Ramón Rodríguez Relishes the Resilient Willpower of WILL TRENT - Bell Media

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By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Given the types of stories he loves to tell the most, as well as his real-life experiences with a family member to draw upon, Ramón Rodríguez is perhaps the perfect person, at the right place at the right time, to play the lead character in CTV's WILL TRENT. So how ironic is it that Rodríguez wasn't immediately convinced it was a match made in heaven. "What's funny is, I was very reluctant to take on the role, because I didn't think I was right at first," Rodríguez said during a recent visit to Bell Media headquarters in Toronto. "I was really reluctant. I just wasn't sure if I was the guy." Rodríguez is certainly "the guy" now, with WILL TRENT in the middle of its second hit season, and already renewed for a third. After a two-week break, the series returns with a new episode, Tuesday, April 30 at 8 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app. Rodríguez said there were plenty of conversations prior to him agreeing to the job, but once he was talked into it, he read the Will Trent novels, and began to wrap his brain around the task. Will is a successful Special Agent in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, but the fact that he was abandoned as a child, and subsequently placed in the Atlanta foster care system, has had a lasting effect. "His resilience is something I could identify with, from how I grew up in my childhood, finding ways to use the things that you've been through, and how do you use that to move forward?" Rodríguez explained. "There were certain things about my personal life, my childhood, my relationship with my dad, that I could sort of pull from. Will definitely is dealing with a lot of stuff that was shaped by his childhood, and I'm fascinated by him not knowing where some stuff comes from. I can relate to that personally, because when I reconnected with my dad, I was like, 'ah, so THAT'S where certain things came from!' It's like a big puzzle, and you might not understand it all, but you get another piece of it." Rodríguez sees WILL TRENT as something of a coming-of-age story, in the sense that Will is still trying to figure out who he is. That journey has taken some new twists in Season 2 with Will meeting his biological uncle Antonio, played by John Ortiz. The other characters in the show - Angie, played by Erika Christensen, Faith, played by Iantha Richardson, Amanda, played by Sonja Sohn, and many more - are constantly asking Will if he's doing okay emotionally. He almost always says, "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine." But of course, that isn't really true. "Coming-of-age stories, and identity, are two themes that I really enjoy watching," Rodríguez said. "So I think that was something that I could grasp onto, this idea that he doesn't know who he is. Will is someone who has created a persona to survive, and cope with life. I think everybody, to a certain extent, creates certain things, and with this character, a large part of the three-piece suits, and being a little quirky, and the fact that he can be off-putting, I think these are coping mechanisms." Don't get the idea that WILL TRENT is always super serious, though. Light comedy plays a large part in the series. Will's idiosyncrasies certainly don't go unnoticed by his colleagues, and he has a sense of humour himself. As for those ubiquitous three-piece suits, does Rodríguez enjoy wearing them, or does he long for the freedom of a T-shirt from time to time? "It started as a hate relationship, I won't lie," Rodríguez said. "I was like, 'are you serious?' And it was the dead of summer when we shot the pilot. I'll never forget that summer. But it evolved. Part of the evolution of finding the character for myself was, this is his armour. This is what he uses. It's a mask. He's saying, 'I don't want people to know that I'm dyslexic. I don't want people to think that I'm not enough, or that I'm stupid, or anything like that. I can hide behind this screen that I create with this suit.'" Rodríguez pointed out, however, that certain aspects of the attire should not go unnoticed by eagle-eyed viewers. "This was a big conversation that I had with the costume designer in the beginning - the suits are not perfectly fitted," Rodríguez said. "Each one is custom, but they're a little loose, and baggy, a little weathered. The shoes are beat up. He's got an old phone that's beat up, too. There was a lot of inspiration I took from older shows and movies, Steve McQueen, and DRAGNET. I wanted him to feel like someone that came from another era, and is trying to navigate today's world." Rodríguez concluded, "from the moment I put the suits on now, it's interesting how that immediately helps me kind of feel like, 'all right, it's Will time!'" billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv

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