Bruno Bichir – The Bridge

Q) What are the recent projects that you are working on?

A) It’s been like a rollercoaster. It’s fantastic to work with my brother again. We have been working a lot on other projects since we were kids. To see him again on “The Bridge” was amazing to see how he transformed himself. It’s really amazing.

Q) We’re getting to see you now on “The Bridge.”

A) The main presentation of the character I think will be really neat and bizarre to see this mysterious character. He is some kind of a snake in the shadows. He’s strong, he’s smooth and intelligent. He’s an outcast. It’s going to be really fantastic for the audience to start having more and more mysteries this season. I think this season is going to be great. They decided to go deeper into the political-social-economical issues. It’s going to be really incredible.

Q) What did you find challenging about the role?

A) Everything because I’m so explosive! I am hyperactive and I used to be really physical with my characters. I think that this character should be like a snake. The challenge is for the audience to know exactly what is going on with this character. As an actor, you are trained to give the audience some clues that they can hang on and follow you around the story. In this character, with every episode those kinds of clues disappear. He is a successful business man with a hidden agenda so you can’t really tell what darkness is behind this kind of person. I think that’s a big challenge. I’m more of like a Hamlet character and he is like a Richard III character.

Q) Was there anything you added to the role that wasn’t originally scripted for you?

A) I don’t know. I always try to do my thing. I always try to improvise and really get into the soul of the characters. I love to have some risks as an actor, but also I love to please my director, the script and fellow actors. As an actor, my obsessions and risks are hard for me to verbalize. On the other hand, I really want to be as near to the script and dimensions. Also, you don’t have as much time as you do in making movies. You have more time to deliver your thoughts, feelings, chemistry and your magic. On television, you have to be fast and assertive with the things you are doing. In the middle of that, you have to be able to create something out of the dark that you don’t even know what it is that the audience can grab on to and be shocked by it.

Q) What was it like getting to work alongside of your brother, Demian?

A) It is fascinating because I admire so much my brother. I have an older brother and he is a brilliant actor. Every time I work with him, I learn so much. I love to see how they deliver the magic and poetry inside. I crack with laughter every time I’m with him. On set, he is a fantastic fellow actor. He has this way of getting everyone very concentrated, but at the same time happy. We’re laughing almost all the time. As soon as we start rehearsing, he fell into it. That’s the challenge for us because we know each other so well. There is something about acting that they say we’re lying. You can’t lie when you are doing fiction. You have to be so deep in the character when you are working with someone you love so much and know so much as Demian knows me and I know Demian. Because if we don’t, we start seeing Demian and Bruno on the set and that’s not the point. So, it’s so surprising and amazing to see that in a second Demian is not Demian anymore. That person in front of me is Marco Ruiz. He’s a police officer and he is thinking different things than Demian is. So, working with Demian is challenging, but it is also so beautiful to see how it happens in front of us. As you can see, I love him so much and I admire him. I’m so lucky that I have a lot of scenes with him that you can see this season he will be dealing with the face-to-face with Marco Ruiz. I am lucky that I had my first two scenes with Demian and all the actors know that the first time you appear in a project you just want to cross the hall in the distance, open the door and exit. You aren’t really prepared to show and deliver everything that you are constructing for a first appearance of the work day. Not the character, but the actor. So, I’m so lucky to have Demian in my two first scenes and it’s been a wonderful experience.

Q) What do you think it is about the show that continues to make it such a fan favorite program?

A) It is because now you have information about what is going on everywhere in the world. You can blink and the information is running so fast in many ways that it is impossible to have your eyes closed. There is so much talking politics and economics that you have to be aware of what is going on. We, as an artist, have to give a point-of-view. My job is to be informed. Out of all the order and chaos, we hope to build some magic and beauty. We want to make the audience have deeper reflections about themselves and their neighbors. I think that is why it is so important for Americans to have this show. It is in America’s interest to show that we have to be in the same boat. Mexicans and Americans are in the same boat. We have to deal with our cultural differences and we have to have a better world. I think that is the good thing that this show can do. Obviously, this is a thriller because there are good guys and bad guys. Ultimately, there is some kind of violence in it. Shakespeare did the same thing in his days. There was bloodshed all over the place and a lot of killings. There were ghosts, battles, good guys and bad guys, but also he was talking about this time with poetry and magic that still it remains true these days. I think that is the most powerful thing that “The Bridge” has. Also, I would love to be one of the good guys, but I’m playing not exactly a good guy. He’s more like a devil. You have to see those characters as well. I have also the need as an actor, but I have to show the corruption in my country. It’s not in the low level. It’s in the higher level of wealthy men that run politics in my country. I read a statement from a brilliant man from the United Nations who is a Mexican professor. He said something like the kind of violence we have seen in Colombia and Mexico is spreading. This professor said these wealthy men and higher level businessman and politicians build an empire that is filled with corruption and they are like a monster. Now, the Frankensteins are on the run and they don’t obey any orders anymore because they are bigger, wealthy and have their own mind and heart. Now, there is no way to stop them. Now, these monsters are in their houses dealing with their daughters. They have to deal with their family. Probably at that very moment, those politicians and impresarios have the will to be stopped. We artists and working class people don’t know what is going on out there and we suffer so much. The only thing we can do now is to be so truthful to our past and deliver to the audience my obsessions and beliefs in the most honest form that I am able to in order to bring some kind of balance to all of this mess. That’s why we are doing this show and probably at some point all the parts of these upper levels will stop and say, “Maybe it is time to pull the plug.” They will just stop. As Shakespeare said in Hamlet, “I’ve heard that when you show a play in front of a criminal, that play touches that criminal mind as an audience. Probably he will stand up and say, ‘I’m the criminal. Forgive me.'”