Though Esai Morales has been one of the best actors in Hollywood for thirty years, he still remains something of an enigma.  Morales is undoubtedly a top character performer who gets regular choice parts in a variety of prestige projects.  However, why he isn’t a major star in leading mainstream roles remains a mystery.  Perhaps due to his ethnicity or overt intensity, Morales is cast in major parts less frequently than his equally talented counterparts in the industry.  Regardless, the man’s skill and passion are visibly unavoidable in every screen role he undertakes.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1962, Morales memorably broke through starring opposite Sean Penn in 1983’s Bad Boys before gaining widespread acclaim as Ritchie Valens’ troubled older brother Bob in La Bamba four years later.  In his 30s, Morales starred in Rapa Nui and Mi Familia, and won the role of the controversial father in the Elian Gonzalez story, made for television.  But Morales, now in his late 40s, is always busy – he works year-round in a variety of film and television projects.

His newest venture is starring as Enrique, a recently parolee who returns to his Bronx, New York family to find his oldest son undergoing a manner of gender identity crisis in the independent film Gun Hill Road.  “It was a homecoming for me – I am Brooklyn-born and Bronx-bred,” he said.  “It was my roots.”

He noted that the role was natural to him and fit well with his personal instincts.  “At the end of the day, it’s about acceptance and love and trying to fit in.,” he described by phone from Los Angeles, his adopted home.  “My character’s manhood comes under attack in every scene.  That’s how I saw my character.”

Gun Hill Road’s writer and director, Rashaad Ernesto Green, had been awarded three times for creating short films via an organization that Morales started with his Mi Familia co-star Jimmy Smits.  He later came to Morales with the offer of the role of Enrique. “I thought I would have to politely decline, but when I finally got around to reading it, I thought it was real and powerful,” Morales said.  “I had never seen anything quite like it.  It blows your mind and opens your heart at the same time.”

To prepare for the part, Morales rented a place in the South Bronx and tried to regress into his childhood of the 1960s and 1970s.  “I went back to the hood, hung out,” he said.  “There is always a piece of that in me.  This character wasn’t a stretch.  The Bronx has a certain sub-accent of a New York accent.  Rashaad was really good at getting me to be as authentic sounding as possible.  I wanted to live inside this person and give me enough room as possible.  He is not a caricature.  He is trying to save his son from a life of ridicule.”

In fact, the Bronx in Morales came back so steadfastly, he needed to hold back when filming began.  “What was a challenge for me was to keep a restrained tone, knowing that at any moment, there is a bomb that could go off,” he explained.  “My character can’t go back to jail, but if you don’t have your manhood, what do you have?”

Working with a new director was a refreshing but sometimes challenging situation for the veteran actor.  “It was tough as first because I wasn’t sure that he knew what to convey to the actors,” Morales described.  “Some directors still have a hard time communicating an organic process and what they need in the context of the actor’s process.  At first, I was worried – does he have he experience to tell this whole story?  But he stuck to his guns.  For Rashaad, you know when he’s happy and engaged, when he’s not trying to figure out how to say things.”

Morales revealed aspects of his process which create the realism that audiences have come to expect in all of his screen characters  “My performance is just about blending into the story, so much so that things wow me from the inside,” he noted.  “How well is that character designed?  That will tell you how much inhabiting you can do.  If it’s like a body glove, there’s nothing you can’t do that will be wrong; what you will and will not feel, and how you will react.”

As much of Gun Hill Road is based on real people and situations, Morales was able to meet the person on whom his character was based.  “He was much more urban than I was,” Morales remarked.  “I was imitating his relative.  From the imitation, you get lost in the circumstances and parameters of the character. There weren’t long speeches to memorize.  What is better left unsaid, that can be said better with a look?”

Clearly, with a history of criminal behavior, Morales’ character is of questionable moral constitution, but the actor needed to shade his performance.  “My character is hood like, but he didn’t rip off innocent people,” he said.  “There is honor amongst thieves, and it’s a hustle out there.  My character was a hustler.”

As Gun Hill Road’s audiences will discover, the film ultimately poses a question of how a hardened person such as Enrique deals with the issue of personal acceptance.  “The reality is that this movie uses the issue to humanize what is acceptance,” Morales stated.  “How do you think someone chooses to live [his character’s son’s] lifestyle?  I don’t think it’s a choice.  You can’t help yourself.  The mother in our movie played by Judy Reyes has come to terms with it.  My character looks at that as abdication of her parental duties.  She has accepted it, but I come from a frozen time when I had a cute little thirteen-year-old, and I come back to this.“

Regarding his own performance, Morales points to the overall portrayal as what audiences tend to remember in favor of individual moments.  “It’s not one specific thing as much as each layer contributing to this feel,” he said.  “It gets you on a subconscious level.  You can’t help but get swept up in it. “

As for whether the audiences themselves will be accepting, Morales advocates an open mind.  “This movie is the ultimate underdog,” he said.  “You don’t have to be gay or transgender or have anything but a human heart to love this movie.  It gives you the room to love it.  By the end of the story, you are going to root for the character and want what’s best for her.  With word of mouth, this movie can spread like wildfire.”