Rosie Perez defies time on new Apple TV drama

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She must be doing the right skincare thing.

In Rosie Perez’s new Apple TV crime thriller “Now and Then,” the 57-year-old actress plays a detective in the present day — and her 20-years-younger self in flashbacks.

She was initially taken aback when director Gideon Raff told her she’d be playing the younger version of her character. 

“I go, ‘Shut up!’ and started laughing,” said Perez, who was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “And said, ‘You know that I’m over 50?’ And he goes, ‘But you could pull it off.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t have any fillers yet and I’m not gonna get any, so no.’”

The majority of the cast had younger actors play them in the scenes from the past, but Raff — who helmed “Homeland” — was confident Perez could pass for two decades younger.

“I couldn’t believe that we pulled it off, but we pulled it off,” she said.

In the eight-episode series, Perez stars as Flora, a detective who suspects foul play in an accident — a role she’s “super proud of.”

The show has an all-Hispanic leading cast and is in both English and Spanish. “I don’t speak real, fluent Spanish. I speak Nuyorican Spanish,” she said. To assist her with the language, Perez — who moved to Bushwick as a kid and now lives in Clinton Hill — had her sister, Carmen, on set. 

“She was there in Spain with me, helping me … it was such a challenge this role and I loved every minute of it,” she said.

While she was taping “Now and Then” in Miami and Spain, she was also filming Season 2 of “The Flight Attendant” in New York, Los Angeles and Iceland, so spent a lot of her time in the air.

Her go-to skincare plane product is an oxygen spray from Skin by Mamie that her facialist recommended — which could be one of the secrets to her youthful looks.

“The poor person sitting next to me. And I always have to explain because I’m spritzing myself at least three to four times during the flight,” she said.

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