Patrick Wymore/The CWThere might not be a bigger Britney Spears fangirl than Gina Rodriguez—and she got to live out her Spearsian daydreams when the singer and sometime actress dropped by for a guest role in season two of Jane the Virgin.
"Britney Spears was my pop star. When I was 16 it was Britney, when I was in college it was Britney, and, to be quite honest, it's still Britney," Rodriguez gushes to E! News while discussing CustomInk's Be Good To Each Other anti-bullying campaign.
It's been "a little wild" since finding out the pop star had agreed to a guest appearance on Rodriguez's CW hit, which made the actual experience of filming alongside her super surreal. "Here we are, five episodes in, she comes on set, she's lovely and wonderful and kind and giving and so funny. We got to dance together and I cannot wait to see her in Vegas and to see her show. She had already sold me on her talent, but she really sold me on the wonderful human that she is."
Hold up—dancing? Brit Brit's been back in top form recently, so it'll be exciting to see her bust a move with Jane. Rodriguez won't spoil what kind of dancing happens, just that it does—and that it made her want to head to Las Vegas to see Spears' show immediately. She's hoping to call in the tickets Spears offered up, but it doesn't actually matter if they materialize or not. "To be honest, I'd buy tickets in a heartbeat. I just want to go and support her the way she supported us. And I want to see her back in her element!"
Before Britney drops by the Marbella, though, Jane and her baby daddy, Rafael (Justin Baldoni), will first have to a) discover that their newborn son has been kidnapped and then b) get him back.
Rodriguez promises that there will be "catharsis" to this particular mystery, thanks to Jane being such a "fearless, independent woman. There was no way she was going to sit back and just allow her baby to be missing."
Once that particular problem is solved, Jane will then have to figure out what to do about the fact that she still isn't sure whether she wants to be with Rafael or her ex-fiance, Michael (Brett Dier). "The love triangle is still on in true telenovela fashion—it's still fun, fantastic."
Oh, and there's the fact that her once-estranged parents drunkenly got married in Vegas, something Jane obviously wants but might not be comfortable with. "Jane wants to see her family together, wants to see her parents back in love, but not as a cause of anything else but their own love for each other," Rodriguez says. "She always has her mom's back and she's going to help her get through what she needs to get through the same way her mom does for her."
When she's not filming Jane, Rodriguez is working on her book, I Can and I Will: Tools My Daddy Gave Me, due out in 2016, and speaking out against bullying. She's even designed a T-shirt for the Be Good to Each Other campaign, the proceeds from which will be donated to a bullying prevention charity.
"When you're given the blessing of being able to have this platform to talk to so many people, it is, to me, priceless to be able to put out awareness and conversations about bullying that are affecting so many people—myself included. I'm not void of emotion. I'm not immune to feeling hurt by someone's comments. But I am old enough to understand that that comes from a place of pain. The problem is that my 12-year-old niece isn't."
Jane the Virgin airs Monday nights at 9 p.m. on The CW.