Free-form ‘Southland’ style inspires actor’s performance

When Anthony Ruivivar started working on TNT’s gritty cop show "Southland," he didn’t know how to answer his wife — actress Yvonne Jung — after she asked him how it was going.

The Hawaii-born Ruivivar was cast for a seven-episode arc as L.A.P.D. officer Hank Lucero, but "Southland" is shot so unconventionally that he didn’t know how to gauge his performance.

The cameras are hand-held to allow the camera crew to respond to an actor’s movements, he said. There are no marks on the ground to tell an actor where to stand. There’s barely any rehearsal — "Everyone expects you to come prepared," Ruivivar said — and you follow the choreography.

And there’s no comfy, air-conditioned trailer to hide in between scenes. The actors simply jump in a van and go from location to location — as many as five in a day before they’re done. A director once waited for a school to let out across the street from a scene in order to fill the area with random students.

But the day after Ruivivar’s final, shocking episode — his character was murdered in the April 10 episode, "Chaos" — fans and friends were screaming about an Emmy nomination.

The style of "Southland," which Ruivivar called terrifying, had brought out the best in him.

"You don’t have any of the normal safety nets you are used to as an actor," he said in a phone call from Charlotte, N.C., where he is shooting "Banshee" for Cinemax. "I think it causes or forces you to think quickly, be on your toes and play it moment to moment and not be such a slave to the entire process."

The 42-year-old Ruivivar, the son of Tony Ruivivar, founder of the popular Hawaii musical group Society of Seven, has been a steadily working actor since the mid-1990s. His big break came in 1999 when he played Carlos Nieto on NBC’s "Third Watch." He’s been on a variety of TV shows in recent years: "The Whole Truth," "The Good Wife," "American Horror Story," "Burn Notice" and "Major Crimes."

The plot of "Chaos" is an homage to the famous 1963 L.A.P.D. case that spawned the Joseph Wambaugh book "The Onion Field," Ruivivar said. In "Chaos," Lucero and his partner, officer John Cooper (played by Michael Cudlitz) are kidnapped by a pair of paranoid meth addicts who strip the cops to their underwear, throw them in the back of a pickup truck and drive them to their run-down home in the desert.

It was a physically demanding scene.

Temperatures were in the 30s when they were on location in the Southern California desert in March; the actors were handcuffed and dragged in and out of the house, and Ruivivar’s neck took a beating.

When his character was shot, Ruivivar snapped his head back because he thought that was the most natural response. Turns out it was also the most uncomfortable response.

"When we were rehearsing the scene, I was laying on Michael, and when the shot went off I figured when it happens your head goes back and that’s it," Ruivivar said. "Everyone loved it. We did a couple of takes with my head laying back. My neck is just now recovering from that. My shoulders, too. Absolutely. You get dragged around as dead weight with handcuffs — that really hurts."

Fans went bananas after the episode. Ruivivar and Cudlitz were unprepared for the response. TNT’s "Southland" website, which normally receives 200 to 500 posts after an episode, was inundated with nearly 8,000 posts, Ruivivar said. People heaped on the praise, and it got to the point where the actors had to turn off their phones.

Ruivivar is beyond grateful. Even if people had not responded, he would feel the same way.

"In an actor’s career you have a handful of moments you will never forget," he said. "I will always remember this piece of work and thank God the cameras were rolling because we captured it."

And that’s a wrap …

Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.