What's Arcane and Fire Country's Kevin Alejandro watching?
The True Blood veteran on Arcane season two, working with the late Nelsan Ellis, and his family's favourite TV-watching snack.
what are they watching? is a new interview series for my newsletter in which I chat with a television actor about television itself. For the first entry to this series I spoke with Kevin Alejandro, a prolific television actor and director who currently stars as Jayce on Arcane (Netflix) and Manny on Fire Country (CBS), recent roles in a very successful career on television. He also shares a touching story about his time on True Blood and his respect for the way Ugly Betty impacted the television landscape.
Arcane is phenomenal, I just finished watching the first season. What was going through your mind when you got the scripts for season 2?
I remember I got to the final stages of the audition and they showed me a watercolour version of the animation and already I was like oh fuck, this is going to be the coolest thing ever made. And it did not disappoint, man. I'm so stoked about the process that we've all been through because it hasn't been an easy one with COVID and everyone's schedule being the way it is.
For season two I was just as curious at the end of season one on what's going on. They showed me some sketches of the evolution of Jayce and who he becomes, how his own genius experiment with Hex Core and all that has changed who he is, and I was onboard 100%. To have that art before we started recording was super helpful because it helped me get into a different register, a different age, and a different emotion of where Jayce was going.
With all the time jumps in the first season and the years between seasons, how were you able to wrap your head around the different iterations of Jayce?
It was definitely a challenge, man. The team was just so good about sending scripts and sending information about: remember, this is where you were, this is where you're inevitably going to go, this is where you are at in this moment, and this is this time. It was a pretty well guided process throughout from our creative team.
Did you run into any challenges specific to voice acting?
Voice acting is such a different ball game. In live action you have the opportunity to express through your eyes, from the small crevices or wrinkles or smiles that you have on your face. It's quite a challenge to be able to encapsulate all of those emotions and try to transform them into just a vocal experience. Once I was able to get rid of that insecurity about how do I transform everything physical into a vocal performance, there was like an epiphany that I had: it's just expressing your emotions. So if you feel it, whatever can register as truth to you, you're going to hear it. It became very similar to the way I would do it on film. They also had cameras around so they could take some of my expressions to match the animation to the voice. So at that point, it was like coming in to perform on a stage.
I didn’t actually realize cameras were recording your voice performances. Arcane seems like a project that is taken so seriously and created at such a high level.
Absolutely. They have a pre-existing property with pre-existing fans that you don't want to disappoint, right? And you want to find a way to elevate that world in a cinematic way, where your audience goes: you did it.
Jayce and Manny on Fire Country are two very different characters in two whole different universes to play simultaneously. Do you draw parallels between them in your mind, or do you feel you have to keep them kind of isolated from each other so they don't come into into conversation?
100% I have to keep them isolated. When I go on set for Manny, I've been doing it now for almost three years. So he's already in my blood. But the amount of time that we have to take in between every time that I go back to do Arcane, I have to reassess it. I have to listen and re-watch what we've done and what we've created in order to get back in that universe.
Do you typically watch yourself on screen after you've made something, or is it just to kind of exercise that muscle to get back to the character?
What I love about doing theatre is that you go on pure emotion, you go with your interaction with the audience, and you leave it there. You can't watch it back. I kind of love that feeling. But because the television and film process is so different and truncated, I felt that it was my responsibility to watch what we're doing. Not only for myself, but as the entire entity, so that I understood how all of our worlds met. So these days, I do watch what I do as my own acting teacher sort of process. I'm also a director. Once I jumped into that world 10 years ago, I really started taking on that responsibility of watching and understanding what doesn't work. So I watch every episode of our show and take studious notes. How can I change it? What can I do? How much further do I have to go?
Wow, I still kind of crawl out of my skin when I see a video of myself.
Oh like, any other video that I see of me doing outside of the actual craft, like this interview or whatever, I'm like, delete! Swipe! [Laughs].
Okay good, that makes me feel better. So I realized you've played a foundational queer character from my high school years: Jesus in True Blood. There were so few queer couples on TV at the time. What do you remember about that experience and working with the late, great Nelsan Ellis?
