It’s not even July yet, and Ramon Rodriguez is already having a scorching summer.
The lower East Side native, best-known for his role as street thug -Renaldo on HBO‘s “The Wire,” managed to land supporting roles in two of this season’s highest-profile movies.
In the new crime thriller “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” Rodriguez, 29, plays a subway dispatcher opposite Denzel Washington. In “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” the sequel to the 2007 sci-fi blockbuster, which hits theaters today, Rodriguez is Shia LaBeouf‘s college roommate.
So the release of “Pelham 1 2 3” and then “Transformers” in the same month is a lucky accident?
It’s one of those surreal moments. When I did “Pelham 1 2 3,” I was completely overwhelmed, as you can imagine. I was like, “Oh my God, Denzel Washington! And Tony Scott directing! I love them!” And on top of it all, I got to film in my backyard – New York City. It’s always nice when you can do that and get to go home after a long day’s work. And then to top it off with “Transformers” is icing on the cake.
What’s your “Transformers” character do in the new movie?
My character goes by the name of Leonardo Ponce de Leon Spitz – aka Leo Spitz. He’s this conspiracy theorist, a kind of nut control freak. He’s a freshman at Princeton University and he’s got a Web site with anything posted about aliens and robots. Shia’s character, Sam, is also a freshman and he’s not sure if it’s going to work out as roommates, and what ends up happening is that I get sucked into his world of real robots and real aliens.
Was it different being in a movie with so many special effects, acting with computer-generated robots?
It was a strange, strange thing. But the actual audition is a pretty cool story. Director Michael Bay flew me out to Santa Monica and had me running and jumping and diving in his office like I was a lunatic, talking to thin air. He put me through the wringer for an hour and a half. I left his office profusely sweating. I’d never had an audition like that. But it was all worth it because that’s the kind of stuff I ended up having to do on set. There’s no green screen at all on this film. You’re acting to tennis balls and poles, and those are the “robots.”
A lot of Latino actors on their way up complain that they have to play criminals just to get their foot in the door, like you did on “The Wire.” Was it refreshing playing a college-educated geek in “Transformers”?
Absolutely right. At the end of the day, I didn’t want to represent Latinos as the same, typical generic stuff because it’s just not true. It’s not progressive, and it’s not positive. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of ignorance out there, and people think what they see is representation of an entire culture, which is just not true.
You’re a native New Yorker. Where did you grow up?
I grew up on Avenue C, and Tompkins Square Park was my park. That was where I played ball every day. I lived in that park. It was my escape. I played college basketball in West Virginia for two years, and then I graduated from NYU with a sports management degree because I realized the NBA‘s not going to happen.
I interned for the Knicks for one year doing community relations, but I absolutely hated it. It was a desk job, and the team was not good at all and I didn’t realize how much that correlated to the office. It was just gray, gloomy days. People were getting laid off left and right, and I was like, “I’ve gotta get out of here.”
How’d you go from that to acting?
A friend told me about a Nike competition, where they give you one minute to do tricks with a basketball. I wasn’t going to go, but they were giving away free sneakers. I ended up coming in second place. The one trick I could do was spin a ball on my finger, put the spinning ball on a pen, and then put the pen in my mouth. The crowd loved it. Nike put me in several commercials after that. That’s what got me in front of the camera: basketball and tricks.
