Clayton Cardenas has been cast to star opposite Taraji P. Henson in Time Alone, a feature based on Oscar Nominated writer Alessandro Camon’s play of the same name.  Camon is also set to direct with Henson as one of the producers.  Production is set to begin shooting July in Los Angeles.  

Deadline broke the news that Cardenas will play Gabriel, a man convicted of killing a rival gang member. Along the way, he meets Anna (Hensen) the grieving mother of a murdered police officer…both facing isolation in different forms.

“I’m thrilled to be working with Clayton on a film that means so much to both of us, and to everyone involved,” Camon is quoted in Deadline. “Clayton’s powerful work in Mayans MC brought his talent to a wide audience, but I’m a believer from the early days. He has the heart of a warrior, and the soul of a poet.”

Cardenas was originally slated to play Gabriel in 2017 in the Belle Rêve production of Time Alone when it premiered at Los Angeles Theater Center, however, a scheduling conflict prevented him from doing the role on stage. Time Alone did go on to win the Stage Raw Award and Critics Award for Best Play for that production.

Cardenas will also serve as executive producer for Time Alone along with Jason Tamasco and Zak Kristofek of Traction Pictures.  Cardenas’ manager with Marni Rosenzweig is also producing with Suzanne Warren and Todd Black. Motus Studios is providing the financing along with Oakhurst Entertainment.

Clayton, knew all along he would eventually get a chance to play the role of Gabriel.  “I had a gut instinct I would be portraying this character.” In fact, he had known the role was his for a while, as he stated in his recent Instagram post. “The few in my circle have known about this for a few years now. Excited to work with this team and ready to rock with @tarajiphenson.”

Cardenas made his mark in Hollywood as Angel Reyes in the drama Mayans M.C., among other TV credits. He leads the cast along with JD Pardo who plays his little brother on the FX drama now in its fourth season.  The multi-talented actor is also an artist and spoken word poet. 

Cardenas is repped by The Rosenzweig Group and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis

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FX premiered the fourth season of Mayans. M.C., the ten-episode limited season on April 19th and it is off to a rollicking start that has fans chewing it up. Currently airing on FX and streaming on Hulu.  

This edgy series co-created by Elgin James follows the life of two brothers Ezekiel ‘EZ’ Reyes (JD Pardo), and his brother Angel (Clayton Cadenas) both members of the all-Latino Mayans M.C. charter on the Cali/Mexi border. “You might say, this season opens with a bang,” says James. “EZ and his brother Angel, with the rest of the Santo Padre M.C., are facing retaliation from other chapters of Mayans after a failed attempt to align under one King.” 

This season, EZ is taking on a bigger leadership role in the Mayans, he explains, “When it comes to EZ, in these dark places, there’s an awakening that happens.  It’s like you almost have to go through the fire and experience the lowest of the lows to understand who you are and to test it.” Adding, “I think that’s where you find these characters, and that’s where they’re really going to break out.”

“For Angel, I think there’s always been the sort of tear in his character. Which blood was thicker to him?  Was it the actual, literal blood of his brother or was it the blood of the club?” questions Cardenas about his character’s thought process, explaining how he got there. “I think towards the end of the early seasons we started to see the shift in him as he saw his brother fully immersing himself into the life of the club.  So, this season we see which way Angel will lean into.”

The family bond between EZ and Pardo is also tested by their relationship with their father, Felipe, played by Edward James Olmos. The two brothers have grown distant from Felipe, after what is perceived as a heart-wrenching betrayal, which needs to be resolved. The family dynamic becomes more complicated in the final season, involving lives more than just the family.    

This season Mayans bring up Frankie Loyal, Vincent Vargas, and  Joseph Lucero as series regulars while the four-season solid regulars Danny Pino, Carla Baratta, Michael Irby, Raoul Max Trujillo, Richard Cabral, Emilio Rivera, and Sarah Bolger continue to be the factors that fuel the Mayans.  

“Most importantly, 95 percent of our cast is Latinx, and I think it’s the most important part of the show,” says Bolger. “ It represents people that I think don’t get as much screen time as they deserve.  I’m an Irish girl. I feel so lucky to get to play Emily Galindo and be part of this world and I have learned so much in the process.”

Olmos adds, “This season is arguably the best season I’ve ever read, and if it keeps going like this, it will be around a long time.  And the first three seasons don’t quite prepare you for the fourth. So take it from there, okay.  Because you’re in for one hell of a ride, man.” 

