I personally think 'Power' is much more similar to 'The Sopranos' in that it deals with a character who is leading a double life and wants to become legitimate.
I'm from Sacramento, and I have no idea what growing up in a city is like.
Death marks our careers as actors - it's often what flings us back into unemployment, the unknown, the insecurity that is the true constant in our profession... and it must be celebrated.
You can accomplish so many things with a negative outlook and low self-esteem if you just do it over and over and over again.
Shane Johnson and I coincidently went to Whitman College. This is notable because Whitman is teeny-tiny, with only 1,200 students. He graduated the spring before I started, so we didn't know each other.
'Power' usually starts principal photography around mid September, and the first table read is always like one big family reunion. The most common comment we hear is how 'well rested' everyone looks... something that can't be said by the end of the season.
The U.S. is a rainbow of people with an endless scope of stories. My hope is that writing stories about people of color will become instinctual rather than something to be pushed for.
One of the wonderful things about 'Power' and why fans often say it makes their heart race is it's set up like a horror film because the audience is, like, four or five steps ahead of the characters.
The power of sexual attraction is a real thing.
Everybody has their own agenda, and that makes 'Power' a dark world. There aren't any really clean characters.
I don't feel like I've ever subscribed to the stereotypical notion of success. I've always equated success with having integrity, conducting yourself with compassion and honesty, and following your heart despite whether or not you ever make any money at it.
If you are playing a Hispanic character who has to speak in dialect or in an accent, nail that dialect or accent. When I hear a character that's supposed to be Cuban speaking with a Mexican accent or vice versa, it grates on me and immediately pulls me out of the story.
Before 'Power,' I got down to $86 in my bank account. I don't know if I feel successful as much as I feel relieved because for the first time in my life I'm not scared about how I'm going to pay my rent, and I can start to put money away.
I'm mixed race - my dad's Caucasian, and my mom's Mexican - so I want to play anything and everything, from American to Latino, the whole spectrum; I'm insatiable.
Puerto Rican culture is very different from Mexican culture. Part of the Mexican psychology is the idea of being an immigrant or being illegal or being confused with that. That doesn't happen with Puerto Ricans, because you're a commonwealth.
To get on a show where you're acting day in and day out for many, many hours - 15-16 hours sometimes - it hones your endurance, your ability to memorize, your ability to follow your instincts, because you don't have time to fret about your choices afterward.
When I was unemployed, I hosted lots of dinner parties. Now I have time to make a pot of soup for the week - if I'm lucky!
I live in Venice, where I can roll out of bed in my pajamas, so I tend to fly under the radar - and I hope that continues.
'Power' is Andy Bean's first television job, ever. Talk about sticking the landing at first go!
Sometimes you have to let your life fall apart and let it come back together on its own and learn to care for yourself in a different way.
