The talented Hispanic actor Jose Pablo Cantillo, better known for his work in The Walking Dead, teamed up again with writer-director Neil Blomkamp after Elysium to play a key role in the new movie Chappie.

I had the pleasure of talking to Cantillo about this heartwarming and action-packed sci-fi tale and more in an exclusive interview.

DH: What was your experience working again with Neil Blomkamp?

Jose Pablo Cantillo: Amazing! He creates these huge worlds but they’re real worlds. He likes to shoot on locations and they are always exotic places. You are always going to do something that you have never encountered before. For example in Elysium we were filming on a garbage landfill; it’s a smell that gets into your bones. You smelled it and felt it but it lived on screen, that’s one cool thing about that film; you know, that word that get thrown around a lot, “edgy” and kind of grimy. The Walking Dead was able to achieve it in their own way. With Chappie we are again in Johannesburg, at this old abandoned power station that has now collapsed. I don’t know if it was because of our production (Laughs). There are always these thieves that are going in and cutting metal, and burning up metal from the power station for their income, and that’s how extreme things have gotten over their. Working with Neil you know that you are always going to sign up for something that is going to wow your senses. Location is important, it tells the story of the character and how you move in that world.

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DH: How did you prepare for the role of Yankie (Amerika)?

Cantillo: I was just coming off of The Walking Dead. My character, Martinez, is a soldier and he was very reserved. I stayed in good physical condition doing that. What I literally walked out of The Walking Dead into Chappie. Yankie laughs everything off, you don’t step to him but he will definitely tell you what’s on his mind. Very different from Martinez. Sometimes as an artist the extremes are nice, you’re trying different tactics to get what your character deserves or you believe he deserves. When we hit the first day of rehearsals in Johannesburg, it felt right and explosive. What I loved about Neil was that he encouraged improvisation in rehearsal and even on the set. That is fantastic, especially when you’re with people who wants to play and would jump knowing that there was no safety net. That is the type of guy Sharlto Copley is, he loves to improvise and loves to explore. Neil would encourage that; of course he would bring everything back to the script. I became an actor to precisely do movies like Chappie, where you don’t know what’s going to happen next, you surprise yourself moment to moment and you say “Oh my gosh!” That was amazing, but you can’t recreate it because that moment is done. I’m getting a little sentimental talking about it because I miss it. I went to the premiere and I saw my friends, I haven’t seen them in almost two years. I really missed them.

DH: What were some of the challenges you found working on Chappie?

Cantillo: One of the biggest challenges is being so far away from home. I would get up at 3 in the morning and would be able to say goodnight to my five-year old. I would use FaceTime and read her books. You don’t want to lose touch with them so we would play board games. I would set up the board game for her before I left. Thirty hours in the air later, I would set one up in my apartment in Johannesburg and I would play these games before I go to work. If I felt like I didn’t connect with them before going to work I would feel it and miss it.
But at the same time it helped me find the character. I created this back-story where Yankie, also known as Amerika, left the U.S. and now wanted to go home. We enlist Chappie, adopt him and teach him how to fightback and how to be a rebel. Yankie wanted to get this thing done so that he could go home. In many ways that helped serve my personal ambition to do my job and leave it all in the ring, have no regrets and earn my ability to go home.

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DH: Now Neil Blomkamp is working on an Alien film. Do you feel optimistic in having part in that movie?

Cantillo: I have no idea; I don’t like to be presumptuous. Would I be hopeful? Yes! I would be happy and hopeful to get that call. I’m such a huge fan of the franchise. But I don’t speculate in any shape or form. I was tempted to come to him and talk about the article that was published online but decided not to.

DH: Judging from the style Neil Has on his films, do you feel Chappie is somehow related to District 9 and Elysium?

Jose Pablo Cantillo: I would say the visual style, and that Sharlto Copley plays a character facing great challenge and obstacles in the underbelly of South Africa. To me the similarities sort of stop there. Chappie is a different character, and so are Ninja and Yolandi. In some ways it feels like a really gritty 80’s movie, with the colors, the style and the montage sequences. It is very nostalgic and fun in that way. I believe that, purposely so, District 9 feels like a documentary, we talked directly to the camera. This is very different in that sense.

DH: What’s your opinion about Latinos having a place in Hollywood now?

Cantillo: I think it’s a amazing. Watch the Oscars! The Latino market is one of the largest theater-going demos out there and now these amazing filmmakers have arrived. I think that we are hitting it at a time where writers, actors, directors and the art has come up together. We are creating stories that are universal and that are no longer considered “Latino” projects. Now we get to do our stories, that are universal, with actors, writers and directors that happen to be Latinos. That’s what we really aspire to and I feel that we are finally arriving to that place.

CHAPPIE is now playing in theaters nationwide.