Anthony Ramos | Mavericks | Esquire

Transcript

00:00My name is Anthony Ramos, and I'm an actor and singer, and I have other things.

00:12I think the way I connect with people as an artist is by talking about the things that

00:16I'm kind of going through or playing roles that might feel far from me, but then I feel

00:22some part of that role connects to some part of my life, even if this person is completely

00:26different from me, which I feel kind of bridges the gap between me and someone that's probably

00:30completely opposite from me.

00:32The time that I fail, that's crazy.

00:34I fail all the time.

00:35That's why this question is really hard.

00:37In the Heights was having auditions.

00:39I was 19 at the time, and they had auditions for like a national tour.

00:42I went through like four rounds of callbacks, and I didn't get it.

00:46And I auditioned for the same guys four years later for Hamilton on Broadway.

00:50I remember being like, yo, if I have this chance again, just make sure you're as prepared

00:56as you possibly can be, and trust yourself.

00:59I ended up actually, you know, I ended up getting the role, and I asked the music director,

01:03I said, you know, I auditioned for you guys like four years ago, like, yo, why y'all didn't

01:06give me the job?

01:07He said, because you weren't ready.

01:09The biggest lesson I took from that was, you know, stay prepared, but sometimes you don't

01:13get something just because you're not ready and not because you're not right for it or

01:17something.

01:18You just might not be ready.

01:19A lot of that comes up for me when I'm thinking of Maverick as Misfit, specifically being

01:26Latino and having these opportunities that I didn't really see other Latino actors when

01:30I was growing up have.

01:31I think that more and more of these opportunities are coming for people like me, people who

01:35grew up like me, and just, you know, Latino actors all around, you know.

01:38Shout out to John Leguizamo and Guillermo del Toro, Paving the Way, you know, and so

01:43many others.

01:44I mean, Salma Hayek, and yeah, I'm just excited to be a part of this like movement of Latin

01:48actors that are just doing dope roles.