Entertainment
SDCC 2026 Proved That We Need More Panels Like This at Comic-Con
Every single Collider Ladies Night interview feels like a privilege and joy to conduct. But, after over a decade of attending San Diego Comic-Con and itching to see more stage time to be dedicated to highlighting powerhouse women in film and television, it’s become the ultimate treat to contribute to moving the needle in that respect by bringing a live edition of the show to one of the event’s biggest stages.
This year I had the honor of sharing the Indigo Ballroom stage with Poorna Jagannathan from Lanterns, Coyote vs. Acme’s Lana Condor, Aimee Garcia from The Walking Dead: Dead City, and Silo star Jessica Henwick. In addition to teasing their respective new projects, each offered some behind the scenes insight into their own unique journey in this industry thus far, including major career pivots, experiencing overnight mega-fame, and more. As is the hope with all Collider Ladies Night conversations, their stories underscore the fact that there are endless ways to hone your craft and find success as an artist.
How Aimee Garcia Learned to “Not Be Defined By What You See”
“If the job doesn’t exist that you want to be, just create it yourself.”
Garcia had top-tier inspiring forces in her corner from the start, her parents.
“My parents came from very humble beginnings in Mexico and Puerto Rico, and they became what they never saw.” Garcia continued, “My mom became the first Latina to graduate Northwestern’s dental school, and was one of only two women in the whole Northwestern dental program.” She added, “My dad became an architect despite never having seen or met an architect in Puerto Rico.”
They were prime examples of not limiting yourself to what you see, and Garcia took that with her to Dexter, and also to her work as a comic writer. “It really inspired me to become a forensic scientist on Dexter. I had never seen a forensic scientist on TV before who was Latina, but because my parents just paved their own way, that really influenced me.” She added:
“I started writing comics, and we wrote the sequel to 47 Ronin, and we were like, ‘Well, why can’t females be samurai?’ And now, because of what A.J. [Mendez] and I wrote, I think very much inspired by my parents to create the change you want to see, there’s female samurais whipping around katanas. That really showed me that if the story doesn’t exist that you want to tell, or if the job doesn’t exist that you want to be, just create it yourself. Create the change you want to see.”
How Lana Condor Learned How to Handle “Overnight Success”
“If you don’t have the right tools and practices in place for your mental health or your physical health during an extreme time of change, it can rock you.”
While Garcia emphasized the importance of having early sources of inspiration in your orbit, Condor’s story highlighted the value of having a strong support system later on in one’s career.
Condor made her feature film debut with a Marvel movie, X-Men: Apocalypse. She had a taste of what it was like to be part of a major studio blockbuster. However, nothing could have prepared her for the monumental success of the Netflix hit To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.
While the first To All the Boys movie was distributed by Netflix, it was made independently. Condor explained, “We made it as an indie, so I honestly didn’t even know if it was going to be seen by anyone.” Ultimately, the movie was seen by enough people to spark a hugely successful franchise and to send Condor’s star soaring in a dreamlike fashion, and that meant she’d have to adapt to getting recognized.
She explained, “Ever since I was a kid, when I would go to the grocery store, I would be a little bit nervous to run into one of my classmates if I wasn’t prepared to.” When you’re the star of a very popular Netflix movie, unexpected grocery store encounters are almost inevitable. Condor continued, “That’s not something that I thought about when it came to my career, and so that’s something that I had to work through and, I guess, open my own heart to people and trust that people have good intentions when they approach you.”
Condor stressed that she discovered she was lucky enough to be surrounded by “incredibly kind” supporters, but it’s still a rather significant shift, and it’s a shift that demands one have certain tools at their fingertips. She continued:
“I think, just naturally, the transition was difficult for me. I’m so blessed and I’m so grateful for that time, but I also think that there’s something to be said about if you don’t have the right tools and practices in place for your mental health or your physical health during an extreme time of change, it can rock you, and I definitely was rocked because I was super young. I didn’t have any of the healing modalities that I have now to take on a responsibility of being in the public eye, which is something that I never thought I would have. So, I won’t lie to you, it was very challenging.”
