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Partly Cloudy Rockville Centre native turns hit song into spooky parody
It only took one week for Rockville Centre native Gina Naomi Baez to concoct a spooky, parody music video for singer-rapper Lizzo’s Billboard No. 1 hit “Truth Hurts.”
Baez was sitting on the couch in her apartment in Hewlett one night, taking respite from her frenzied routine of acting auditions and rehearsals, humming the popular tune in her head. She suddenly had the idea to change the song’s lyrics to reflect the witchy tale of the 1993 Disney film, “Hocus Pocus,” one of her favorites.
She wrote the new lyrics, rounded up two fellow actor friends to play the other Sanderson sisters and created the track. Then, the three women spent a single day filming in Manhattan. Baez edited the footage and published the video on YouTube and Facebook on Sept. 27.
“The care and creativity [Baez] brings to her work is unlike many other artists I’ve met,” said Mary Baron, a Manhattan-based actress who played Sarah Sanderson in the video. “She’s always grinding, always doing something new.
“When she came to me with this, I was like, ‘Why are we doing a Halloween thing so early?’ and she said ‘No, we need to get it out quickly!’” Baron continued. “I’m just amazed at the amount of thoughtfulness she has producing something, being in it and seeing it through.”
Now, just in time for Halloween, the video has been featured on Fox 5 Morning News, Entertainment Weekly and culture websites such as Pop Sugar and Alternative Press. Lizzo and Bette Midler, who played Winifred Sanderson in “Hocus Pocus,” posted a non-edited video of the women rehearsing, gaining the video even more attention over social media. It has about 100,000 views on YouTube and more than 1 million on Facebook.
“Bette Midler has always been an idol of mine,” Baez said. “I remember loving Hocus Pocus and First Wives Club growing up and going with my mom to her live concert when I was in high school. It was an honor to get the seal of approval from the original Winifred Sanderson herself.”
Making videos is nothing new to Baez. Her YouTube channel has dozens of videos of her singing and experimenting with different tracks. She creates these all while chasing her dream of performing on Broadway.
So far, Baez’s acting career has taken her to perform in off-Broadway shows, such as the one she’s rehearsing now, “Women on Fire,” with Royal Family Productions in Manhattan. She also played a recurring role in Spike Lee’s Netflix series “She’s Gotta Have It.”
Baez caught the theater bug and was involved in community productions from a young age. “She was singing and dancing since she was three,” said her mother, Virgina Baez, who still lives in Rockville Centre.
At 12 years old, Baez was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It was September of 2001, and she remembers her diagnosis happening around the same time of the Sept. 11. terrorist attacks.
Baez received chemotherapy throughout her entire eighth grade school year at South Side Middle School and into the summer of 2002. Although she could not attend school many days, advisors allowed her to participate in drama club that year and attend rehearsals for “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” when she was feeling well enough.
She was the lead in the show. By October of 2002, Baez was cancer-free, and “the only thing that helped me through it was that they allowed me to be in the musical that year,” she said.
“I realized that I not only had a love for theater,” she added, “but I also saw how impactful it could be and how much the arts can make a difference to a community, to kids, people and the world.”
That experience led her to create a non-profit performing arts group called Kids Performing Who Kare when she was 13. The first show was in the John A. Anderson Recreation Center’s auditorium in 2002. Each year, young performers from across Long Island came and auditioned for the shows, and each one raised money for the NYU Winthrop Cancer Center for Kids, where Baez was treated.
“It blossomed more and more each year,” Virginia said. “It was a lot of hard work, and it was the best thing that happened to her.”
Baez continued with the group even as she was in South Side High School’s musicals in her freshman and sophomore years, and then taking vocal and theater classes in Manhattan.
She attended college at Pace University, earning a degree in musical theater. She was living in the city and eventually moved to Hewlett six years ago. Now, she creates YouTube videos as a way to showcase her talents in a freeform space during her downtime.
“Every day is different,” she said. “Some days I’m in the city and doing four auditions, sometimes I have nothing to do, and that’s when my brain gets creative.
“You never know if tomorrow, you’ll get the audition that will change your life,” she continued. “It can be hard at times. Sometimes you don’t know what’s next, but there’s nothing else I would rather be doing. It’s just really important to do something you love and makes you happy — because you never know. Since I’ve gone through cancer, I know life is too short not to follow your dreams and do what you love.”
“I’m amazingly proud of her,” her mother said. “I root for her every time she goes in to audition for shows. And I’m happy for her health.”
