EXCLUSIVE | Filthy Rich's Benjamin Levy Aguilar looked up to his mom for Antonio's role in the 'high stakes opera'
FOX's new Southern Gothic dramedy premiered on September 21 with a huge positive response from many fans of the big names in the series such as Kim Cattrall. The series follows the life of the Monreaux family who after the death of their patriarch Eugene Monreaux (Gerald McRaney) have to deal with the consequences of now public family secrets. Eugene, who had stepped out of his marriage to wife Margaret Monreaux (Kim Cattrall) more than once had fathered three illegitimate children, one of them is Antonio Rivera played by the sweet-faced actor Benjamin Levy Aguilar. In an exclusive interview with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), Aguilar not only speaks about his role as Rivera but also of how he came to start a career in acting, his relationship with his castmates, his experience with the pandemic lockdown period and how it was entering a whole new world that is Hollywood.
This is Aguilar's first job in Hollywood after he had initially booked a short film where he played an MMA fighter. After having lost 30 pounds for that role in 30 days for the short film, he realized it had been quite the tough task. "Cutting weight before a fight," he says is "very rigorous and very dangerous for fighters" and isn't talked about much. Interestingly, the young actor was referred by this film's casting director to his manager who had him sent out for his first pilot season. "I had never really done a real pilot season before and Filthy Rich was one of them," said Aguilar. After booking the role a week after his first audition, Aguilar said that it changed his life quite quickly as the crew started to film in New Orleans only 15 days later.
Answering why and how he was drawn to his character, Aguilar explained he was drawn to Rivera because "he's not just a fighter." Although he has always wanted to play a fighter because of his passion for martial arts, he was also drawn to the fact that his character was a single father "trying to do his best for his little boy" which he said adds "heart and layers" to Rivera. "It also breaks so many stereotypes that I'm used to seeing on TV about Latino characters. This is a young man that truly is doing his best for his little boy under the circumstances that he has in his life. I thought that was really special," said Aguilar.
With Hollywood not putting much focus on single Latino fathers when it comes to representation on TV, we wondered if the role of Rivera had been challenging. Where did he draw his inspiration from? Aguilar explained that he drew inspiration from his personal experiences having grown up with a single mother. "At the end of the day, Antonio is trying to do the same thing that a great mother would do," explained Aguilar. He also mentioned that he drew inspiration from one of his favorite movies starring Russell Crowe titled, 'Cinderella Man' but mostly it was his mother. "Just understanding how my mom was just literally trying to do her best with what she was given - that I guess helped me understand Antonio," revealed the actor.
The actor is an impeccable soccer player who is also trained in martial arts and shooting, but his mother's advice on trying out acting helped him really change the direction of his career. Explaining how he was inspired to start in the acting industry, Aguilar said that he didn't even know that for him a career in acting was possible. "I thought Hollywood was, somewhere out of space, outside of earth, maybe on another dimension, people would go and be Hollywood stars. I had no idea coming from Guatemala that this was actually possible," he said. The actor revealed that he had developed his body and his discipline through sports such as martial arts and soccer that had kept him on the right path. "I always appreciate and have a very special place in my heart for soccer and for my martial arts as that kept me sane and kept me healthy and developed in me a discipline that now I carry into my acting," said Aguilar.
Calling acting a "spur of the moment decision," Aguilar explained that he was going to go to Israel and sign his papers to honor his Jewish heritage when his mother suggested he try acting. "I was like, 'What do you mean? Like, what does that mean?' and she's like, "Yeah. You know, acting like Brad Pitt's in the movies, just try and do that?' And I was like, 'Okay, well, that sounds exciting. How do I do that?' And she said, 'Well, I don't know. I mean, I guess you go to Hollywood, right?'," shared the actor. He then bought a ticket to the city a week later and found his way to a hostel and acting classes where, he said, "I discovered a whole new world." "I didn't know that acting was something you took classes for and that it was a craft to respect so much. It really hit me completely and I was drawn. At that point, when I saw how difficult it was for me, I was completely obsessed with it," said the actor.
Aguilar also spoke of his character Rivera and how different he is from his other two illegitimate siblings - Ginger Sweet (Melia Kreiling) and Jason Conley (Mark L Young) and how Rivera fits into the Monreaux family. Besides being a fighter and a single father, Aguilar shared that his character comes in with a "different mentality." He explained that this is the case because Rivera is "looking for a family structure that he maybe hasn't had, and an opportunity for certainty in his life and comfortability and a future with education and things that he never had the opportunity to have." He further teased that this is probably what makes the connection between him and Cattrall's character Margaret so strong. "I think that he finds in her, a mother figure and she finds in him the opportunity to do things over again in a different way, maybe," said Aguilar. Without revealing too much, the actor said that since it is a "very high stakes soap opera," the possibility of being used is "definitely a possibility" for his character. "You have to tune in to watch, but I could say that everyone does have ulterior motives. So, there is a possibility of both - the real sincereness of that love and that connection and also both of them may be, using each other," the actor revealed.
