GOOD COP, BAD COP: Ramon Rodriguez stars in Gang Related on Fox.
Gang Related star Ramon Rodriguez has always overcome adversity. By Luaine Lee
When he was still a pre-teen actor Ramon Rodriguez was fascinated by the street gang in his neighbourhood of New York’s Lower East Side. It would’ve been easy for him to ease into that lifestyle.
“I was raised by the streets,” he says, seated in the dimly lit hallway of a hotel here in Pasadena, California. “I didn’t have a lot of men in my life. My father wasn’t around, so the guys in the neighbourhood were like my brothers and father figures and my mentors. They took me in and they were family.”
Being part of that family was crucial to Rodriguez, 34. And that makes him perfect for his role in Fox’s new police drama, Gang Related, premiering today. Rodriguez plays a cop caught between two worlds. He’s a cop with the Gang Task Force in LA but also retains questionable ties with his old street gang.
“I did bad things on the streets of New York during a very interesting time,” he continues. He refuses to say exactly which “bad things.” “All kinds of bad things,” he says, brushing the air with his hand, “not contributing to society in a positive way.”
But four people intervened in his life that changed it forever. One was his mother. “She’s done such a fantastic job,” he shakes his head. “I always tell her, ‘You did your job.’ It may sound like she wasn’t doing her job — it wasn’t her, it was me. It was me going out and being a young boy. But she did a magnificent job under the circumstances. I don’t know how she did it. She raised four kids, working several jobs, and all of us graduated college, each and every one of us.”
Another influence was a teacher who looked beyond Rodriguez’s delinquent ways and saw something else in him. “I was 12 years old and had a very bad year. I wasn’t going to school, I did so bad I had to go to summer school. At summer school — which I didn’t take serious — this one teacher, Mr MC, read this report I did. We had to write a story about something we knew. I wrote a story — growing up in New York City and people who live in New York know this — I lived with roaches. I wrote a story about this roach named Ricky Roach Chin. So I did visuals and drawings.”
Impressed with his imagination, the teacher arranged for Rodriguez to test for admittance to a special school where he was permitted to exercise it. Another influence was an older youth in the neighbourhood who spotted a talent in Rodriguez for basketball. “I don’t know what made him do it — but he said, ‘Let’s go to the court.’ That was kind of the beginning of a feverish passion I developed for basketball.
“He started drilling me. We would do workouts and drills and I got so affected by it we would call it ‘the fever.’ We’d get up in the middle of the night, we’d shovel snow to go out and be on the court and do drills and work. He gave me this motivation. I was lost. I had no direction. And even though it was a sport — that’s why I love basketball, it was an amazing thing. It was my therapist. It was my outlet. It was a way for me to kind of express myself.”
Basketball, in fact, led to the next surprising twist. “I played basketball in college and had the opportunity to be in this competition where I got to do tricks. I won the competition and then Nike asked me if I’d like to do commercials. I go, ‘Sure.’ It had to do with basketball.”
Rodriguez, who was born in Puerto Rico, found himself travelling and demonstrating basketball tricks with a squad similar to the Harlem Globetrotters, but younger and hipper.
“This gentleman at Nike is the guy who took me from this competition (and put me) in front of the camera on these commercials,” he recalls. “For five years my living was through basketball tricks with Nike. I had a group. I was the director and choreographer of this group. We did all the NBA half-time shows and college shows and commercials.”
Those commercials led to others that had nothing to do with basketball, and an agent who sent him on casting calls. “I did Law & Order, SVU, Rescue Me. Then I got a job on The Wire on HBO. That was the first time I said, ‘You know, I think this is something I not only want to pursue, but to respect and learn the craft a little bit.’”
He found an acting coach who was brutally honest with him, telling him when he was faking and when he was true to the task, and went on to costar in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and Charlie’s Angels.
Rodriguez has high hopes for Gang Related, but is prepared if it doesn’t thrive. “I’ve always been an underdog,” he says. “I’m not supposed to make it. I’m not supposed to be here in a lot of ways. I wasn’t supposed to play college basketball. I was too small, too short, too this or that. So the chances I face here when I audition and don’t get a role, it’s nothing with what I’ve dealt with growing up in a family of six in a studio apartment. This is a breeze.” — MCT
Batman’s new costume returns to classic colours
Ben Affleck’s Batsuit in the forthcoming Batman vs Superman movie could see the caped crusader returning to a familiar blue, grey and yellow colour scheme, according to Kevin Smith. Speaking on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast, the director and Affleck confidante said fans should not read too much into a recently released monochrome shot of the actor in costume. Having seen a colour version, he said the new Batsuit more closely resembled the outfit worn by the superhero in Frank Miller’s iconic The Dark Knight Returns comic book, which is blue, yellow and grey.
“If you want to see what this suit looks like, you just go to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, go to the third book, Hunt the Dark Knight, said Smith. “It’s the exact outfit he’s wearing.”
Batman has regularly been depicted in a blue, yellow (usually his belt) and grey colour scheme in the comics. But Tim Burton plumped for a simple black and yellow combination for his 1989 film Batman, starring Michael Keaton as the caped crusader. Joel Schumacher opted for a similar all-black look for 1995’s Batman Forever, starring Val Kilmer, but dropped the yellow belt. George Clooney then lost the yellow from his Batman emblem altogether for 1997’s ill-fated Batman and Robin, but Christopher Nolan restored a gold belt for his trilogy of films starring Christian Bale.
Affleck’s wife, actor Jennifer Garner, revealed in January that the new Batsuit was a “total reinvention”. Smith has previously said the outfit is like nothing seen on film.
Directed by Zack Snyder, Batman vs Superman (the film remains untitled) is a sequel to last year’s Superman reboot Man of Steel. It was originally scheduled for a 2015 release but has now been put back by Warner Bros to May 2016. Britain’s Henry Cavill will reprise his role as Superman/Clark Kent, while newcomer Gal Gadot plays Wonder Woman and Jesse Eisenberg portrays villain Lex Luthor. Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane are set to return as Lois Lane, Perry White and Martha Kent respectively. — Guardian News & Media