Gabriel Luna and Alfred Molina Give You a Behind-the-Scenes Look at Robert Rodriguez's New Series, "Matador"

Image via Complex Original

Every other little kid grows up with the hopes of becoming a professional athlete. However, as these children grow older and more cynical about the ways of the world, that pipe dream passes in favor of a stable nine-to-five. Tony "Matador" Bravo, played by breakout star Gabriel Luna, is a testament to that. Until he gets a second chance at living out his boyhood fantasies: an open try-out for MLS team, the L.A. Riot, lands him in the spotlight as the new star player. The catch? The C.I.A. got him there, only to buddy up to the team's head honcho, Andres Galan, thought to be an international crime lord.

What came first for Bravo, the CIA, or the soccer?
In my life, the soccer came first. It was a childhood dream of mine to be a soccer player and my backstory is that of a guy who was a strong athlete and had many opportunities athletically in terms of going to school for the sport, but he chose to reject those opportunities in favor of helping his family financially. So I went into law enforcement and then through a series of fortunate events, I’m given the opportunity to live out that dream.

Do you play soccer in real life?
I played American football and basketball when I was in school. I started playing fútbol, true fútbol, in college with my friends, recreationally, and then a couple indoor leagues.

How did you get involved with the show?
I just auditioned for it like everybody else. It was pitched as the Latino James Bond, and I was like, "Wow this is great, I can do that." I just wanted the opportunity knowing that Robert Rodriguez was involved and having been born in Austin, Texas. Robert employs so many people back home; he’s such a titan of a figure there.

The representation I was with at the time didn’t really have the weight to throw around and a bunch of life events happened—I lost some family and I had to go back to Austin. I came back and, thank God, they were still looking. I finally took some meetings with new agents because I fired my old agent and the people they landed me with on one of my first meetings mentioned this project. 

How long had you been acting before you landed this show?
I’ve been an actor now since freshman year of college, so it’s 11 or 12 years.

Do you think that the Texas background gave you an edge?
A bit. When the producers were watching the screen test, Robert also showed his siblings the clips, because he really respects their opinion. There was a consensus that I was the guy and I think it helped a little bit that they were familiar with my work and where I came from.

How would you describe your character’s relationship to Galan?
It starts out with Tony having admiration for Galan, a man who’s come from the same neighborhood as him and has built himself up to be a billionaire. And then it transforms from there—I start to get the information about what Galan's involved in and he becomes my nemesis very quickly. But at the same time, my job is to nestle up into his organization, get as close as I can, and the closer I get the more he begins to take a shine to me, the more I begin to respect him for what he’s doing, even though he can be a despicable human. Then it becomes almost a paternal feeling.

Did a lot of soccer training go into preproduction?
I put on, like, 10 pounds of muscle in about two-and-a-half-weeks; I started doing a lot of agility training. Unfortunately, I sustained a small foot injury that put a hiccup in my training, but I’ve been training throughout production on my own. I'd work with soccer coordinators at Game Changing Films and have one or two combat training sessions with my stunt double, who's a wushu master. But this job is usually a wire-to-wire, 15-hour-day kind of thing, so you gotta squeeze it in when you can.

Since this show is coming out right after the World Cup, who have you been rooting for?
Mexico. They’ve been playing really strong. They’re a tournament team. They didn’t do well in qualifying but they came to Brazil with the intention of competing for the Cup. 

As Matador, is there a professional player that you’re styling your character after?
My feeling is that I’m a Carlos Tevez kind of player. Carlos Tevez is a striker for Argentina and he’s just a dog, you know? He’s really tough and, at the same time, he’s a scoring threat, and my character in the show right now is a bit of a goon. People think I’m a violent person who enforces on the field, but I want to play the game beautifully, I want to play it the way my father wanted me to play it. Tevez has the nice balance of both, of being just a really tough dude but also playing the game very beautifully.

Do not mess with Andres Galan. Played by veteran actor Alfred Molina, Galan is the self-made head of a billion-dollar telecommunications business, but don't let his expensive suit fool you. The owner of the major league soccer team, the L.A. Riot, learned how to hustle on the streets. He was a working class kid in Mexico City with not much of an education who grew up selling cigars to Americans—a story he won't let the public forget. There's nothing humble about him, and rightfully so. The dude knows struggle and he's fighting tooth and nail to make sure he never has to meet it again.

So is your character completely evil?
Well, he’s part of this group of very wealthy, powerful, influential power brokers around the world who are using their wealth and their influence to manipulate governments and situations around the world to their benefit. We discover through the arc of the season that it’s something which is really terrible. What they’re into is really quite devastating and he, at some point, begins to rethink his whole involvement.

How would you describe Gabe and Andres' relationship?
From Andres’ point of view, it's a little paternal, in a sense that he doesn’t quite trust him. At first, he doesn’t think that he’s going to be an asset to the team and there’s something about him that he’s not quite sure about. Gabe is a little arrogant.

But then he recognizes a very similar impulse in Gabe that he had when he was young. Andres sees a lot of himself in Tony Bravo; he sees an ambition, a desire for the good things in life, a singular sense of exactly what he’s good at, of what he can achieve given the right circumstances. He warms to him and then brings him into his confidence because, at one point, something happens where Galan finds himself relying on Tony to get him out of this particular jam, which he does, and then they form this sort of uneasy alliance. They don’t become friends exactly, but they reach a level of trust and understanding that pushes them a little bit further into a kind of friendship.

How did you get involved with the project?
I got offered the job. I was in the market to find something that would keep me here in L.A. I wasn’t really in the mood or in the position to leave L.A. at the moment, so it was a perfect gig. Getting a chance to work with Robert Rodriguez was wonderful; I’ve been a big fan of his films for a long time. And it’s a new network so there’s something kind of exciting about that. Plus, the money’s not bad either. [Laughs.]

What do you like about this character? What sets it apart from all the other characters that you’ve played?
I’ve played a lot of bad guys in my time, which I have no complaints about. It’s put two kids through very expensive college educations, so don’t get me wrong. But I think what’s different about this guy as opposed to other bad guys is that he has a level of elegance. Here is a villain who actually likes to pretend to be a good guy. That adds another dimension, an extra sort of thinking.

Why do you think you keep getting cast as villains?
Maybe it’s the accent. But that’s the way it’s been and I’m perfectly happy to do it. I’ve done other things as well, obviously, but if my headstone reads, “He was a good bad guy,” that’s good enough for me.

Who are you rooting for in the World Cup?
I’m in a bit of a quandary because my mother was Italian, my father was Spanish; I was born and raised in England, and I’m now an American citizen. I’ve got like four options, but as I’m watching the World Cup, I’m seeing all my options drop away. I was really rooting a little bit for Italy this year, but they’ve gone, Spain’s gone, England’s gone, but the U.S is still in with a shout.

Do you play?
I used to when I was younger. When I was at school, I was a goalkeeper on the team because I was very tall for my age when I was a kid. I was one of those kids that had a growth spurt when I was about 12 years old. I wasn’t very good, but I was very enthusiastic. I love the game.