ANTHONY RAMOS MAKES HIS LIVING PRETENDING. HE PUTS ON VOICES, BODIES, AND INTENTIONS THAT AREN’T HIS, ALL IN THE NAME OF INHABITING PEOPLE MOST OF US WOULD AVOID IN REAL LIFE. THAT’S ESPECIALLY TRUE OF HIS PERFORMANCE IN RYAN MURPHY’S NEWEST SHOW, THE BEAUTY. APPROPRIATELY NAMED THE ASSASSIN, RAMOS BUILDS A CHARACTER AS CHARISMATIC AS HE IS UNNERVING – SOMEONE WHO JOKES, SEDUCES, AND KILLS WITH THE SAME EASE. FOR THE ACTOR, IT WAS A DREAM SCENARIO. EPISODE BY EPISODE, EYEPATCH BY EYEPATCH, HE LEANED INTO CONTRADICTION, SHAPING A FIGURE THAT FEELS CAMPY YET DISTURBINGLY FAMILIAR. MUSIC IS PART OF THAT PROCESS — ONE OF RAMOS’S MANY LANGUAGES, HE UTILISES IT TO GET AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO HIS CHARACTERS. HE WRITES LYRICS AND COMPOSES, ALL TO DISTIL THEIR ESSENCE – APPROACHING PERFORMANCES AS IF THEY’RE A SONG, WITH SOME SENSE OF STRUCTURE AND A WHOLE LOT OF ROOM TO IMPROVISE. FOR BTB DIGITAL, WE CATCH UP WITH THE ACTOR ON A SUNNY LA MORNING TO DISCUSS DISCIPLINE, FUTURE MUSIC PLANS, AND HOW HIS FATHER HELPED INSPIRE THE ASSASSIN.
Left Top and pants Courrèges, shoes Lanvin
Right Full look Dior Men
Hi Anthony, how are you?
I'm good, bro. How's everything? What's going on?
I'm all good, but I’ll be better once I get to talk to you about The Beauty. I’m on the edge of my seat with each episode. What initially drew you to the project?
He’s such an interesting character to play. There are so many pieces of him that I had to play with. He’s not just another killer; he’s charismatic and doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s a wild character.
Full look Casablanca, shoes Nike
Was he different on paper versus what we saw on the screen? Did you have a chance to make him your own?
For sure. The dialogue was there, and there was a lot to work with; they wrote a really dope part. But what was really cool was that the episodes were being written as we were filming, so my performance informed what they were writing. They started to write the role with my voice in mind. Even his sarcasm and the way he jokes… it started being informed by what I was doing. It was cool to see them develop the story as we were developing the characters. It felt collaborative. The eye patch, for example, in the comics, my character wears a mask, but the choice to change it was one of the things we were figuring out together. I got to build a character from the ground up. They wrote the role for me, with my voice in mind, so we were figuring it out together.
Left Shirt and pants Jarel Zhang, shoes Lanvin, sunglasses Lespec
Right Full look Dior Men
For how fun you’re making it sound, The Assassin is still quite a dark character. How did you mentally and emotionally prepare for stepping into his shoes?
I’m not the type of actor who turns into the character or anything. I think for me, there’s a level of turning it off after I’m done. When you're playing a person for hours, you can take on the feelings of the character. You have to remind yourself that you're fucking playing a role. Because you’re locked in and want to be as realistic as possible, you have to give yourself space. You want it to feel as authentic as possible; you have to get in the mind of this person, but you do have to remind yourself that this shit isn’t real. When I’m done for the day, I don’t bring the shit home. Even when I’m on set, if I’m having lunch or waiting for the next set-up, I try to keep it light. We’re playing make-believe for a living, but it just so happens to have millions of dollars on the line, no pressure. The only thing I have control over is my performance.
You said your portrayal was inspired partially by your dad. Did you have any other guiding lights?
Denzel [Washington] in American Gangster, Al Pacino… all these guys who are so scary but have moments where they show their sense of humour. Characters that aren’t afraid to take it too far. My dad was charismatic but also kind of scary, actually. He would shoot somebody if he had to. It was kind of crazy. There were a lot of parallels between him and my character. One minute, he was super fun and hilarious, and then the next minute, he was super scary. That switch happened fast. I felt that’s what the character needed.
Left Full look Dior Men
Right Top and pants Courrèges, shoes Lanvin
Do you find yourself attracted to darker roles like this?
I've definitely been more attracted to more problematic [ones], more complex, wild. I just think that there’s something so interesting to get into these guys' minds. Every villain has an excuse. Also, it’s just fun. People think wild shit all the time but they just don't do it. When you play these roles, you get to do the things that most people are thinking. You get to say the things that most people wish they could say. I just love getting into the minds of these characters, but then also finding that humanity in them. Finding that little boy in all of these guys. I enjoy digging into the backstory of these people. It just helps me build the character. And it makes going to work fun.
Have you ever felt any kind of pressure to stay in a lane professionally, especially since your early success came from such different narratives, like Hamilton, for example?
No, I never felt pressure to stay in that lane. You know, I could barely get into any lane when I started. [Laughs] I wanted people to look at my career and say, “Damn, he was in that.” It's no fun to be one-dimensional. I'm not a one-dimensional person. I’ve had to be patient over the years. Sometimes you just want to work, you need to make money, or you want to keep doing what you do, but you have to wait. You have to wait for the right part, or you have to create it for yourself, or create the right opportunities.
I love playing the hero, but I wanted to sit on the other side of the fence. We don't want people to see the bad guy and the good guy. Because we all have a bad guy and a good guy in us. I want to play the guy that's messy and a little fucked up, but I also want to play the guy that's put together and wears a suit and tie every day. I think there's something so interesting about exploring what makes you human because of that duality; we’re all good and bad [simultaneously].
Left Left Shirt Jarel Zhang, sunglasses Lespec
Right Full look Louis Vuitton
Do you think being a musician changes the way you approach acting?
I think so, because when I’m a musician, I'm just me or whatever version of me I want to be. With acting, I’m somebody else. Some artists make music with different personas, but that’s not what I do. I'm writing a musical now, and I love writing songs. I get to express myself in that way, where I get to go into the mind of these characters. And I write songs for them. I write based on what they're thinking. It's just another avenue to express yourself. When I'm acting, I get to be somewhere else. When I'm doing music, I just get to be whatever version of myself.
Writing songs helps with my script work, and the script work helps with writing songs, because there's a beginning, middle, and end in a story. I think songwriting helps with script analysis and vice versa. Working on scripts and reading them all the time really helps with telling stories in music.
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Right Full look Tom Ford
Are there any stories you're looking forward to telling in the future?
There are characters out there, but I think I also have so much that's happened to me in my life that I'm starting to work on something based on it, because there's so much crazy shit that has happened to my friends and me. We've seen so much, and we got so many wow stories and funny shit that's happened. So I think that there's a lot there.
Interview by Pedro Vasconcelos
Photography by Sam Ramirez
Fashion by Avo Yermagyan
EIC Michael Marson
Casting by Imagemachine cs
Grooming by Galaxy San Juan
Photographer’s assistant Nolan Kight