The genre of an ensemble cast and a soap opera style production is "absolutely" new to Aguilar who said, growing up he would just watch his favorite films that were heavy dramas over and over again. Going into 'Filthy Rich', the actor said he found it to be a "celebration of acting because everything is so heightened and you are forced to bring your groundedness into it to make the characters realistic." He added, "I'm especially a fan of this show because it is a soap opera, but it doesn't take itself so seriously and when you allow it to not take itself so seriously, and when you allow it to be silly, it adds an element of humor into it, which makes it more a juicy family drama than a soap opera, even though the story is structured as a soap opera." He further explained how his castmates all have different stories in the narrative of the entire production, "How do these stories fit into one story? It's kind of crazy," he said.
Speaking of castmates, Aguilar had nothing but kind words for them. Initially intimated by the newness of it all, the actor said that he was very grateful that the entire cast had taken him in as a newcomer. "They would allow me to be vulnerable in that sense and to ask questions and everyone just had a lot of love and support to give me, including Kim Cattrall. She was very sweet to me and would give me tips in between takes," he said. He also brought up a particular moment when they were about to shoot the next episode whereas they were ready to shoot the second episode, Cattrall had told him that, "I just want to tell you that the camera loves you and all you need to do is not do anything." He said that it meant a lot to him because it made him understand that he didn't have to push too much with this role. "It was just good to be acknowledged by her - that meant a lot to me."
Not to mention, Aguilar's character also has a son in the show, which he said he had tons of practice with - they are twins. "Since, before we started shooting the pilot, I would go to their house and babysit and play with the kids and change their diapers. And I learned how to bathe them. I didn't know that there's a specific way to put shampoo on a baby, because if not, you might get for their eyes," explained the actor. "It was all of these moments that I had to learn basically like a single father would have had to - like, how to be a good father and. The mother of the babies really allowed me the space to do that and I am so grateful for her because then you could see the chemistry on set with me and the babies. And it was real because they actually loved me and they actually call me 'Papi', which means Daddy in Spanish and that's how they call me off the set because they just developed a real friendship with me. I love the family till this day and I forever will."
When explaining filming his new role as Rivera, Aguilar teased a bit of what is to come and highlighting the challenges he faced. "It was challenging. To start off my relationship with my mother that came in on episode two, played by Alanna Ubach who is amazing. I think I was confused with how their relationship was at the beginning before it started. But as soon as I started doing things with her, she's so brilliant that it was like, 'Oh, I know the relationship already'. But before that I was actually like twisting my brain, trying to understand how he would be with his mom," reveals the actor. 'Is he more outgoing with her? Is there tension in that relationship? Is it just flowing? Are they best friends or are they work partners?'"
He further explained that this was a complex relationship because not many young single fathers are portrayed on television. "I'm not used to seeing that, you know, we're not used to seeing that," said Aguilar. "So I think that it was challenging for me to understand how that relationship would work." He also explained that another challenging part was the apex of his character, who initially is soft-spoken and impressionable. He explained the challenge as the "moment where Antonio maybe rebels, or does something out of character and finding where that moment would fit in the whole story in general."
According to the actor, the series, in fact, didn't take too much of a hit because of the pandemic because they had stopped filming in mid-January right before the pandemic had hit. Excited for the September 21 premiere, Aguilar said, "You're just going to go on a ride or you just have to kind of like accept it and, just have fun with, because it just literally does not stop the entire time," speaking of all the twists and turns the series is about to deliver.
Further, it seems like the actor has been productive during the pandemic, revealing that it had forced him to "look inward" in general." "You know, when we grow up, we have are our traumas that we kind of brush past in our childhood and we don't really ever focus on. When everything is quiet and silent, it kind of forces you to look inward and find the patterns that you scared of," shared the actor. "It has helped me learn how to cope with my own fears and it's a process that I don't ever want to stop because I know it takes years to just heal because we are all broken in some way. I've found this time to be so productive and that's been kind of painful, but productive."
Episode 2 of 'Filthy Rich' airs Monday, September 28, 2020, from 9-10 pm ET on FOX.