INTERVIEW: ‘Narcos’ actor on loyalty, betrayal of the hit Netflix series
For Portuguese actor Pêpê Rapazote, the chance to join the cast of Netflix’s Narcos for the show’s third season was a welcome challenge. On the series, which depicts the drug trafficking of Pablo Escobar and competing drug cartels, Rapazote plays José Santacruz Londoño, or “Chepe,” one of the leaders of the infamous Cali cartel.
“First of all, I was a huge fan,” Rapazote said in a recent phone interview. “Narcos, indeed, was a very fresh, new thing, very passionate. It had all the ingredients for a super hit. It’s about drugs, narco trafficking, with a lot of violence, and there’s a lot of passion and a lot of loyalty and a lot of betrayal.”
Rapazote auditioned for the show, but not for the “Chepe” character. Instead, he auditioned for the role of Jorge Salcedo (later played by Matias Varela), but when he went in to meet the Narcos team, they almost immediately saw him playing “Chepe.”
“I don’t know if it’s because of the energy, surely because of some physicality,” Rapazote said. “They didn’t want to pick the actors by their looks, but I think they saw something in me that could translate to José Santacruz, which was great. And I really feel blessed.”
The actor said he loved the richness and complexity of the character, noting that the depth of Santacruz, whose main storyline takes place in New York City, made him interesting to portray. Rapazote even counts the drug kingpin as one of his favorite roles, and that’s saying something because the actor has quite a few memorable characters on his résumé. Rapazote has been seen in Shameless and Blood Ties, in addition to Portugal’s JURA and Pai à Força. He’s a hard-working actor who travels around the globe for many international productions. When he spoke with Hollywood Soapbox, he was on break in Portugal but gearing up for a return trip to Buenos Aires.
When he joined Narcos for season three, Rapazote relied on his own memories of the headlines that depicted the drug cartels in South America, but he also added to that personal knowledge with new research.
“I did do a lot of research,” he said. “I lived in Venezuela for two years between 9 and 11 [years old]. That was ’80-’82, and Pablo Escobar was already around.”
Rapazote also remembers being in Venezuela as a child and seeing a map depicting the border of Venezuela and Colombia in 1850. This stirred in him an interest in learning about how the two countries disputed over the “frontier” boundary and the demand for oil, and this led into his discovery of the international drug business.
“I wasn’t totally unaware of the drug trafficking,” the actor said, “because since I was 10, I heard about Pablo Escobar. I didn’t know anything about Cali.”
Filming Narcos kept Rapazote busy for seven months. Next up for the actor is the MGM movie Operation Finale starring Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley. The film comes from director Chris Weitz, and it has kept Rapazote busy in Buenos Aires.
Beyond that movie and audiences’ continued binge-watching of his role in Narcos, it seems like Rapazote is keeping his many professional options open, always looking for that next complex role to keep him interested and researching.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Narcos is now available on Netflix. Click here for more information.
