Actor and UCR theater professor Kimberly Guerrero is having a moment, as they say in old Hollywood vernacular. The moment started about six years ago, and it’s gathering momentum.
The latest milestone in her acting career may be the pinnacle to date, in the just-premiered “Welcome to Derry” series on HBO Max.
“I’ve worked more in my 50s, and on very high-profile work, then I ever had. It’s been one project after another,” said Guerrero, a professor in the Theatre, Film, and Digital Production. “I’m on a high right now.”
The HBO Max show premiered on Oct. 26 and is a prequel to the famed Stephen King horror-genre novel and movie “IT” and its sequel.
King’s 1986 book is set in the small town of Derry, Maine, and tells of the terrifying entity ("IT") that plagues Derry every 27 years. The book jumps between two timelines, the 1950s and 1980s. The prequel series expands the timeline, starting in the early 1900s.
“This prequel (expands) the IT storytelling canvas and bring fans deeper into the terrifying, mesmerizing town of Derry,” Sarah Aubrey, HBO Max’s head of original content, said in a press release.
Guerrero’s character, “Rose,” first appears in episode two, which will air on Halloween, Oct. 31. Her scenes are set in the early 1960s. Rose is a direct descendent of the tribe that first encountered IT.
“She carries ancestral knowledge of how the entity operates and she — and her tribe — will be key to our understanding of why Derry has become IT’s hunting ground. She is warm and kind on one hand, but a fierce, utterly dedicated warrior/protector on the other. A true matriarch.”
If there are sub-genres of horror, “Welcome to Derry” is on the blood-and-guts end of the spectrum, not the nuanced, suspense end. But Guerrero said the series’ set has been delightful. She credits “IT” and "IT Chapter Two" filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti with keeping things light.
“I honestly can’t imagine doing this level of horror unless you have someone at the helm as kind and fun and adventurous as Andy and Barbara Muschietti,” said Guerrero, who is a member of both The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and The Television Academy.
But the playfulness is not intended to translate to the screen. Any hint of levity dissipates in the first minutes of episode one.
“They created this epic sandbox that always felt utterly safe to play in, to push your own internal—and sometimes physical—limits, to dive in deep to your own darkness and fears and find real, human experience,” Guerrero said. “I happen to believe there are realms of existence we cannot see that are nonetheless real. If you are going knocking on that door, as horror must, you better be ready for what is on the other side.”
Before a few years ago, her most well-known role might well have been as Jerry’s Native American girlfriend on “Seinfeld.” Things began to change in 2019, when she landed a role in the Gloria Steinem biopic “The Glorias.” Guerrero, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and of Salish-Kootenai descent, said the Standing Rock protests of 2016 and 2017 changed the trajectory of her career.
“For decades, Native Americans in film and television were either wildly misrepresented or completely left out. To be honest, I’m not sure which is worse — both realities have wreaked havoc in our communities," Guerrero said. “I think I just found myself swept up in a watershed moment when all of the work we’d been doing for decades as Indigenous screenwriters, producers, actors, directors was suddenly able to rush through an opening to global audiences because of the Standing Rock protests."
In the several years since, she’s has nonstop roles, including in high-profile streaming series such as The English, Reservation Dogs, and Outer Range.
“It’s mind-blowing to realize that after all these years of fighting and praying and hoping, I’m living to see the day when contemporary Native storytellers are taking that narrative back and telling their own stories in their own wonderful, wise, and sometimes wacky ways,” Guerrero said in a 2023 UCR Magazine profile that profiled her upbringing with adoptive parents who were sensitive to connecting Guerrero with her heritage.
It’s gotten to the enviable place where she often doesn’t audition for roles – they are just offered to her.
She’s sure it won’t last. Then again, she also said predicted "there is an 80% chance I’m not going to be in the trailer." She's in the official "Welcome to Derry" trailer's opening sequence.
“I feel really good,” she said. “And when it stops, that’s OK.”
The first season of "Welcome to Derry," which also stars Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Clown, will include eight episodes. It airs Sunday nights through Dec. 14 on HBO Max.
