Yalitza Aparicio Poses at the Mexico Border For 'W' Magazine

Yalitza Aparicio poses for a shoot conceptualized by Roma director Alfonso Cuaron for one of the covers of W magazine’s Volume 2: Director’s Cut issues.

Here’s what the 25-year-old actress and the director had to share with the mag:

Alfonso on the impact of Yalitza’s Academy Award nomination for best actress: “We create a division every day with the people around us, and Yalitza comes from a place that is easy to put aside and forget. In Mexico and elsewhere, people who look like Yalitza are immediately ­classified and deemed unworthy. Being acknowledged by the Academy has a big impact. It’s another wall. And hopefully that wall has started to fall.”

Alfonso on why he staged the shoot at the Mexico border: “The wall turns people into enemies for no reason. Walls are pointless. Whether there is a physical structure there or not, I’m more concerned with the invisible wall that divides social classes and backgrounds. That’s a barrier we accept every day, without thinking.”

Yalitza on her role as a representative of indigenous people: “I went to school to be a teacher. And Roma can educate people. It can help break the stereotype that skin color determines your destiny.”

For more from Yalitza and Alfonso, visit WMagazine.com.