After moving in 2002 from his native Texas to New York City, where he soon became a member of the prestigious off-Broadway LAByrinth Theater Company, playwright and actor Raúl Castillo spent a decade or so playing supporting roles in film and television. Then came HBO's Looking, in which he starred as the boyfriend of the neurotic lead character played by Jonathan Groff. Castillo's soulful performance as Richie brought the actor a new level of attention. This year, the actor made a notable appearance in Steven Soderberg's Unsane, and last fall he finished work on what he calls “the first Latino superhero film,” El Chicano, in which he has his first lead role.
This week, you can see Castillo in director Jeremiah Zagar's We the Animals, a Malickian tale of a loving but volatile family told from the point of view of one of three young boys (played by Evan Rosado, Josiah Gabriel, and Isaiah Kristian). Castillo is magnetically tender and explosive as Paps, the young father of the family and the sun around which his wife, Ma (Sheila Vand), and children revolve, even when he's an absent presence.
I recently spoke with Castillo about working with young nonprofessional actors in We the Animals, finding his character in Looking, and what Groff taught him about being number one on the call sheet.
I read that you were initially attracted to acting and playwriting because, growing up in South Texas, you didn't see your world reflected in popular culture. That made sense to me, since I lived in Laredo for a couple of years and found out how ignorant I was about Mexican and Mexican-American culture. What did you want to say about that world as a young man?
Before theater I got into punk rock music. I was in bands, playing shows in South Texas when I was 12, 13, 14 years old. There was something about punk rock that you could get on stage, you could be seen for an hour or so and entertain and be recognized. I think theater and film does a similar thing. It sort of forces people to look at you and to see you and to hear your story. I don't know if there's any one particular story I wanted to tell, but if you lived in Laredo you know how, especially at that time, how provincial and marginalized that part of the world was. The border is often not seen in popular culture, other than in stereotypes or tropes.
Then I started paying attention to the Latino artists out there and they inspired me. People like John Leguizamo and writers like Miguel Piñero, who were trailblazing and were telling stories that reflected a little bit more the world that I came from. Even though they're from New York City, you know?
Right. Which is very different than MacAllen. So it wasn't so much that there were issues you wanted to write about as it was you wanted to kind of say, hey, we're human beings too, and nobody recognizes that?
Yeah. Exactly.
We the Animals is about people—especially your character—expressing themselves in primal, often purely physical ways. How did the director talk to the actors about what he wanted?
I think Jeremiah being a documentarian and this being his first narrative film, he wasn't hindered by any preconceptions. You go to school to study theater and you're taught to experiment and play, and then you're out in the industry and there's no time for experimentation and play. It's all, like, you have to get it in the can. And consequently, there's all these films that are just pre-packaged and uninspired. I think Jeremiah wanted the process to be different, because if the process is different then the film's going to be different. We went to upstate New York for six weeks and all lived in houses together, and we rehearsed a lot with the kids. He was committed to having non-actors in most of the roles. Sheila and I are the only quote-unquote professional actors in We the Animals. The kids brought this really raw, natural intensity and they kept Sheila and I honest, I think. Because they weren't acting, you know? They were just being, they were just living and breathing. They understood this story on very visceral levels. He created a safe environment where we could all go to those dark places, go to those raw and wild places, and yet we were keeping each other's best interests in mind. Which you have to do, especially when you're working with young children like that.
I love the scene where Paps hangs over the edge of a truck while sitting in the bed in back with his kids, so he can watch the road rush by with his head upside-down, and they all follow suit. That sums up Paps as a father: the impulsivity that can put his kids in danger and the charisma and ability to be in the moment that make them want to follow his lead. Was that something you came up with during rehearsal or was it in the script?
I think that was in the script, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of stuff [in the film] was accidental while we were filming. We shot on film, on 16mm, and you feel a lot when you're shooting on film that you gotta get it on your first take, but Jeremiah really let us play and let the camera roll quite a bit. But I think that particular sequence was scripted. We had to be very careful because it was a moving car and young lives hanging out. You gotta be really careful. Read the rest in Slant Magazine
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