It was an extraordinary experience. When I got that audition, there was no cartoon, or judgment on the relationship. Nelsan had already set the base for who he was and how he fit into that world, so how do I balance out this extremely grounded yet extroverted character? I do a lot of what I do and base a lot of decisions on: do I believe myself? How do I make myself believe that I'm in love with this person? And it was easy. It was instantaneous. When you look at Nelsan's eyes, you immediately fall in love with him. He just has that charm. I don't care which end of the spectrum you are, there's something about a human interaction that he had that we're all looking for in a friendship, in a relationship, and we [snaps] clicked immediately.
There was a chemistry read, it was down to the wire between a handful of actors for this role. I went in and had the chemistry read with Nelsan, and it just works. Auditions are very professional, right? You know, we'll contact you if it goes further, blah blah blah. But in that moment, after it was done, Nelsan just stopped, looked at everybody, and said: I mean, he's the guy, he's the guy. I was like, uhhh, I'm the guy!?
I love that so much.
We became friends outside of True Blood too. It was heartbreaking to hear the news that he passed away. I remember I hadn't spoken to Nelsan probably in about two months and I was cleaning out my jacket closet and this rolled up tube of brown paper fell. I unraveled it and it was a handwritten note that Nelsan had written me in silver Sharpie, saying: Kevin Alejandro, I can't tell you how much you've elevated my performance, I'm so honored to work with you. I hope that we continue to do this forever. Something like that. I was like, oh, man, that's beautiful, I need to call Nelsan. I'm not joking, the next day is when he passed away. That was the universe's way of being like, don't take your friendships for granted.
That’s such a beautiful story. Especially for a show that was so metaphorically involved in telling a queer story through the vampires, but then to have this other layer to it is really touching. Thank you for sharing that. Aside from True Blood you’ve done a lot of shorter arcs or appearances on everything from Grey’s Anatomy to Weeds, Heroes, Sons of Anarchy, NCIS…What do you think those one-off characters or performances taught you about working in TV?
It taught me everything. My trajectory went: I started as a background actor, and I used that as my acting class, I stayed close to the cameras, I stayed close to making friends with the people who understood more than I did. That took me to the next level because I knew one day I was going to get my shot. Every one of those guest star roles was just the next rung in the ladder to take me to that next level. I don't like to leave set, so a lot of times I will stand in for myself so I can hear and understand what's going on. Sometimes you can't afford acting classes, so those were my classes.
I also had that outside look into the ones who weren't great leaders, you know, with the cast members who weren't necessarily the ones that we all want to love. And it taught me a big lesson on if I ever got my opportunity, how to run a set and how I want the demeanour to be. I pride myself on loving my crews and letting them understand that I have their back. It confuses me when the egos get too big and when the love for the job isn't there anymore? I'm like, we're so lucky. How do you get to that point?
Totally. Ok I have a few quick TV-related questions for you. What shows are you watching right now?
On my queue right now is The Penguin but I think it’ll be a binge. I'm a filmmaker with my wife and my sister-in-law. We have a company called Alejandro Films, so I'm watching a lot of everything, little spurts here and there, documentaries, independent films. It takes me a while to get to shows. You're gonna think I'm a weirdo but I just recently finished binging Breaking Bad. Now I understand why it's the greatest fucking show ever made.
I totally understand. I'm waiting to have that moment with like, The Wire or something. What do you consider as your foundational TV shows?
I want to go way back to early in my career to Ugly Betty. Betty was very pivotal in my career as an actor, but also as an entity in this business. It was a Latin show exposed to this wide audience. It was so amazing to me to see something so specific and to break into the world for everybody to understand and love it.
But I grew up in a really small town in west Texas, and we had three channels: ABC, CBS, and NBC. I lived out in the country and we had one of those old antennas that were attached to the side of your house with a big pole. If we’re gonna watch ABC tonight, it was like, Kevin, go outside and turn the antenna until I tell you to. Back then it was always Cheers, Three's Company, the comedies. That's how old I am.
A final, very important question: What's your favourite TV-watching snack?
Popcorn with ice cream. I've been married for 22 years, we have a 16 year old son, and ever since our son was a little boy, we have always made popcorn, had ice cream, and watched movies or television shows together, and we still do it to this day. It is an important part of our family culture to respect the time to be entertained.
I love that — with my family it’s watching Star Trek on Saturday nights with homemade pizza and dark beer. Well thank you so much for chatting TV with me today!
Both seasons of Arcane are available to stream on Netflix; Fire Country returns for the second half of season three on January 31; True Blood is streaming on Max (US) and Crave (Canada); Ugly Betty is streaming on Netflix (US).
I will be trying popcorn with ice cream now!!!