Contreras has a few tips for those occasions when life calls for theatrical tears. Prepare for a cry as you would for an athletic event: Stay hydrated, be calm, own the right equipment. For starters, Contreras drinks two liters of water an hour or two before filming particularly wet scenes. Being relaxed is important, because “there is no way to cry or show emotion if you are tense,” says Contreras, who uses soothing chamomile eye drops between shoots. “Always use waterproof mascara,” she adds. “Otherwise your face gets messy, and you can’t see, and you look like the Joker on ‘Batman.’ ” Deploy the right type of tears for the circumstance, not just the explosive, red-faced variety. “In telenovelas you have this one beautiful tear that comes out,” Contreras says. “To cry like that, you have to really hold it together and control your energy.”

After a decade in telenovelas, Contreras weeps almost effortlessly (it gets easier with practice). But she stumbled as a young student at the drama school run by the Mexican television network Televisa. “In acting class they would say, ‘You are not crying tears, so you are not doing deep acting.’ ” The directors suggested a shortcut. “They tell you to think about yourself as a child who has no one in the world who cares for you,” Contreras says. “It is about connecting with that part of yourself that feels vulnerable and abandoned. It works, even if you had a happy childhood.”