How Ramon Rodriguez helped make “Will Trent” a surprise hit

The role, from the best-selling book series by Karin Slaughter, was unlike anything Rodríguez had ever played. To start, the Puerto Rican actor, who grew up on the Lower East Side, had to trade his Nuyorican accent for a Southern drawl to play the Atlanta-based GBI agent. Once he took on that challenge — and the character’s trademark three-piece suits — he found himself falling “deeply in love with” Trent, whose childhood in the foster-care system informs his approach to solving the often-disturbing cases he and his partner Faith (Iantha Richardson) investigate in the Atlanta metro area.

“His shoes are these old beat-up shoes. There’s something about him that’s very throwback — he has a tape recorder. He has this old beat-up phone, a handkerchief, like there’s this specificity about him,” Rodriguez, also a producer on the series, said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. “I love that. And I feel like people do kind of get into that and they respond to that.”

If the show’s recently announced Season 2 renewal — not to mention its strong performance on Hulu, where episodes stream weekly after airing — is any indication, viewers are also falling in love with the detective. Below, Rodriguez sounds off on the character’s distinctive accent, getting recognized on the street and leaning into the mystery of Will Trent’s background. (Note: The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.)

What attracted you to the character of Will Trent?

I responded to where he came from, his childhood, the things that he had to overcome in his life. And I liked that he was just complicated. I liked that he had a big heart. He was compassionate, he was tough — he was really good at his job. He can be off-putting and direct and a bit of a weird guy, and there was just a lot of those attributes and characteristics I thought were interesting.

What reservations did you have about playing the character?

I just wasn’t sure. Sometimes you don’t know. I needed to know more and talk about it more. And so I spoke to the showrunners a lot and we had a lot of conversations about potentially where the series could go and where this character’s journey could go.

One of the things that helped it sort of click in for me personally was when I actually started exploring further his backstory. I’d never had to learn a Southern dialect, but working on that actually cracked the character in a way for me that allowed me a way in that felt unique and felt right. We tried to make it very specific to him and to sort of where someone like him and his childhood and where he came from might sound like. And so that was a lot of fun. That was a challenge.

How did you approach the accent?

I found this incredible dialect coach. His name is Erik Singer, and he’s just a really brilliant guy and understands several dialects and really is very intellectual about it. He breaks it down in a really interesting way with the history of dialects and where they come from. So when we spoke about this character and where he came from and his childhood and what his surroundings were, we came up with some models and ideas of people that we could use — just as inspiration, not to copy them but, like, are there things and traits that we can take from them that will help ground this dialect and make it very specific?

One of the voices that we really responded to and liked a lot and, again, this isn’t like I’m not trying to mimic this at all, this sound, but it was something that we can kind of look at and reference was André 3000 from Outkast. You know, he’s got such a beautiful voice and how he speaks and his rhythms and intonations. So we looked at that as a model and would sort of reference it and go back to it.

As a Latino actor, how do you feel about playing someone who doesn’t have a specific Latino identity? In your mind when you’re playing him, is there a part of you that thinks Will could have a Latin identity?

In the books, he doesn’t know his identity. He was orphaned as a child. He grew up in the foster-care system in Atlanta. And so there’s a bit of an ambiguity as to where he’s from. So I liked sort of playing into that in a way.

Because he doesn’t know his background, I didn’t want to lean on any sort of Latino flavor for him because if someone grew up in the group home system and didn’t know his parents and didn’t know anything about his background, there’d be a lot of things that — he would just be mostly shaped by his environment. There would be maybe obviously some DNA stuff there, maybe how he looked. But we kind of just played it as, like, this is a character that we don’t know much about. And in the season we wanted to slowly begin to kind of explore, potentially, his identity.

That’s a big piece of his life puzzle that he has no idea about — to not know anything about your family, your roots, where you came from, that could leave someone with a lot of questions. And I think for someone like Will, it’s definitely a big part — he hopes to try to find some of those answers to understand himself better.

Is there anyone on set that you particularly like sharing scenes with? I’d include Betty [the Chihuahua] in that.

[Laughs] Obviously, Betty’s scenes are awesome. She’s just a rock star. She’s lovely and so is her trainer, April. They’re just wonderful. Those are always fun scenes. It’s a challenge always when you do scenes with, like they say, children and animals. It’s a bit of unpredictability. But she’s on it — she’s actually really impressive.

I love the scenes with Angie [Erika Christensen]. They tend to be just so human, this complicated relationship, watching these two try to navigate what they both struggle through, but yet they have such a rich history. They love each other so deeply, but they just have trouble figuring out how to do it in a healthy way for each other.

“Will Trent” seems very intentional about grappling with law enforcement in all its complexity and nuance. Did that part of the show appeal to you?

Having Amanda, played by Sonia Sohn as the [Black woman] director running the GBI, I thought that was fantastic. With Jake’s character, who plays Ormewood, we get slices and hints that he’s dealing with some anger and some rage.

What’s been really fun is seeing how these relationships are built. Initially, Will wants nothing to do with Faith, and Faith wants nothing to do with Will because he arrested her mom [as part of a GBI sting]. And now, as we’re wrapping up the season, we’re starting to sort of see that come up as [Faith’s mother] Evelyn (LisaGay Hamilton) is now in the series. And we’re seeing that tension and conflict with Will. But we’re also seeing her be an incredible mom to her daughter.

Are people recognizing you on the street? And have people said anything about the show that has stayed with you?

We just wrapped a couple of weeks ago. And so it’s funny, I’ve had people like, “Oh is everyone recognizing you?” Now you’re on the billboards and you’re, you know, you’re the star of the show. And I’ve been kind of like in a bubble.

So, we just sort of came out. I picked up food the other day and someone was like, “Hey you’re Will Trent!” I just got to New York City. A couple of folks recognized me. But what’s cool is to hear this character and this show is resonating for some people, which is really great. They like that he’s a little weird, but has a heart, adopts a Chihuahua.

They’re relating and connecting to other characters — Angie and Sonja [Sohn]’s character [Amanda, Will’s boss]. They seem to be responding to the cases that we’re dealing with, but maybe on a deeper level some of these characters and who they are — that they’re not these perfect human beings. They’re struggling with different things in their own lives.