Mayans M.C, is executive produced by James, Sutter and Hilton Smith. The fourth season is produced by 20^th Television and FX Productions.

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Norberto (“Bert”) Barba has directed over fifty film and television projects since he made his debut in 1992 with the award-winning short film, Chavez Ravine. He says the key to his success is simply choosing the right actors for any project and and not giving too much directing. His recent Imagen Award for Best Director on Netflix’s Better Call Saul may be a testament to that.

Currently Barba resides in New York where he is has been working on NBC’s Law and Order: Special Victims Unit for two seasons. He chuckles when asked if his style of working with actors is low key. “There is a wonderful article the DGA wrote about me in their quarterly magazine. They kept following me around the set and the HBO people that were there told them, ‘Bert is both low key and high key at the same time.’

“For directing, casting is about 85 percent of the whole job,” he explains.  “My directing style is: I don’t give much direction. I make short comments. [I let you] Do your work as an actor. Show me what you mean and then I’ll start sculpting. That is where I am thinking less and feeling more, directing the small moments within short succinct scenes. 

However, some projects demand much more and Barba is always ready to deliver. “When it comes to staging big set pieces, I can get very highly involved. I was doing a show, that had a big hockey sequence and we had 300 extras as background. They were just not reacting in unison to the action. And I just drove it.” 

A native of the Bronx, New York, Barba studied at Columbia University and graduated from USC School of Cinematic Arts. He then earned a postgraduate degree in film production at the American Film Institute. Barba also received film experience while serving with the U.S. Army Reserve.  He commented, “It was all under Special Forces command.  The base I reported to was in Los Alamitos. I was sent around to do documentaries for them.”

When asked how he made the jump into Hollywood, he says it was in 1992, when Universal Studios and the National Hispanic Media Coalition held a nationwide contest for Latino filmmakers. They had to submit a half-hour script. “The script I submitted was titled Chavez Ravine, the drama of this small lower class Latino community who fought L.A’s  powers that be to keep from being evicted from their homes by Eminent Domain.” 

A WINNING SHORT

The winning shorts were screened at the Universal lot to industry professionals; a producer saw his film and the next day, Barba was offered a feature film to direct.

“That doesn’t happen but I was lucky. I was in the right place at the right time,” Banda admits. The movie, an action revenge thriller Blue Tiger starred Virginia Madsen and Harry Dean Stanton. “It’s kind of a little cult film now,” he shared. “You can find it on Amazon Prime.”

The success of that film led to a studio movie called Solo, starring Mario Van Peeples. That led to TV movies. “I did a number of them and finally moved to episodic, which I wasn’t happy about at first because I really liked directing TV movies,” he recalled.  “But as I got into it, I really loved it. I was there during the evolution of television to what it is now. I feel that I’ve made an impact.”

POPULAR T.V. SERIES

Barba has left his mark on almost 20 prime time series, including Grimm (which he executive produced and also directed from 2011 to 2016), FBI, Numb3rs, Resurrection Blvd., CSI Miami, Mayans MC and the Law & Order franchises. 

“Right now, I’m in New York, into a new season of Law and Order: SVU,” he explained. It’s all happening in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic which has brought new challenges. “We’re in the thick of it,” he said. “We are seriously obeying all the Covid protocols. One of our [franchise] shows was shut down in Chicago for two weeks because one person got sick.” 

Safety is a priority for the director, who has seemingly adapted to a new work routine.

“We are all definitely working within the Covid guidelines. So far, everything has been going well,” Barba says. “Basically, we use zones, Zone A and Zone B and within a zone, there are pods. Someone like me, I get to go everywhere. I can be with the actors and everyone else but I get tested every day.” He explains that anyone interacting with the actors gets tested every day and must follow other pandemic protocols. “Everyone has to wear a mask,” he says and adds, “I wear mine every day.  When I am talking to the actors, I also have my face shield.”

MUCH AT STAKE IN PANDEMIC

Health is not Barba’s only preoccupation at work. “We are not only concerned with everyone’s health but also their livelihood,” he says. “If one principal goes down, we shut down, then a hundred people are put out of work who haven’t worked in months. There is a lot at stake.”

Barba readily admits, through all the current logistical problems, he is enjoying the process. “I like telling different stories,” he says. “I am making little movies. That’s what basically I do.” He concludes, “If you embrace the story, you embrace the world. And you use your sensibilities and your life experience to tell that story.”

