What We Do In The Shadow’s Harvey Guillén Opens Up About Being “Round, Brown, And Proud”
Harvey Guillén slays (literally!) in FX’s What We Do In The Shadows, delivering us a Latino Van Helsing of badass proportions. We discuss his career and what it means to represent for the Latino community on an episode of the Pop Culture Planet podcast.
While Guillén’s iconic character Guillermo de la Cruz has made waves in television, growing up he didn’t always see people on screen that he related with. “It matters to see yourself represented on screen because growing up I didn't see myself represented. I always saw the funny chubby white men, like John Candy or John Belushi. And then if I did see a Latinx character, they were cleaning the bathroom or the gang banger and I was like, ‘Is that the only roles that I could ever play?’” Guillén shared with me during our interview. “So the idea that I get to play so many different roles in my career so far is really exciting. From sci-fi to thriller to comedy to horror, to show that [representation]. Because there’s going to be a kid who's watching who doesn't see themselves represented, but if I can just do something where they can say, ‘Hey, that guy did it,’ it's like yes, you can. That's worth it.”
Throughout his career, he learned that the things people called out as his weaknesses were really his strengths. “Growing up all the things that were told were my strikes against me — like I always said, ‘I'm always round, Brown, and proud’ — and those are the things that people were like, ‘Well you can't be a badass if you're above a 30 inch waist or you can't be a badass if you're queer, you can't be a badass if you're Latin.’ It doesn’t make sense,” he shared. “So to incorporate all of those things into one has been a dream come true.”
Looking back at his past auditions, he remembers being treated as a stereotype for his ethnicity and size, which wasn’t cool then or now. “I remember having auditions where it was so bad that the description of the character was just like, ‘Fat Guy,’ and it was like really writers like you can't give this character a name? I remember my first agent was like, ‘It’s this guy who lives next door and he’s funny,’ and he just build it up. I was like, ‘Oh, that sounds fun,’ and then you get the sides and it’s just, "‘Fat Guy #1: Mexican.’ It’s just like, you don’t want to give it a little more thought process. This is what you think?” Guillén said. “Is that how Hollywood sees us? It’s just like a whole bunch of people are just working in your kitchen? We do that, yes, and more. So the opportunity to do those characters was really kind of discouraging. You know, I want the role, I want to get the part, but I also don’t [want] to feed into a stereotype. I’m so glad that as the years went by [I started] doing roles that I was really proud of and that encourage people and are inspiring [like with] Guillermo.”
When asked if he feels that things are changing, Guillén said he encourages Hollywood to go further. “It definitely has changed, but it hasn’t changed that much. We have work to do in Hollywood. We’ve come so far, but we’ve got so far to go,” he said. “Even if it is one step at a time, I feel that is better than standing still.”
Harvey Guillén opens up about more of his work on our episode of the Pop Culture Planet podcast, above.
