Playing a bad guy is nothing new for Juan Pablo Raba. But to secure playing opposite one of Hollywood’s biggest action stars, the Colombian-born actor believed he had to do something special. He auditioned intimidatingly in character as a drug cartel lord. He nailed the part.
Raba co-stars with Liam Neeson in the entertaining action thriller The Marksman, a Voltage Films production now available on digital.
While Raba and three-time Oscar-nominated director Robert Lorenz (American Sniper) agreed on how his character should look, the film’s producers were not so sure. “So the day of the audition, I decided to shave my head… basically I wanted to scare them a little bit, so they could believe I could do it,” recalls the actor. He adds, “I created this whole persona and went to the audition in character, and I guess they were a little scared by it.”
In The Marksman, a hardened border town rancher (Neeson) helps a young Mexican boy escape to safety across America as vicious drug cartel assassins are on their heels. Jim Hanson (Neeson) is an ex-marine sniper and anti-immigration vigilante who lives along the Arizona-Mexico border. When he discovers a mother and her young son, Rosa (Teresa Ruiz) and Miguel (Jacob Perez), entering the U.S. illegally to run away from a cartel, the ex-soldier also crosses paths unavoidably with Mauricio (Raba) and his henchmen. The men exchange fire, the mother dies in the shootout, and Hanson kills the drug lord’s brother. The ex-soldier and border vigilante faces two choices: leave the kid behind or protect him from certain death at the hands of Mauricio.
RABA’S VILLAINS
Just like Neeson, tough-guy roles have a way to find Raba, an athletic actor with good looks and a kind smile who can effortlessly transform himself into a menace with a simple smirk–or a shaved head. Questionable characters like Mauricio are kind of his cup of tea. “I think that modern television and film have given us the opportunity of creating very complex and interesting characters, especially villains,” states Raba.
He seems to relish the complexities of multilayered characters who do bad things to good people.“It’s very fun to play a villain because, you know, you just have more margins when you play a good guy,” explains the actor. “You play these villains (and) you can move around, have a little bit more freedom.” But, do criminals like Mauricio have a heart? There is a moment in The Marksman in which Raba attempts to address the question.
Playing a bad guy against Oscar-nominated Neeson was both exciting and challenging, confides the South American star. And also a big responsibility. “You need to create something that’s believable, right? Something that actually creates a counterpart for an actor like Liam,” he says. “So I guess that’s why I decided to go a little bit bigger, you know, than usual.” The intention, he explains, was to give the impression that “there was something dangerous enough to make Liam run.” Not an easy task as Neeson is known for playing characters that take the fight to the enemy, like retired CIA operative Bryan Mills in the blockbuster Taken film series where he battles international criminals.
This is not the first time the South American actor portrays a narcotrafficker in Hollywood. He recently played Juan Diego “El Catrin” Zamora, the head of a small family cartel, in the CBS All Access TV series Coyote. Two years ago, Raba was cast as the drug kingpin Diego Garcia in the vigilante action film Peppermint, opposite Jennifer Garner.
‘A CHESS GAME’
With typecasting being a common risk faced by Latino actors in Hollywood, Raba is aware of the toxic impact of negative stereotypes and emphasizes he doesn’t want to portray Latino bad guys all the time. “That’s not what I want to do as an actor because as a Latino I know that is not who we are,” he states. However, improving the standing of Latinos in Hollywood will take more time, according to the actor, who expresses optimism in the future. “We are playing a chess game but will eventually make sure that people understand who we are,” he says. Meanwhile, Raba says he’ll keep on striving to be a “great professional” in all of his performances.
(Credit: Miami Film Festival/Jacob Zamora)
The South American actor started his acting career in telenovelas about two decades ago and eventually went global. Raba starred in the 1990s soap operas Amor en Forma and La Reina de Queens in his natal Colombia and later La Niña de mis Ojos in Venezuela, which raised his international profile. He also appeared in the comedy series Los Caballeros las Prefieren Brutas. Then came Colombian movies like the crime dramas En Coma and El Cartel de los Sapos.
Joining forces with Venezuelan star Edgar Ramirez (Yes Day, The Bourne Ultimatum), Raba founded Drive Pictures and executive produced and starred in the crime thriller Secreto de Confesión, the company’s only film produced so far since 2013 as Raba’s Hollywood career was about to take off.
RAISING INTERNATIONAL PROFILE
His casting in the English-language The 33, the 2015 biographical survival drama starring Antonio Banderas and based on the disaster of 33 miners trapped inside a Chilean mine, opened up more international doors for Raba. That same year, the former galan de telenovelas was cast in the ABC series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Joey Gutierrez, a superhuman with the power to melt and reshape metals, one of a few but growing number of Latino superheroes on the small and big screens. In addition to Peppermint and Coyote, he has also appeared in series like the military drama Six on A+E and the crime drama Narcos on Netflix.
Asked whether he will like to play any other superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as he did with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or other franchise, Raba says he has other plans. “You know, I would love to work towards the idea that we can create…superheroes but my quest right now is to portray characters that Latinx children and youths can look at and say, ‘Wow, it would be cool to be like that one day,’” states Raba. “I think that should be our quest and that’s what I would like to work towards right now.”