Catch Norberto Barba on TheTRENDTalk Show on November 8, 2020 on METV: Nov. 9 TheTRENDTalk’s Facebook Watch and IGTV.

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With Kurt Sutter’s recent firing off FX’s Mayan’s MC, fans were getting worried that this was a sign of Mayans M.C. demise. However, when the news released yesterday that their beloved series would live to see another ride as it had been renewed for a third season, social media was a-buzz with the good news.

“We’re happy to continue telling the story of Mayans M.C. with our partners at Fox 21 and excited that Elgin James has earned the opportunity to become the series’ showrunner,” said Nick Grad, President of Original Programming at FX Entertainment. “Kurt Sutter identified and chose Elgin as his partner on the show from the outset, and Elgin has been instrumental to the success of the series, leveraging his experience and creative vision to make Mayans M.C. with this incredible cast, crew and creative team.”

Although Sutter had announced earlier this year that he had plans to exit and hand over the reins to Elgin, who he partnered with initially to bring the Latino perspective he did not have, it was a shock that he did not leave on his own terms, rather was fired.

Meanwhile, fans are happy to know there will be a third season because there were many storylines that demanded to be played out. One in particular that got a lot of reaction on social media was about the new “love interest” for EZ, Marisol played by Zulelm Calderon (Nova). Then there is Dita, who seems to be the most hated character so far this season. The one that hardcore Mayan MC fans are rabid about, the treasonous turn of events where Riz (Antonio Jaramillo) gets shot and does not make it.

With so many stories left to finish, a third season renewal send a sigh of relief throughout the country. Mayans MC continues — minus Riz, first of the Mayans to get killed off.

The post Mayans Returns For 3rd Season – Minus One first appeared on .

Oscar nominated (Stand and Deliver), Tony nominated (Zoot Suit) and Emmy winning actor (Miami Vice) Edward James Olmos is involved in several projects that have afforded the multi-talented 71-year-old prolific performer the opportunity to exercise his unique and extraordinary artistry.

Olmos currently co-stars with Ashley Judd in the box-office hit film A Dog’s Way Home ( #3 film in its debut weekend nationally at 11 million). In this family friendly live action canine adventure Olmos plays Axel, a homeless veteran who encounters a dog that is on a 400-mile journey back home after having been separated from his owners.

The actor received critical acclaim for his role as Felipe Reyes, father of bad boy Angel Reyes (Clayton Cardenas) and former golden boy turned ex-con EZ Rey (J.D. Pardo) and who joins the biker “club” on FX’s Mayans M.C, a spinoff from the Sons of Anarchy series.  Mayan’s M.C. is FX’s most-watched new program and has been renewed for a second season. In addition to Olmos starring in the series, he is set to direct an episode in the upcoming season.

Referring to his roles and involvement in such films as Selena, American Me, My Family, and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez to name a few, Olmos is quoted as saying in a recent New York Times excerpts article by Simon Abrams (9/4/2018). “The stories that I have picked have given us an opportunity to look into the culture that was represented, and for that I am very proud,” he added, “Stereotypes are rooted in truth. The problem comes when that’s all you ever see.”

Most recently Olmos directed a new film, The Devil Has A Name, in which he also stars with Alfred Molina, Martin Sheen, Kate Bosworth, Sal Lopez, Pablo Schreiber and Haley Joel Osment.  The dramatic motion picture is the story of an oil matriarch who attempts to outfight a strong willed farmer whose water has been poisoned by oil drilling.

Olmos will also soon be seen in Michael D. Olmos’ (his son) directed film Windows On The World  in the role of Balthazar, an undocumented worker who disappeared from New York’s World Trade Center’s Windows on the World Restaurant during the the 9/11 attack.  Ryan Guzman stars as the son who leaves his Mexican home in search for his father. Also starring are  Luna Lauren Velez and Julie Carmen (The Beanfield Wars, Gloria).

The busy actor also completed roles in the independent movies Walking with Herb an unlikely buddy comedy in which he is teamed with George Lopez, Chasing Satellites and Paz Vega.  In 2017 Olmos reprised his iconic role as Gaff from Bladerunner in its sequel Bladerunner 2049 opposite Harrison Ford that same year he lent his voice to the film Coco in the role of Chicharro.

Olmos will be producing an upcoming psychological thriller/love story, In a Little Spanish town which he will co-direct alongside friend and frequent collaborator Robert M. Young about diverse characters thrown into a tangled web of deceit with musical undertones.

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