Keyla Monterroso Mejia, who plays the absurdly hilarious Maria Sofia Estrada on Curb Your Enthusiasm, starts our interview with a disclaimer. Her Christmas tree is still up, very visible in the background of her Zoom window, even though it’s late January. “My birthday is February 26 and that’s my cutoff,” she says. “That’s when I’m like, ‘Okay, it’s time to go.’ But it’s still Christmas in my house. I know, it’s a little crazy.”

It’s charming and goofy and exactly what you might expect from the 25-year-old (soon to be 26-year-old), who has broken out playing overly confident characters like Maria Sofia, a wannabe actress who has a knack for making each word that comes out of her mouth upsettingly sexual. Larry (Larry David, of course) is blackmailed into casting her in his sitcom, Young Larry, as a Jewish girl, despite the fact that she can’t pronounce the word bubbe.

It seems like a recipe for disaster. But in the premiere episode of Curb’s final season, we learn the rest of the world loves Maria Sofia as much as we do. Young Larry has turned her into a star who appears on magazine covers and the talk show circuit. She also struts around with a corgi named Pachuca, who ends up meddling in Larry’s business. (Mejia’s a big fan of her canine companion: “Pachuca’s a star.”)

When Mejia learned that Maria Sofia’s celebrity would rise, she was “screaming,” she says. “I was like, I get to be Maria Sofia again, but I get to be her in a situation where she’s rich and she’s famous and people love her. I just thought that’s so much fun.”

Maria Sofia’s rise is a bit of life imitating art for Mejia—who, we should be clear, is an extremely talented actor in real life. Raised in Southern California, Mejia first got the acting bug when her parents took her to see Shark Tale, which she calls an “iconic, great movie.” “I remember being in the theater after that movie and having so many feelings,” she says. “It was this wonderful experience. And I thought like, I want to do this”—i.e., make movies, not be an animated shark. Mejia got the opportunity to start pursuing her dream when she was admitted to a performing arts school in Pomona.

Still, before Curb came along, she was having trouble even getting seen for tiny roles. Mejia wasn’t super familiar with the show when her manager set her up to audition for the legendary comedy casting director Allison Jones, the woman who put stars like Seth Rogen on the map. “Curb Your Enthusiasm is on cable,” Mejia says. “I didn’t have cable growing up, and even if I did, I don’t think I would have been allowed to watch it.”

Mejia didn’t think she was going to book the show; her entire goal was just to make a good impression on Jones. Interpreting the description that Maria Sofia was a “really bad actress,” she decided to “do something sexy and weird.” “It’s insane that I thought this was an okay option,” she says. When she got the opportunity to read opposite David on Zoom, she took it even further: She pretended to make a TikTok to the song “My Neck, My Back.”

“I blacked out,” she says. “I just remember hearing people laugh.”

Getting a chuckle out of David and the other members of the Curb crew is a sort of high. “I feel like it makes you a monster,” Mejia says, with an almost sultry edge. “You become so addicted.”

This season has given Mejia opportunities to wring even more laughs out of David. Now that Maria Sofia is universally beloved by those who watched the show-within-a-show Young Larry, her out-of-control confidence has the support of adoring fans. “Before, I was crazy and delusional and living in my own world,” Mejia says. “But I’m telling you—now I’m crazy, delusional, rich, and famous, which is really fun to play.”

Just as Young Larry opened doors for Maria Sofia, Curb has opened doors for Mejia, who was cast in Abbott Elementary thanks to the performance. She played teacher’s aide Ashley, who has some of Maria Sofia’s lack of self-awareness. Mejia was shocked when, during a conversation with creator Quinta Brunson, she was offered the role without having to audition.

Coming back for Curb’s final season allowed her to express her thanks to everyone on the show in person. So how does Larry David take that level of effusive gratitude? “I’m not going to lie,” she says. “I didn’t want to be too in his face. I wasn’t like, ‘Larry,’ crying, ‘thank you so much.’ Like no. I don’t think I was really making eye contact. I was like, ‘You really changed my life, thank you so, so much.’ And he was just like, ‘Oh, yeah!’”

She pauses before emphatically saying, “He’s so kind.” Those aren’t the words you’re most used to hearing when it comes to Larry David. But when Mejia says them, you believe it.