Now that Condor is firmly on the other side of such a significant change, she’s “so grateful and so happy,” and also well aware of the importance of leaning on one’s community. She laughed and said,
“My husband, I always joke, but it’s not a joke, I always say, if it wasn’t for him, I would be butt-up in a ditch right now. Truly, my husband, he’s incredible. My team, my friends, my family. And I’m sure that you guys all feel the same way, in this industry, in my opinion, we are nothing without our community, without our people. We can’t do it alone. I’ve tried and I failed. So, yeah, I’ve leaned on my people, and I think we all do, and it’s been a really incredible journey, and I’m very grateful for every moment.”
How Jessica Henwick Learned to Celebrate Her Wins
And the recent project that finally made her believe she’s a good actor.
Support from a community is of the utmost importance, but so is being kind to yourself and taking a moment to celebrate your own wins. During her recent in-studio Collider Ladies Night interview for the release of Vladimir and How to Make a Killing, Henwick mentioned how she trained herself to lower expectations. “You always minimize to save yourself.” But, that mentality changed recently. She mentioned, “It’s taken my whole career to get over that and celebrate the wins.” How exactly did she pull that off? She laughed and proclaimed, “Therapy.” Henwick continued:
“I’m Chinese and English, two very reserved, like, swallow-your-success-type cultures, and I think that, interestingly, it’s got me to where I am because I was never content and I was using that to push myself, like, ‘You’re not good enough. You can be better. You can do more.’ But there comes a point where it is diminishing returns to keep beating yourself up, and there’s nothing wrong with celebrating how far you’ve come and taking a second to smell the roses.”
One of the first times she took that second to “smell the roses?” On the set of Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel.
“It’s one of the projects that I’m most proud of. Getting to work opposite Julia Garner, I came into it going, ‘Oh god, she’s just going to be acting circles around me. She’s so talented.’ And she did. [Laughs] No! I remember the first day on set when I started to be like, ‘Okay, I can hold my own. That chemistry is happening here. It’s not just her acting at me and me receiving. I’m able to be a part of the conversation.’ And, yeah, it’s really funny because I’ve been doing this for, like, 15 years, and that was probably one of the first times when I felt, ‘I think I might be good at this. I think I might be okay at acting.’”
How Poorna Jagannathan Went from Advertising Ace to DC Star
“Some times have been rough and some times have been slow, but I’ve never regretted the decision.”
In Jagannathan’s case, that faith in herself was essential because she opted to take a significant leap when making the full-time commitment to acting.
Jagannathan had actually built a successful career in a completely different lane. She spent two decades working in advertising. While one might suspect making the shift from a stable job to something notorious for being an extremely risky career to pursue, Jagannathan never doubted leaving advertising in the rearview for her primary passion. “I’ve never, ever questioned my decision.” She continued:
“I came to acting really late. I started when I was 35 or something, but I was always in weekend adult acting classes, and those classes felt so radically different from the rest of my life. Eight hours would just go like this, you know? And 12 hours at work, the clock just apparently never moved its hand. So, there was a life force that I felt with acting that I never felt in my other job. Some times have been rough and some times have been slow, but I’ve never regretted the decision.”
While Jagannathan’s career compass never wavered, crystallizing her primary goal for her work as an actor and how to achieve that is taking time, but she’s putting in the work to do it. “I think never have I ever really solidified my vision for my career, which is really to tell our stories, very particular South Asian stories to the world and not be pigeonholed and not be stereotyped, and fight for more diversity in film and TV.”
Jagannathan then turned to the other panelists and emphasized something that made Collider Ladies Night Live a standout panel of SDCC 2026, and beyond. “This panel is an anomaly in the business. When I saw all the names of these amazing women and their accomplishments, I’m usually the only one on panels like this. So, it’s really been my mission, especially against this current backdrop, just to keep telling our stories.”
Eager to see the SDCC 2026 Collider Ladies Night Live panel in full? You can do just that in the video at the top of this article.
- Release Date
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August 16, 2026
- Network
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HBO
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