The dark and mysterious looking Ramon Villa-Hernandez is no stranger in or around cameras and film production. The El Paso based multi-talented actor/musician has had roles in an assortment of films such as Carlos Corral’s Hands of God, Edy Soto’s Reservado, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival in 2011, as well as the entire film catalog of The Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. The characters he portrays usually go through a process of self-discovery and/or explore taboo subjects of abuse, addiction, or psychosis. Fusion had the opportunity to speak with Ramon about his current film project with Rodriguez-Lopez, Niño de la Esperanza, which will be shot in El Paso, TX, January 2013 as well as his various contributions to RLP films.
The first time I saw you act on the big screen was at the Plaza Film Festival a few years ago. It was for The Sentimental Engine Slayer. You play two roles in that movie. One is Oscar, the pivotal grocery store manager. Can you tell me a little about that character?
That was, so far, a cool moment in the cinema stuff I do. That moment was a very explosive moment for us. What we were trying to do is discover the characters together. There was only so much we could rehearse. We lost the main actor and Omar had to play the main actor and I had to bounce off of him. Usually, I bounce off guys or girls that have done it for a long time, so they’re always throwing shit out and you’re able bounce back and forth. But with him, I had to take over the scene. Its cool because he was able to let me do that and I felt like I could do that.
It was a discovery moment for all of us in the production of where the characters were and who they were. That’s the character (Oscar), for the main character (Barlam), that represents the male side of identity and how that male side is very confusing because he sleeps with transvestites. This young man is trying to find out what it means to be a man and if the role I’m playing is representative of the male ego, he wants to be like that. It’s in that moment in the movie that he realizes maybe that’s what he needs to do and that’s when we realize in the story that he starts to sleep with these transvestites and there is violence behind that as well. Again, that young man is in discovery moment but he used me as the anchor to go that direction.
That character, for me, was cool in that movie because that was a main plot point in the film. Its hard to get those roles where you’re the main plot point, where you change the story and as an actor, those are the roles you want. That’s why you’re there, you have to make that moment happen.
How did that lead to your involvement in Los Chidos?
We worked on another feature film, El Divino Influjo de los Secretos. We shot that in Juarez, Hamburg, Germany, and Guadalajara. We traveled a lot for that movie. I’m the main actor in that. It’s about this guy from Juarez who has a theatre group and he’s in love with a girl. He breaks up with this girl and he realizes thats the girl for him but it’s too late because she moved to Germany for art school.
So, we were in Guadalajara and as we’re shooting this film we would drive from the airport back to Omar’s place. There was a place where they change tires. We stopped once to see what it looked like and we saw these guys jalando, in their hustle, just all day sitting around seeing TV. Omar decided he wanted to do a story about a family who works in this kind of thing; where they change tires off the airport. We started production and we got a bunch of local actors, good actors, who were from a theatre group. I helped out more behind the scenes. I started working more on production.
Do you have an acting role in it?
I do. I have a small role. I play a butcher. The woman in the film, the main actress, buys certain meat and she buys it from me. This meat is what feeds her family. So, it’s a talk about eating meat. It’s a topic of “where do we get our meat?”
We shot in a slaughter house in Guadalajara. I have never smelled or been so close to smelling death all day. Its not like smelling flowers. Its definitely a very dark smell. My character is a guy who lives in that smell. A person who lives in that smell makes these crazy decisions. Its almost scientifically proven. If you have someone who smells good stuff all the time compared to someone who has to smell crap, shit, burning rubber every day of your life, your attitude is going to be different, the way you see life. That’s kind of my justification as to why he kills little babies. He kidnaps or has people kidnap little babies and then he cuts them up and sells that meat. I sell that meat to this lady and other people and they love it.
That movie was featured at SXSW Festival 2012. How was it received?
Obviously, these films and working with Omar, you have to have a background with him. If you don’t have a background with him, you’re not going to get into his films. If you’ve never seen his repertoire of work, if you don’t hear his sound or his voice, if you’ve never known any of that, there’s no way in hell, unless you’re really open minded, that you’re going to enjoy any of the movies. These films are made for people who really enjoy his repertoire, his work, his collection of work.
Do you see yourself in the characters you portray? Do you identify with them (Sentimental, El Divino, Los Chidos, etc.)?
I have to see myself in the characters I play because then I wouldn’t be true to the character.
Luckily this is only movies where I can “pretend” to be someone else and then someone yells “cut” and I can be myself again. Unlike the theatre where you have to “stay” in character for longer periods of time. That’s the difference between method acting, those who are always in character, as oppose to the ones who do movie acting, which means you play a character and not stay in character.
Currently, you’re working on a new feature film? What’s it about?
We’re doing pre-production in December. We’re doing another feature film in Chuco and we’re stoked! Niño de la Esperanza is going to be our downtown El Paso film. Where Sentimental Engine Slayer was a suburban El Paso film, this one’s going to be more downtown. El Paso, downtown is mysterious and intriguing. It’s basically about a young girl and a young boy who are facing these consequences after something happens to their parents. They’re left to fend for themselves. It’s going to be a little on the darker side. But definitely, there will be a lot of revelations for both characters in terms of their growth and development of what they have to do. In terms of the choices they have to make to be able to keep living their lives.
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