What was your worst audition?
Oh man. You know, I don’t know. I like to think that I go in pretty prepared. Regardless of if I get the role or not is irrelevant. As long as I go in and do what I planned to do, I always feel like those directors, producers or playwrights will remember me in the future if I don’t fit.
When I was in high school I did speech and debate. I always used to envision that I was a real serious actor like the Pachinos, the De Niros, and the Dustin Hoffmans. I never really fancied myself as a comedic actor. One of the actors I was working with was like, “Dude, you’re like really funny. You should try comedic interpretation.” So I cut a monologue, and since that guy thought I was a funny dude, I didn’t think I had to memorize that as “crazily” as I did for duet or dramatic interpretation. I went in there and 20 seconds in I had no idea where the hell I was going. I started to improvise a bit and felt really embarrassed how unprepared I’d been. I summed up what the monologue was supposed to be, walked out the room and vowed I would never do comedy again. I never, never want to feel like I did that day in any sort of audition ever again.
I like auditioning. I like going in and trying new hats on. Not a lot of people do but I very much enjoy it.
What was the thing that first got you interested in acting? When did you know this is what you wanted to do this as a career?
I started very early on. My parents allowed me to watch movies I probably shouldn’t have been watching. My favorite movies were “Coming To America,” “Purple Rain” “La Bamba” and “Three Amigos.” I don’t think a five-year-old should be watching these movies, but I was entranced by them all for different reasons. So very early on I realized I liked what these guys were doing. As time went on I did acting stuff in school.
When I was around 14-years-old, my dad brought me to New York to visit his father, who I didn’t know very well, and he wanted to show us around and show off how great his life was at that point. He took us to see this one man play on Broadway, “Freak” by John Leguizamo. It was extraordinary and absolutely changed my life. It was the first time I saw somebody I could see myself as and the stories that he was telling were ones I could relate to. I’d never seen anything like this before. And at the end, I looked over to my dad – and I had never seen him really cry before – but he had tears in his eyes, and so did my grandpa. I leaned over to him and said, “That’s what I want to be. When I grow up that’s what I want to do.” He said, “You will, papi. You will.” That was the moment I knew. So it’s all John Leguizamo’s fault.
How did you get your part on “You’re The Worst”?
I auditioned like everyone else, but mine was a little different. I previously knew Stephen Falk. I was on his first television show that never made it to the air. It was supposed to be a mid-season pickup in 2012. It was Dane Cook and Jeffrey Tambor, myself and Collette Wolfe (who plays Dorothy on “You’re the Worst”). After shooting four episodes, NBC decided to pull the rug out from under us before any episodes hit the air. So, Stephen and I met that way, and it was an unfortunate situation, but then we wouldn’t have had “You’re the Worst.”
About a year and a half later my manager tells me there’s this really great show that Stephen’s working on and I was perfect for one of the roles. I read it and it was probably one of the best pilots I have ever read, so I said, “Hell yeah, I can’t wait.” I put myself on tape and a couple days later I get a call from Stephen saying I was in the mix, you’re the one I want and we just need to get the okay from FX. Then I get a call a week later saying I was going to do a test with Chris Geere in New York. And three days after that, I was leaving from playing basketball with my friends and my phone started ringing. They offered me the part through my agent and manager. They decided they didn’t need to see Chris and I read together in a testing capacity, which I guess is pretty odd. They just used my initial tape as my test. I was very lucky that both Stephen and FX thought I was right from the get-go.
What personal characteristics do you bring to Edgar?
I do like to cook a lot, I do consider myself to be a hopeless romantic, I consider myself to be loyal to the people I love in my life. I feel like that’s already written into the character and then I get to bring my view of what that is to it. I take seriously that Jimmy has an ethnic friend on the show and it’s not some stereotypical role. I get to show other brown people out there and those who feel like their voices aren’t heard very often that there are actual people who are people of color who have real fleshed out characters and really have issues just like everybody else. I try to gather as much information as I can to round him out in and outside of the veteran community, because him being a veteran with PTSD isn’t the only thing we want to define him. He’s a person first and foremost.
I’ve read you have a routine you go into before filming. Can you explain that?
I do, I’m in it now. I’m a very regimented person in my own lifestyle, but I’ve never served our country in any sort of way, and so I have no idea what it’s like to have gone through training or what it’s like going overseas. I speak with as many veterans that will talk with me, tell me their stories and tell me what their life is like right now. I try to keep up with them so I can stay fresh within that mindset.
Starting in January I go into a lockdown mode. I workout at the same time everyday, I’m eating a lot of things on rotation, I’m wearing the same clothes on rotation – like of five things. I try to put myself in an atmosphere where I don’t get to make a lot of decisions for myself, where a lot of the decisions are premeditated and I’m just falling in line so I just have that in my blood and I’m ready to go, because I don’t know what that’s like. I’ve been lucky enough that I didn’t have to do that or go that route.
As we get closer to shooting, I start hearing from Stephen which way we’re going because we want him to continue breaking out of this mold. I have to put myself in it from January to April before we start shooting in May and June, so when I do get chances to break out of it, it’s fresh and new and not the same way every time. Luckily enough this guy is evolving in every way – mentally, emotionally, physically – and I just want to do my due diligence and stay on top of it on my end.
