Raul Esparza is nothing if not versatile.
No matter what character he’s portraying, he throws himself into the role with thought and passion.
In this exclusive interview, Esparza shares what he’s learned about his complicated character.
I liked Don’s bravado.
I liked the humor in the piece.
I liked the sickness of the piece, too.
He had a very unconventional attitude and set of strategies in the courtroom.
He believed in her completely.
He thought he was invincible.
The other side of that is a great deal of fear and sadness.
That plays out in his life later, which isn’t anything the series gets into, though.
He had an unshakable faith in his ability to accomplish this, and also in her, in Candy.
He saw it in very simple terms.
Whether people watching the series see it in simple terms is really not my problem.
My problem is to be sure that I play someone as absolutely honestly as possible.
you could take everything two ways on it.
That’s exactly why he went the way he went with the trial.
Did you start your research before you started shooting or during the shooting?
The creators spoke to a lot of the principals involved, but not necessarily the characters we were playing.
I couldn’t speak to Don.
I looked for audio and video of Don.
All those things are colors you get to use.
I always loved it.
So what were the most interesting things that you learned about Candy or about Don?
It was a little bit of a rollercoaster ride that he was on.
It was great to play that in him.
I was working out every day because he felt different and I wondered what that was.
That was a lot of fun.
It’s a rough, visceral energy.
It’s great to play someone like that.
I tend to be a lot more heady.
He wasn’t, he went for it, and went for it hard.
That was fun and surprising to do.
The relationships between the characters in Candy added extra complexity to his role
It sounds like it.
What about his relationship with Candy?
That seems kind of interesting.
Would you shed a little light on that?
She came to him because as things got more and more heated on her.
Little by little, he came to believe that he needed to be the one to run her case.
They are clearly friends, but they are also clearly antagonists.
She resists his approach.
She wants her story told in a particular way that Don chooses not to.
There’s a tension between them.
She was having a very hard time with that.
In the same way, Jessica Biel and I had to put each other in each other’s hands.
I had to carry her.
She had to carry me.
Much of my relationship on screen was about making her the hero of the story in my version.
Did that experience inform the way that you portrayed Don as a defense attorney?
I thought that they needed to be very different characters.
None of that could inform Don.
What was great was that Don’s cadence is different.
His dialect is different.
The shoes are different.
I don’t see any aspect of Barba.
It’s a courtroom, but that’s where the similarities end.
What do you think was the most challenging part of your role as Don Crowder?
I don’t think he even knew that.
[It] was a challenge to do all that without letting it slip into comedy completely.
Is it challenging to switch between the two modes of acting?
No, not at all.
They inform each other in a great way.
The conversation with the audience changes the performance.
On camera, the camera is the most loving audience you could ever have.
I really believe that.
You have to trust it, and it falls in love with you.
So much of acting for me is about listening and what the other actors do.
That’s true on stage as it is true on screen.
You roll with it.
They’re very different mediums, but the discipline is the same.
We were all in it together that night we made this thing.
Aside from those variations, it’s still acting.
What projects do you have planned next?
I’m looking forward to a nice break.
I’m looking forward to the beach.
