Juan Pablo Raba, who plays Joaquin Jackson Reyes aka Kino on Paramount+’s blockbuster new series “Dutton Ranch,” has reached a milestone on the day that we are talking to him, just ahead of the first season’s explosive finale. (The series is, like “Marshals,” a spinoff of Taylor Sheridan’s record-breaking “Yellowstone.”)
“Today is a very exciting day. And I am going to break something to you,” Raba told TheWrap. “This is first time in my career, and I have been doing this for 25 years, and it’s been already 10 years since I did my first US project, which I consider kind to be the path for a crossover … This is the first time that I have been requested by US media to be interviewed.”
This is, honestly, shocking. Among Raba’s many credits was a stint on Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,” and lead roles on Apple TV’s “Echo 3” and the History Channel’s “Six.” He did a tour on Netflix’s “Narcos” and appeared in an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” plus roles in big movies “The 33,” “Peppermint” and “The Marksman.” Unfathomable but true, apparently.
“Every time I did projects, all the requests came always from Latin American media, from Hispanic outlets. And I love it. Latin America, that’s my playground. But when something like this happens, I feel that we are connecting, and we’re creating a bridge,” said Raba. “And that has been, since day one, probably the main objective of my career — how can we create bridges in a world where some people want to make walls? I really want to thank you for noticing the work and it’s very exciting.”
TheWrap spoke to Raba about his work on “Dutton Ranch” and, specifically, the finale, which sees Joaquin, the adopted son of Beulah Jackson (Annette Bening) and the fixer for Jackson’s distressed 10 Petal Ranch, really feel the pressure.
Obviously we have to issue an extremely stern spoiler warning for Episode 8, as we will be discussing the finale in detail. Read at your own risk.
Among other things, the finale (“El Padrino”), directed by the great Christina Alexandra Voros, reveals that Joaquin is the son of a powerful cartel leader who Beulah raised as her own. Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip (Cole Hauser) discover that Beulah is using cattle from Mexico to smuggle in Fentanyl, which puts the 10 Petal in danger. The cartel comes up from Mexico, sends a death squad to Rip and Beth’s Dutton Ranch and orders Joaquin to kill his brother Rob-Will (a smarmy Jai Courtney).
By the end of the episode, Beth and Rip have defended their homestead but Carter (Finn Little) has been kidnapped by the bad guys and Rob-Will is dead, lying in a pool of his own blood in the vestibule of Beulah’s sprawling estate.
Like we said, we had a lot to discuss with Raba. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TheWrap: We learn so much about Joaquin in the finale. How much of his backstory did you know going into the season? How much of it did you learn as you went along? And how did that impact your performance?
We didn’t have a lot of information. Our writer, Chad, he had a full backstory. We had a very big backstory, but as the episodes started coming in, that backstory was not necessarily shown in the episodes. And the way it worked is we really didn’t know what was going to happen more than two episodes at a time, so I had to, just like in real life, start adapting what was happening in the episodes to the way I was performing.
Let me give you an example. I started playing my character with certain ideas. It was really hard for me, because I always felt that the way you ended up, you know, shaping your characters is through the eyes of the other actors and the way your character interacts with them. And I didn’t have that opportunity, because Joaquin only interacts with Beulah.
I had a bunch of ideas of who Joaquin was, and then comes Episode 6. First, you get shot, and then I realized, Oh my god, this is the first time this guy gets shot, he’s completely out of this element. I decide I’m going to be very scared of just the idea. I’m not going to play like I’m super tough. Like, What are you going to do with that gun? No, I’m terrified. I am a college boy. I am a businessman. I’m a rancher. I don’t sleep in the bunkhouse. I know that you cowboys don’t respect me. I don’t care. My life is other.
