In the year after she wrapped production on Sean Baker’s electric, riotous romp of a film, Tangerine, lead actor Mya Taylor couldn’t find a job.

“I applied for 186 jobs in one month, and I did 26 interviews,” said newcomer Taylor, who plays the transgender sex worker Alexandra with humor, grace, and enviable ease, in an interview with BuzzFeed News. And her skills are multiple — Baker added in the same interview that “besides being a wonderful thespian, [Taylor] knows cars inside and out. But she couldn’t get one job at a car dealership.”

As a transgender woman of color, Taylor faces the same employment discrimination her character, Alexandra, does: Trans people experience unemployment at twice the rate of the general population; trans people of color experience as much as four times the rate. With so many oppressive forces disenfranchising trans people who sit at the intersection of multiple marginalized communities, the visibility at work in Tangerine — which hits theaters today — is all the more extraordinary.

And it also happens to be a really, really, really great film.