At the end of season three, you’ve kept your job with Doug Benson and Dorothy is on her way back to Jacksonville. Very different from the season two finale. How would you describe Edgar’s transformation from that point until now?
So much has happened, way more from the end of season two to the end of season three than the end of season one to the end of season two. Us taking the avenue we did by taking him off his medications, it forced us to make Edgar fall a little bit on his battle with PTSD. Whenever that happens you’re able to focus on a level of vulnerability you haven’t displayed or seen before. On the flipside of that, we know that if you hit “rock bottom” that there’s going to be a way to come up. That’s kind of been the amazing thing we’ve seen, the seesaw of the relationship between Edgar and Dorothy, because the first time we met her she was at the top. She didn’t like the improv group she was with but she was fascinated with Edgar and seemed like the only person who really gave a shit about him. I think that’s why they connected so much. Now she’s hitting the “rock bottom” portion, not knowing where she’s going and seeing Edgar make decisions for the first time for himself. At the same time, he’s finding places in the world that are normalizing him, while giving him the opportunity to explore a side of him he didn’t know he had. I think we’ve seen a complete 180. And in terms, he’s become a little “asshole-ish,” which for me as an actor is fun because Chris (Jimmy), Aya (Gretchen) and Kether (Lindsay) always get to say the asshole things. Like at the end, when he was with Lindsay in the apartment, I feel like we got to see a darker “asshole-ish” path that Edgar might be on as he’s trying to find himself going into season four.
I think the thing I love about “You’re The Worst” is really how unlike it is from anything on television, which I think is something FX and FXX pride themselves on. What do you think makes it so unique?
That it’s coming from the mind of Stephen Falk, who is a really unique dude. He’s one of the most genuinely amazing people I’ve met in my life.
Just the way he sees the world and what he thinks is funny is great. And our writers are just extensions of him. The four of us and our amazingly underrated supporting cast are extensions of them. We all vibe together, we’re all familiar and we all want to tell this story to the best of its ability. We’re continuing to push the envelope so we don’t fall into your standard sit-com troupe. We’re actually telling stories about real people. Yeah, it’s going to be funny, but the writing is elevated so we’re able to take it up a notch and become more intellectual if we need to. And at the same time as soon as that happens, we stab you in the back with a paring knife and make you feel some shit you didn’t know you were going to feel by watching this episode and these characters feel something you didn’t know they were capable of feeling. With being on FXX we don’t have the restrictions a network has and we get to explore these things that show us a little more naked – not literally, but sometimes literally. People are broken sometimes, people need help being fixed. There are people that don’t give a shit about other people and there are people that give a great deal of shit about other people. We have them and we have all of their stories growing simultaneously across the board, equally together.
In entertainment’s current climate, is this something you want to keep pushing even more or hold off a bit?
Yes! As far as I know we are. I don’t see Stephen backing down or away from that at all. That’s not his style.
Can you say anything about season four? If not, is there anything you’d like to see from your character or the show?
To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what’s going on next season. Stephen and the writers are writing, writing, writing. They had a writers’ retreat in Vegas, so if that tells you anything. Although Stephen does go to Vegas often to write. He just likes being in a room in Vegas apparently. They’re writing and we’re not allowed on any of the fun until May/June when we’re all back in Los Angeles together and we start getting some scripts, so unfortunately I can’t even throw a bone your way. I do know that we’ll start very close to where we ended, that seems to be a trend that Stephen has kept going. So I think the aftermath with Jimmy and Gretchen we’ll deal with fairly quickly. As far as Edgar, I hope we get to see more of him in the real world, working with Doug Benson, writing some Dr. Weed characters or some sketches, and to continue to advance. I just want to see him evolve and transition to the civilian lifestyle as much as he possibly can.
What’s coming from you in the near future?
There’s a movie called “Carrie Pilby” that’s coming to theaters March 31. It had premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and now it’s coming to select theaters nationwide starting then. In August, Greg Garcia is having a new show on TBS and I was lucky enough to work with them for a little bit.
What’s been your biggest pinch me moment of your career so far?
This is going to go back to John Leguizamo. I moved to New York in 2010 because I was doing this hip-hop satire about an underdog Puerto Rican wrestler from the Bronx, dealing with issues of racism, stereotyping, and capitalism through the world of WWE. It was a play that we did in Chicago that turned out to be a huge hit – it was a Pulitzer finalist that year. Later on at the end of awards season I won a Theatre World Award that was given to people on-Broadway and off-Broadway who were making their debut. I had no idea that they had picked special people that won before to give them out. I was walking to my seat and I got to the table and saw that I was going fourth. I saw John Leguizamo with an arrow pointing to my name and I was like, “Who’s presenting me my award?” They said, “John Leguizamo. Did they not tell you?” Whatever speech I had been preparing in my head completely went out the window because the person who literally made me want to do what I was doing was going to be presenting me with my first ever New York theatre award for doing something that was very similar that he was doing. It was an amazingly emotional moment for me and one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. During the speech I told my John Leguizamo story and how I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him and I dedicated to him, because without the likes of people like John Leguizamo I don’t think there would be a Desmin Borges.
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