But then, and this was the big moment for me as an actor, was working with Cole. That first scene with Rip, when he gets in the truck, I just felt really scared. I’m like, it has to be terrifying. Rip is terrifying. He’s scary. There’s this gravitas to him. Imagine you just got shot. You’re a college boy. You just get in a truck with Rip in the middle of the night and he has a big gun, and he’s not scared to show you he’s got a big gun. That has to be terrifying. Once I did that scene, I’m like, Oh, there’s a big possibility here where I can play this guy from his vulnerability. I’m not going to be scared of showing how vulnerable he feels in this environment, and I think that plays great, because all we see from Joaquin, from that moment on, is just him being pounded, pounded, pounded, pounded, being completely taken out of his element until he does what he does. But if you think about it, everything he does from that moment is out of heartbreak.
He’s completely heartbroken. It’s not hate. He doesn’t hate them. He loves Beulah. He wants to be accepted. And it’s like, Mom, I did everything right. I did everything you wanted. I went to college, I got my degree. I have not got in trouble. I don’t even have a wife, for Christ’s sake. And you’re not giving this to me. How painful can that be? I love having possibilities, because as cool as it is to know everything is going to happen, and you know to know your arc, and to be able to thread your arc, it’s also very exciting to really roll with the punches.
Your character is very analogous to the Wes Bentley character on “Yellowstone” — the son who comes from outside the family. Did that factor into your performance at all?
I think about that moment where, that scene with Beth in the hotel, where she says, “You remind me of my dad’s lawyer.” That’s very specific. Not her brother, my dad’s lawyer. “Is that a good thing?” She says, “No.” I think that is very telling. I didn’t want to grab material from any of that. I didn’t want to build from that, because I think also the background is very different, especially in the fact that there’s a huge sense of not belonging that also has to do with a cultural background. This guy comes from the other side of the border. That already gives it a whole new tone of colors to play with, and there’s a whole different kind of heartbreak and rejection that comes with that. I don’t want to get political, but if you think about the time that we’re living, not only in the US but worldwide, that says a lot, and that gives us a lot of material to work with, and it’s that set of, it doesn’t matter how well I behave and how good I am, you’re still not going to accept me. And it doesn’t only have to do with the with the blood, it also has to do with where I come from.
That’s a perfect segue to talking about Joaquin in the finale. He’s gone to the sheriff with Rob-Will’s gun and tried to handle things in a more civil way, but by this episode he’s calling his dad and the cartel guys to come and clean up the mess. Can you talk about Joaquin’s thought process and his emotional temperature, in terms of shifting from trying to get things done more quietly to going over to the dark side?
You know what I’m thinking with that is first of all, how much heartbreak can you take? When do you draw the line? Because the reality is that he could have done that a long time ago. He could have been in his first year of college, and said, Man, this is tough. I’m going call Dad. He didn’t do it. He never called Dad. He never called Dad asking for help. At some point, he became a business partner, and he did it because he didn’t have a choice, but that’s really his last resource. It has to be utterly heartbreaking to not be able to find another solution, and having to call probably the one figure you hate the most.
There’s no admiration for Mariano. There’s no fatherly love. This guy left him in another people’s arms without knowing if he was going to be loved, if he was going to be cared for, if anybody was going to abuse him, hit him. He was abandoned. How does that feel? All that comes into play for me. I’m not thinking, like, hey, Dad, it’s time. It’s, God damn it, I cannot believe I have to call my father. This is the worst thing, after Beulah not giving him the ranch, this is the worst that can happen to him, because he’s smart enough to know that everyone’s life is going to change with that, and then a lot of people are going to die, and there’s going to be a lot of pain.
Do you think when he called his dad that he knew he was going to be put in charge of killing Rob-Will? Tell me, from your perspective.
First of all, I do not think that he thought he would be commanded to do that. But now I have a question for you as audience member — are we sure that he did it?
Well, we don’t see him do it but Oreana sees his car drive away. Is this going to be a question going forward?
I have no idea. I think that good art leaves you with more questions than answers. By the way, this is a real answer — I have no idea if he did it and nobody knows at this point. I just think that the creators were very smart, and they’re like, “Listen, we can have a big dramatic scene between them, and it’s great, but if we have that big resolution scene between them, then that is that. What if we don’t know?” Then that gives you possibilities.
