- I think I've made some really incredible choices
that weren't just for you, as an audience,
but for me, as a human being,
'cause it helped me grow, as well.
In
playing Gustavo Fring and then Moff Gideon more recently,
and now with this incredible character
of El Presidente Antón Castillo,
I've had the opportunity to explore different parts
of a nefarious bad guy that I haven't before.
- A lot of the projects you enumerated,
you've brought your full self to these projects.
And I'm curious -- What draws you to this kind of work?
- First, you love the character.
Then you start to see the character's faults.
Then you start to figure out how to accept those faults
and work through them and decide whether you want your audience
to see them or not.
Certainly with Antón, there are parts of him that I hate.
The way he treats his son and manipulates his son
into having him think a certain way would not be
what I want to do with my children.
But there are desperate measures that people take
when they're in certain situations
that change how they would normally
in a level-headed way think about things.
There have to be relatable elements
of this character's personality that you want to exemplify
and you feel are good.
- How did that come up in your performance as Antón?
Where were you excavating deeper meaning
as you were reading this script,
as you were working on this performance?
Tell me a bit about that.
- There's a moment, a very tender moment in this game
where Antón is listening to some music
that reminds him of his relationship
before he was a dictator,
of his relationship to his son, his relationship to his wife.
It's very melancholy,
but it's very powerful because in that moment,
it made me think about what I'm unable to give to my boy.
And it reminded me of the hunter-gatherer feeling
that I had as a man when I was going bankrupt with four kids
and, "How am I gonna feed them?"
and, "What is my job?"
You become desperate.
It's that Walter White desperate --
"I'm gonna die. I got to do something."
This related to me as Antón.
No matter how much I wanted to give Diego
that love and all of my heart,
I could never give him the tenderness and time
in the middle of this revolution,
where I got to toughen this kid up.
You must clutch them, or we all go boom.
- When you first read the script for Antón,
did you want any changes made?
What choices did you bring to that role that make it different
from a performance some other actor might have done?
- What made it different was, I tapped into his vulnerability,
his failure in the beginning with his son,
his success to be able to get through to him,
his nobleness and royalty.
I wanted him to be definitively different
than any other character I've played.
I have caught you, mijo.
Now it's time to bring you home.
- Performing as a character who might have real-life analogues,
whether it's political, whether it's not --
Does that impact how you perform that role?
- It's difficult not to be political at this time
and tide in our world.
When we start to hold our visionary feet to the fire,
it's about truth and honesty.
And we haven't had that.
We have to reflect the yearning for truthfulness and honesty
in our political process through our art form.
And as long as our intention is good --
to be entertained, to have fun, to learn,
to see the mirror of our political history
within the game -- I think it's all good.