious, all the time. “I’ve never done a rom-com, and I’m a hopeless romantic and have always wanted to,” she says. “My girlfriends are always pointing out that I’m in these movies with these actors like Jake or Henry, and I never get to kiss them.”

This story appeared in the May 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.