I just think that if I were a showrunner, I would like to have as many doors open as possible. The question now, for the audience, is knowing the little you know about Mariano and how ruthless he is, and also knowing what he thinks of his son, he specifically says, “You’ve been standing on the sidelines.” Does he really think he’s going to go and do it? and this is a real question. I really don’t know and it was really hard to play it, because I really didn’t know how to play it.
We didn’t know what we were shooting. We did a couple of options. One was more explicit than others. In this one, you saw somebody else do it. In this one, you feel proud of it. In this one, you’re scared. And this one, you’re heartbroken. We just shot several. I heard Annette Bening say something brilliant — by the way, working with her is like the best thing that can happen to an actor — she just said something brilliant. She’s like, “Look, TV is an editor’s medium. You have to give them options.” You don’t know how things are going to play, you just don’t know. Once they build the whole puzzle and things start moving forward, like you really don’t know. So give them options. That’s what I did. We just gave them options.
Did you feel, as a performer, somewhat let down by the fact that you didn’t get that big confrontation with Jai?
At first, I was, of course, I was like, why are we not having the scene? I’m thinking about “MacBeth.” I’m thinking Cain and Abel. I’m thinking, this is the moment. And now I understand, like, no, no, you don’t need that. What you need are options, because this is TV. You need more seasons, more episodes, and more stories. Once you have that big confrontation, then that’s it, Oh, that’s what happened. Oh yeah, Joaquin killed him.
Now you don’t know. Now Oreana says, “It was him. I saw his car.” But nobody really saw him. So now you can have flashbacks, you can have other people, maybe they were there, maybe somebody else saw something, it just becomes a great land of opportunities.
What do you think is next for Joaquin?
What I do know is that now you have, whatever happened, he lost the only thing he knew in life, which was the 10 Petal, as for now, unless he can prove otherwise. He also lost the love of the only two persons that he really loved, which were Oreana and Beulah. He doesn’t have a livelihood anymore. He’s left with nothing.
I think it’s going to be really interesting, and I really hope they give me the opportunity to now work with something that I have not worked before. I’ve done a bunch of really terrible guys in the past, and you some did it for the money, some did it for the power, some did it for revenge. I’ve never worked a character from heartbreak, from complete loss. I’ve never played really a character that had nothing to lose. And now you have a guy who has nothing to lose, but he’s also not prepared for that. He’s completely out of his element. He’s not a drug lord. He wanted to be a Texan rancher. He was a good boy. He wanted to be accepted. He drove a Range Rover. He doesn’t even care about being a cowboy. What is he left with? I mean, all he can do now is learn, thrive. What is he going to learn, how is he going to decide to live his life now? Because it’s not like he calls his dad, like, “Hey, Dad, I’m so glad we’re together now.” He despises that guy.
If you thought Joaquin was lonely at the beginning of the season, talk about loneliness now.
Chad Freehan left after Season 1. You’ve got a new showrunner going into Season 2. How do you feel about entering this new chapter of Joaquin’s life with a new creative partner? Are you worried at all?
Look, I just think that it’s going to be kind of the same. Maybe you live one episode, maybe you live 10 seasons. I have no idea. You have to embrace that uncertainty, because that’s the reality of the show and life itself. We really don’t know, as certain as we want to be, and have everything figured out. The truth about life is that, and when it comes to doing this kind of work that we do, it’s multiplied by 100 right. I think it’s really exciting, and as I always say in my prayers, I always thank God for possibilities. Thank you for the possibilities, because sometimes we just take for granted the possibilities that we have in general in life. It just feels like it’s very exciting. I really would like to be able to work this, chew into it as much as possible, but with that being said, I also don’t know.
I’m really hoping for the best but prepared for anything at this point. But I’m very excited, very excited. I think you know the guy who’s coming in, he had a great run with his work. I think the possibilities are there.
“Dutton Ranch” season 1 is now streaming on Paramount+. Season 2 is coming soon.
The post ‘Dutton Ranch’ Star Juan Pablo Raba Unpacks That Shocking Finale Death: ‘Are We Sure He Did It?’ appeared first on TheWrap.
