This interview contains minor spoilers for Episode 9 of Season 2 of “The L Word: Generation Q.” In its five years on air, “The L Word” brought lesbian romances, drama and many, many sex scenes to the small screen. (One hundred eleven, to be exact, but who’s counting?) But Jillian Mercado — the 34-year-old actress and model who plays Maribel in the show’s reboot, “Generation Q” — never thought she would be in one of those sex scenes.
Growing up with muscular dystrophy, she rarely saw physically disabled actors on TV at all. A Dominican American Bronx native who attended New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, Mercado began making her name as a model back in 2014, when she landed her first ad campaign with Diesel.