Juan Pablo Di Pace – Dallas

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

A) Right now, it’s “Dallas.” We just started so I’m still busy with the show.

Q) What can you tease is new this season on “Dallas” with your character Nicolas Trevino?

A) Nicolas is a wonderful character because he is very secretive and conniving. There is just a factor there that you don’t want to trust this guy, but at the same time he’s so charming that you can’t help to trust him. That’s very fun for me, too. This season is just filled with twists and turns. It’s a very dynamic season. You can never place your trust anywhere because they turn around constantly. As anaudience member, that’s what I like to watch. I like shows that don’t give everything away and you kind of have to keep watching to see what happens. This season is full of that and it is a sexier season. It’s a fast paced season and my character is kind of like at the head of that. I can’t really tell you exact things because my character is a spoiler every step of the way.

Q) What made you want to be a part of the show and portray this character?

A) When I read the part, it was very clear just from the two scenes that I had to read at the very beginning that this guy was incredibly interesting. I’ve played good guys and liars a lot, but this particular one is the most complicated of them all. I think that’s what really attracted me to it. This guy has a lot of layers and it is hard to catch up with him – even as myself, the actor! Every episode that I get I have to really put in the work in how many layers I’m dealing with because there is just truth beneath truth (or you could say lie beneath lie). So, it is a lot to focus on, but at the same time it just makes the work way more interesting because I have to be kind of operating on two or three different levels. It becomes clearer closer to the finale. Right now we’re shooting things that are blowing my mind, in terms of what happens and the storylines are just great. It’s a very gray character. There is no black and white there.

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

A) The fact that most of my adult life I lived in Europe. I guess at the beginning, this character was supposed to be a Mexican billionaire, but one thing that I brought in that the producers quite liked was that this is a very European type of character. Even though he is Mexican, we’ve added the fact he studied in Europe and went to Oxford. I think that kind of gentleman-European-British-thing is yet another interesting layer to this guy. He was an orphan and selling Chicklets on the streets in Mexico. So, the fact that he went all the way to reinvent himself into this very refined millionaire is just an amazing journey to be able to play. That for me is really interesting because I think when you see someone who is really super clean and clean-cut (down to the hair and accent) a lot of the time those people have studied it and built themselves to be that way. It’s almost like a front. That makes it really cool to kind of go there as well.

Q) The cast has quite a bond established after playing these characters for years now. Did the chemistry come natural when you joined or did it take some time for it to gel?

A) I was thrown into the deep end. This was a very, very strange situation because they started shooting. They were already shooting the show and the producers were still looking for this character. They had a very specific idea for what they wanted and I don’t know howmany actors they saw, but I know that they left it really late because they weren’t completely convinced. I came in at the eleventh hour, literally. I was told to put myself on tape on Saturday, on Monday I was meeting them and then on Tuesday I was flying to Dallas. That same week I was shooting and my first scene was with Elena (Jordana Brewster) and my second day was in the office with all the Ewings. Everybody was there and I was supposed to be giving them hell in the scene. I had no choice, but to throw myself into it and do as good as I could do. I had to make it my own and thank God I have the best people in the world to work with. This cast is just wonderful. Of course, they know each other from other seasons and we have TV royalty like Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray. That was daunting, to say the least! But I could not have wished for a better first day at work. Everybody was being really polite that day and they shook my hand and welcomed me. Everyone was leaving me in a corner though and I was going through my lines because I had this four page speech that I had to give to the Ewings. So, I thought how polite everyone was and then Patrick Duffy came up to me and said, “By the way Juan, we just wanted to let you know that we are not bothering you because we know how much of a whirlwind this is and how concentrated you have to be. We will say hello to you in two weeks time when you are settled in.” That pretty much summed up what these people are about. They love their work and they just love to make this show. They all work really hard at it and it’s just very cool because I feel the same. We’re all so lucky to be doing such a cool job. and just for an actor to be working is a wonderful thing and then to be doing something that is really cool is the best. I could not have wished for a better group of people!

Q) What were some of your memorable moments from filming?

A) To be honest with you, that first day was pretty epic. When I was doing this scene, they didn’t know me and I didn’t know them. I remember the last thing that we did was my close up for that speech and I remember finishing it and all of a sudden Jesse Metcalfe starts clapping. Then, the whole kind of studio started clapping. That was kind of surreal and I will never forget that. To be so nervous one moment and thinking, “I really don’t want to screw this up,” and then the next I have the whole cast and crew clapping. That was just incredible! I don’t know if they did it because they felt sorry for me, but it felt amazing. I thought, “Ok. I’m here now.”

Q) You are a part of social media sites. How has the feedback been from fans when you get to live tweet the show or read peoples’ comments?

A) I mean, I’ve always embraced social media. This time around has been overwhelming! Within the first twenty-four hours of the first episode being shown, I got like two thousand new followers on Twitter! The response to the character has been really cool because everyone knows he is shady, but everyone wants to know where it is going. That’s the only thing that I could have hoped for, the best thing I could have hoped for. People are hooked to whoever this villain is. Social media is just a great way to get the word out there about the show and characters and I think more than ever people seem to want to connect to the people involved and the series. I’m all for it! Come Monday night, I’m there hooked to the phone answering and tweeting. I love it!

Q) Is there anything else you’d like to say to fans ?

A) Keep watching! This is definitely a really strong season. It’s “Dallas” at its beset. there will be a lot of surprises and Nicolas is here to stay. He’s a bad, bad, bad guy who is just not going to go away any time soon.