To see brown bodies in this environment was exciting to me…Rural upstate New York could be anywhere in middle America…The parents being from Brooklyn, and Pop having Puerto Rican heritage, and the mom being white, makes it a quintessential American story.
Television is art by committee…I’m lucky to have worked on some really interesting shows, but in film, you’re there to fulfill the director’s vision. If you get to work with great directors, you become a vehicle for that work.
Richie, when all is said and done, is a romantic lead. There’s not a lot of romantic leads out there for Latino actors, and it allowed the industry to sort of see me as an everyman…
I never saw [Paps] as a bad guy, that’s the kind of work that I’m drawn to, stuff that’s not black or white but sits in a grey zone, where you’re not sure how to feel about things. I think that’s life.