Julio Macias – On My Block

By: Lisa Steinberg

Q) What can we expect to see this season from Spooky?

A) I don’t really know anything. The only footage that I saw was during ADR. I saw like a piece here and there. It also makes it fun for me though because any time I see something I’m seeing it for the first time. I did not know about the opening sequence that they were going to drop. I did not know that I was going to be at the end of the second season trailer. That was a really nice surprise. [laughs] I’m just as excited as everyone else to see all of it!

Q) I’m looking forward to seeing some singular sides to Spooky as well.

A) There are some interesting new revelations for Spooky. We get a little bit of an insight into who he might have been if he had not done certain things. Also, bringing it back…My whole thing about Spooky is he’s human. I don’t call him the villain. I call him the hero. [laughs] His moral compass is not pointing north, but he’s also not an evil person. I think we’ll see…I don’t want to say a softer side, but a side that maybe we weren’t expecting Spooky to have. And for me, that was very important to capture that humanity because everything that he’s going through is something that everyone in life has had to go through. I had one direct message from someone (I think after the first season) saying, “Yo! I went away because I was selling pot and I didn’t get to see my daughter’s first three years of growing up. Coming back, the only thing I regretted was being away from her, but I knew what I had to do because no one else was going to give me any other opportunity. I’m trying to change my life now. I’m trying to find a new job, but it’s hard for someone with a record to try to get his life straight even though he wants to.” It was the guy relating. He was like, “I’ve never seen anybody care about him (Spooky) in a positive way.” He was like, “Dude, I get it. You’re doing it for your family. You’re doing it for protection. You’re not out here looking for fame and glory. You’re just trying to survive the next day.” Spooky is not trying to be El Chapo! [laughs] But he’s got to do what he’s got to do. It’s always so interesting to have conversations with people as to who they think Spooky is and then when I give my explanation of who I think Spooky is it really changes them. They are like, “Oh. I guess you’re right because I always just saw him this way. But you’re absolutely right because when you meet a lot of these people…” I was doing another interview where the person said they were born in Mexico City, but grew up in the Valley. They said because of their parents’ experience with classism, sexism and racism in Mexico and how that translated here in the United States they still felt a disconnect between the Mexican culture here in the US since it wasn’t what they had experienced in Mexico. So, for a long time my sister and I were shielded until we started to go to school. So many of my friends looked like the people who kick it outside of Spooky’s house. Not that they are doing anything wrong. They weren’t, but it’s nice to hang out on your front porch – just hanging out with your buddies and having some beers and stuff. It’s great to do it in a communal way. To be off put by those clothing, which unfortunately we all do all across the world – we prejudge people the articles of clothing they are wearing…Then, you meet these people and they are the nicest. Some of them are musicians, different types of artists and cooks. They are family people. We haven’t necessarily seen all of that on screen on “On My Block,” but all of that history informs (I hope) Spooky is on screen. Knowing that these people are good, genuine people…just in baggy shorts!

Q) Unfortunately, people are far too quick to instantly make a snap judgement with someone they don’t.

A) For me, I had this experience. I don’t think it’s our political climate. I think it’s just society. We were filming the first season and the tattoos last a few days. When I was shooting a sequence, they would ask me to keep the tattoos on. Right now, I live in the inner city and I remember walking down the street not fully “Spooky’d out,” but shaved head and the face tattoos and larger clothes. I was walking down the street and this biker cop pulls back around with a very much “What are you doing in this neighborhood” conversation. Until I started speaking the way I’m speaking to you. Then, suddenly this spell or charm that had in his head disappeared and he’s like, “Oh!” I was like, “I’m actually working on some lines and rehearsing.” I was walking up and down the street learning my lines and I guess looking kind of angry. It was just an amazing experience to have been through because of the way that I looked and he thought I was a potential threat. Then, just because of the cadence of my speech…If I had responded, “Yo! What you doing homie,” what would that experience have been instead of, “Oh, hi officer! I’m just walking up and down the street.” That was crazy to me!

Q) What is it about the series and the themes it explores that really balances this great provoking, powerful, but also humorous engagement with the audience?

A) That, for me, is one of the things I keep championing and pushing for. What I very much admire about the writing room is that they are able to handle larger issues that aren’t exactly a common experience for everybody, but a lot of our citizens know and go through every single day and at the same time they are able to portray with gravitas and also lightheartedness so they can laugh. The opening sequence of the first one where they are running down the street and trying to guess the caliber of the gun that just fired – how much more juxtaposition can you get from the seriousness that these kids are running away from a gunshot and at the same time they are making a game out of it? That’s how you cope. At least that’s how they cope! Oscar obviously copes in a different way. I give kudos to the writers for that. It’s something I’m always very, very pleasantly surprised by when I read it or see it. I always think it’s funny and it’s deep.

