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If Netflix is one giant, gaudy high school, then On My Block is its freshman class. Released on March 16, the coming-0f-age dramedy follows a clique of high schoolers as they clamber over early teenage struggles like getting your own room, dressing for the school dance, and finding the right place to masturbate. The show is complex, but it's also not — much like adolescence itself. And, like much of Netflix's original content, the show is cast impeccably. Fresh from the world of the Normals, the young actors in On My Block are exuberant, adorable, and brutally talented. Diego Tinoco, who plays Cesar on the show, told Refinery29 at a press event for the show that before being cast, he worked as a Postmates courier. Others, like Jessica Marie Garcia, who plays Jasmine, have more credits to their name.
On My Block feels personal, though, for both the viewers and the actors themselves. The show is Freaks and Geeks minus the Apatowian whiteness — it should be an iconoclast, but Netflix's deluge of content, it runs the risk of being buried under the Next Next Big Thing. The On My Block cast is working overtime to sell the show on Twitter. (One cast member has been tweeting at Chance The Rapper, begging him to watch it.) Ideally, On My Block will be the catapult that makes the cast — most of whom hover around age 20 — the next class of Netflix talent.
Ahead, meet the cast members — and their corresponding characters — of the Netflix series On My Block.
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