THE SECOND TIME AROUND: Angie Harmon and Amaury Nolasco on “Rizzoli & Isles.” (
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Old flames can smolder and, sometimes, throw off dangerous sparks. That’s what Angie Harmon’s “Rizzoli & Isles” character, Jane Rizzoli, is about to discover when a former colleague and love interest returns to the Boston Police Department Tuesday night as the new head of the BPD’s drug unit.
The old flame, played by head-turning guest star Amaury Nolasco, is Lt. Detective Rafael Martinez. Martinez is someone Rizzoli can’t ignore because she needs him to do her job. “They definitely had some turmoil in the past,” says Nolasco, best known for playing inmate Fernando Sucre on Fox’s “Prison Break.” Now, he’s going to cause Rizzoli to come undone. “I’m the guy who’s shaking things up, causing turmoil, bringing up a lot of painful stuff.”
Nolasco won’t say what that stuff is, only that he’s loving going toe-to-toe with Harmon. “They told me, ‘You and Angie are going to have some confrontations,’” says Nolasco. “And who doesn’t like confrontations? They make everything interesting.”
The on-screen battles couldn’t be more different, he says, from the vibe on set. Nolasco was recommended for the job by an old friend who happens to be the other leading lady on the show, Sasha Alexander, who plays Dr. Maura Isles. “We go way back,” says Nolasco, “to when she was doing ‘Wasteland’ on ABC (1999). She was dating a guy, and I was dating the guy’s sister.”
As for Harmon, Nolasco says it is always intimidating to meet the stars of a series for the first time, especially those on a hit— cable television’s No. 1 drama — that has been running for four seasons. “And she’s so beautiful,” says Nolasco. “But from the get-go, she was like, ‘Hi! I’m Angie. Welcome to the show.’ And then she gave me a hug. She’s the leader on that set. She made it so easy. She broke every wall that there was.”
Nolasco, 42, knows a little something about breaking walls. Born and raised in Puerto Rico to a family of doctors, he was well on his way to medical school himself when he was discovered on a hometown beach. “Somebody asked me if I wanted to be in a commercial,” he says. That led to more commercials, a Puerto Rican TV show, and a growing curiosity about acting. Nolasco, who was majoring in biology at the University of Puerto Rico, decided to take an acting class. “The class that I took was at 7 o’clock in the morning,” he says. “And I LOVE to sleep. But it was the only class available.”
Nolasco says the class changed his life. He was inspired by his teacher, Dean Zayas, whom Nolasco describes as the Puerto Rican version of Lee Strasberg. Zayas encouraged him to consider acting seriously. But when Nolasco told his parents he wanted to be an actor, they didn’t believe him. “They thought I was trying to be funny,” he says. “They said, ‘But you’re going to finish your degree, right?’ School was very important.”
Nolasco did finish his undergraduate work, then moved to New York. But early on in his career, the Spanish accent was something he was repeatedly told he had to overcome. “For many years they told me, ‘You have to work on your accent, blah, blah, blah.’ Just because I have an accent, does that mean that I can’t speak?”
But now, Nolasco says the acceptance of Latinos on television, and the growing recognition of their buying power as the country’s largest minority, is becoming so much greater that now he’s hearing, “ ‘We need a thicker accent.’ And we’re not only playing the murderers anymore. We’re not only playing the characters who get killed off after the first couple of scenes. We’re also playing the good guys.”
Even if the good guys bring heartache to other good guys.