Q) How are the writers able to provide so much with these characters that gives them so much depth in that they aren’t your typical TV teens?

A) Once we I booked “On My Block” I ended up having long conversations with Jeremy [Haft], Eddie [Gonzalez] and Laura [Iungerich] about who they wanted this guy to be. One of the nicer compliments that Laura gave to me was, “In your audition there were so many people that brought in anger and fear and intimidation and bravado and you brought something…love.” As messed up and twisted as this all seems, he’s doing it out of love for his younger brother and every decision that Spooky has made hasn’t necessarily been for his financial gain or reputation. He loves his family, which includes the Santos, but I think that he does feel a little bit of resentment, which is why he is so angry sometimes – at the Prophets or at himself for who he has become. He justifies it is for the love of his brother. It was really a pleasure trying to find that balance of Spooky is a lot of older male representations in these neighborhoods. But guess what? There is a reason we look up to these people. He’s not necessarily Robin Hood, by no means. But you can see how he’s a leader of a community. You saw it in the first season where he asks his brother to do something deplorable. However, he asks him to do that because he knows the life and he knows what is going to happen. He’s like, “This really does suck. I get it. But if you don’t do it, someone’s got to do it. And if that other person is not going to do it…Guess what happens?” The end of the last season happens because they live in this real world. He sees this as an opportunity to show Cesar (Diego Tinoco) that he lives in this world – not in the world that he has in his mind or where he plans to escape. In a way, Oscar does keep Cesar grounded and locked into this place but it comes from a place of needing to protect you. If you go off, how can I protect you? You’ve never done it yourself. I’ve always looked after you, even from inside. He always knew what he was doing. He’s kind of always had a general idea of what was going on in the neighborhood. Even the rest of the gang, when Oscar was younger, his brothers have been there forever. So, there was a moment when these people knew Oscar as Oscar and not as Spooky. And I think you’ll get little glimpses of that in the second season and that’s definitely exciting. These writers know what they’re doing.

Q) They say “blood is thicker than water.” How does that balance for Oscar and Cesar as season two pushes things further for them?

A) I guess what I can say is there is a sense of tough love that we see in the second season. I think that Oscar makes it very clear to Cesar that everything that happened was out of a direct result of him not listening to me. Whether that is true or not, I think that’s how Oscar feels. Well, I know. That’s how I feel. [laughs] And we’ll have to see if Cesar will really lean on his friends to get past this moment. He’s in a bit of a limbo, I would say.

Q) There are so many forms of family with “On My Block” and Cesar has always been so torn with each faction.

A) One thing that I suppose that Spooky and I were similar to is that we understand that every situation is not black and white. I know that can get dicey because you asking me to kill someone is a bad decision. War is a terrible thing, but what happens if you don’t go to war? For me, in the show the kids try to make everything either good or bad. And throughout their first year of high school they start to realize that it’s fifty shades of gray. I think that for me that was a very good thing. In the car when Cesar is telling Oscar, “I can’t do this,” in my mind I was like, “I completely understand, man. I get why you can’t do this or don’t want to do this.” We find out obviously at the end of the first season what the ramifications are for him not doing it, but for me it was very fulfilling to try to play that internally of trying to say, “I know this hard. I know this is hard, but I can’t really explain it until you live through it. Then, you’ll know why this is the right decision.” You definitely see Cesar struggle with the morality of what is right and what is wrong. He’s confused. He’s like, “I’m sorry. I can’t justify that as a good thing, but me not doing that bad thing caused so much worse to happen.” It’s complicated. It’s a very complicated thought process and emotionally as well.

Q) When you started to read the season two scripts what were some themes or messages that were evoked as you started to see the evolution of Spooky and the bigger picture of the season?

A) I think for the bigger picture of the season is onwards and upwards. That even after these events happen and we pick back up with the story, to see how you have to keep living and how these kids do exactly that. They are confused. They are scared. They might be in mourning for the loss of their innocence, but they continue and they make jokes. They laugh and continue on with their high school even though these things happen. What I love about the show is that it is technically a thirty-minute comedy. Even though sometimes it doesn’t necessarily feel that way. [laughs] But we see the positivity of how they all move forward. So, I think that’s the main theme I would tell people to look out for in the second season. You have to keep pushing forward. Then, for Spooky, it’s the same predicament that he put Cesar in with the sense of everything is not black and white. How I felt and interpreted it is that Spooky is now finding out…Like, “Okay. Flip the mirror back on to me. I’m going through this. Am I doing the right thing?” I think that will be cool.