When Alfred Molina agreed to take on the role of soccer team owner/notorious international super mogul Andrés Galan in the English language El Rey series, Matador (premiered July 15, airing Tuesdays at 9pm ET/PT), he knew his role was to be a supporting player to Gabriel Luna’s undercover CIA agent/soccer star Antonio “Matador” Bravo. Relaxing at the cocktail reception following a panel presentation for the Television Critics Association (TCA), Molina affirms, “Galan has to hover like a dangerous specter, always on the verge of squashing Bravo’s plans. The more ominous I am, the better Luna’s character looks.”
On July 10, before Matador even aired the first of its five-episode first season, El Rey’s founder Robert Rodriguez announced that the series was being picked up for a 13-episode second season. Rodriguez, who serves as executive producer and directed the first episode, expressed confidence that Matador will follow the success of El Rey’s debut series, From Dusk Till Dawn, which premiered on March 11. Of course, this is great news for Molina.
“I am delighted I am going to be able to spend some time with Andrés Galan,” said Molina.
“The quality of the character is all in the writing. He is very nuanced. He seems to start off as the bad guy, but he possesses complicated layers of humanity. There are certain times where he denies his humanity because he has real problems to deal with. He lives a very gilded life in the sense that he’s a very successful man who dragged himself up from the streets, selling cigars to American tourists in Mexico City. So, he has inherited all the problems and qualities that self?made men do. And one of them is a certain pridefulness in what he’s achieved. If that is threatened, Galan can be a very dangerous man to have as an enemy.”
Yvette Monreal Plays Galan’s daughter
One of the leveling factors in Galan’s life is his beautiful but monumentally willful celebutante daughter Senna (Yvette Monreal). Molina nods in agreement. “Oh yes, he also has as you say, a daughter who does keep him awake at night. But these are all qualities in a character that everybody at some stage or other goes through. And so the character is very real, as are the other characters in this series. These are people that deal with crime, international intrigue, even murder, but the series is more than that. There’s a wholeness to them and a complexity that gets explored as we go through each episode.”
In addition to Rodriguez, Matador is executive produced by co-creators Roberto Orci, Dan Dworkin, and Jay Beattie. Other series regulars include Nicky Whelan, Neil Hopkins and Tanc Sade. A number of noted Latino performers are appearing in recurring roles, including Elizabeth Pena, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Jonny Cruz, Isabella Gomez, Peter Gadiot and Eve Torres.
Molina believes Matador will find a receptive audience. “I think, from an audience’s point of view, they’re going to see characters who are nuanced and multilayered and problematic and characters who have flaws, characters who have redeeming qualities. So in a sense we’re reflecting not just real people, but we’re reflecting our own audience. We’re reflecting humanity itself. And it really goes right back to the quality of the writing. As actors, all we can play is what’s on the page. And what we’re getting on the page is very diverse, very complicated, very complex and multilayered people. So, hopefully, the onus is on us to make that absolutely clear.”
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